Source:
https://scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/1925189/hong-kongs-best-kept-secrets-tin-hau-temple-yau-ma-tei
Lifestyle/ Travel & Leisure

Hong Kong’s best-kept secrets: the Tin Hau Temple in Yau Ma Tei

Once a spot for sailors to pray for safe sea voyages, this temple, now hundreds of metres inland, has stood its ground for over a century and a half

Sunlight shines through hanging incense coils at the Tin Hau Temple in Yau Ma Tei. Photo: AFP

What is a sea god without a sea to rule over? Stranded hundreds of metres from the ocean by successive land reclamations in Kowloon, and sandwiched between the dried seafood stores and butchers of Yau Ma Tei, the area’s Tin Hau Temple stands today where it has for more than 150 years.

Built in about 1864 to honour the Chinese goddess of the sea, Tin Hau, the temple originally almost faced onto the waterfront. Nowadays it is visited for its large square, cool under the shade of enormous, overgrown banyan trees.