My take on Cheng Ji Chan (1200 steps)

Unlike most of my weekends, just like any men spoiled by the urban city life where I would seat at Starbucks and waste my time away by waiting for beautiful girls to pass by,

this weekend however was very different. DIFFERENT!!

I attempted to visit a temple which is called Cheng Kon Sze which requires

A Thousand and Two Hundred Steps to get there!!

As crazy as it sounds, as insane as I was, I decided to follow my brother who has a passion for all this outdoor activities such as hiking. Don't get me wrong, I do love hiking. Just don't do it very often as much as he does. Since I wans't doing anything anyway, I might as well attempt it.


It was a quick decision to go there after cheng beng, thus I wasn't armed with anything but just a bag which only had a bottle of water in it. I did not even bring a camera to show you nice looking pictures. So I could only take pictures from my phone.

But if you're wanting to know how the place looks like in really good quality pictures, Click Here and Here.

Now, I did not know what the place looked like until I saw the website just now.

Had I seen the website earlier, I'd prolly change my mind to climbing all that 1200 steps since, I mean, relatively, what you see in those pictures is what you get. (Looks like any temple to me come to think of it, guess i require much more appreciation for art)

Anyway, so as you can see on the map,

I took the dumbest route where you have to climb the 1200 steps from which starts at the United Hokkien Cemetery. You can take a car over there from Kek Lok Si, but where is the fun in there isn't it.

Now I don't know about you, but if you've seen how physically built I am, I conquered the whole of 1200 steps within an hour and a half.

So, if you're healthier, eat better, sleep better, girlfriend or boyfriend gives you morale boost, or at least goes to the gym for regular workouts, i'm sure you can do a better job than I did.

Upon arriving (unknowing to me whether I actually went through a thousand two hundred steps which did not felt like it at all), this is what I saw just like the pictures in the website.

Whipped out my phone and started clicking away.

Just like any temple, there is nothing really to do but pray, purchase some joss-sticks over there(money that they will use to maintain the place, pretty much a form of donation), you start praying to all the deities over there which apparently can bring lots of good luck and of course prosperity, happiness, etc.

After you're done praying, the next thing to do is ask the deities about your future.

 Examples of questions most people would ask the deities would be 'would you be rich one day?'

'Is your life good in general?'

'Is your health good in the long run?'

Something like that, or you could be a bit cocky and daring by asking whether you could own a Mercedes SLS in 5 years time

Don't get me wrong, its not like the deities would suddenly wake up and answer those questions by telling you in person or give you a phone call, email you or sms. The message would come in a form of sticks and paper reading.

It was my first time. FIRST TIME I TELL YOU!!!If there was anything that I should have done, I should have been better dressed before the deities cause the answer to my questions was rather HEAVY!

Anyway, after asking (in your head of course) the one particular question from the deities, what happens is that you just keep shaking the sticks out from a can until one of the sticks drops onto the floor. After that you'd have to determine whether the stick that fell out is the message from the deities by throwing two crescent shape wood onto the floor.

Then you end up with a piece of paper that explains to you whether the questions you are seeking is good, medium or simply bad. It's a bit JUMPY mind you, but it was really fun.

Anyway, this was definitely the coolest thing I have ever done in a temple ever!! I mean, this is the kind of things I only happen to see in Cantonese Movies before!!!

anyhow, I had no idea what the paper says but all I was told is that its good. (Well if you read otherwise, please do let me know!)

So guys, i'm going to end here about my trip to this temple. The air up there was simply fresh and the view was simply wonderful.

If there was anything I did achieve instead of waiting for the deities to make my dreams come true, with hard work and persistence to make it through to the end,

I MADE IT THROUGH ONE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED STEPS!!!