Stepping into a new continent – a week in Hong Kong COMPLETED - Page 22 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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There are other changes as well.
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It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
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That museum looks AMAZING - if I ever get to Hong Kong it will be my first stop! And fancy it being free on a Wednesday? I wonder why? The suit looks as if it is coming on - looking forward to hearing about your night at the races
Wow. I love it. You've been having a terrific adventure in the East!
Is it just me or is that Sao Paulo kind of disturbing? It's so big and then you see it's just the facade. Very unsettling to me.
The History Museum looks amazing. Thanks for sharing!
I found it a bit disturbing as well - I found the skeletons on the facade a bit weird for my liking. It's such a shame the rest of it didn't survive, as what remains is beautiful, if a little odd.
I'm home sick from work today and I just read your entire TR! WOW is all I can say...your photos, the Buddha, HKDL - all of it is incredible. Can't wait to read about the Junk.
Wednesday 20 February – part four: horseracing from the eighth floor and the racetrack!
The first thing we did when we sat down was to head up to sample the buffet. Free food and free beer and wine were included with the package and we were determined to make the best of it. There was a pretty good selection and again, it was a mixture of international and Chinese cuisines. Amongst my favourites were the sea bass and they had another nice New England clam chowder. The desserts were pretty good as well, with lots of nice chocolate offerings and some fruit, so I was in heaven.
Anyway, the food in theory wasn’t the reason we were here. We were here to experience the thrill of horse racing and the first race was at 7.15. They were then scheduled for every half hour after that, but we would be missing the final race of the night, because our tour would be leaving before that took place.
As the guy sitting next to me seemed to be something of an expert (well, he was studying the Hong Kong Racing Times), so I asked for his advice on what to back, as we had all been given a HK$30 free bet (about £2!) each, but he told me that he didn’t have a clue and didn’t really know what he was doing. That was certainly proved to be the case, as the night wore on. It became apparent that he betted a lot more than the $30 free bet and I dread to think how much he had lost by the end of the night. It wasn’t pleasant.
As for us, we had no luck at all until the final race, when we used Mark’s last two bets and both horses came in the top three, so we ended up with winnings of HK$35. Of course, had we paid for these bets, ultimately we would’ve lost, but at least we came out ahead this way.
However, the horses up until then showed just how frustrating better can be. My goodness, I had two horses that were both doing really well and were in the top three (in fact, one was winning with 200 metres to go!) and yet neither finished in the top three. Unbelievable that my horse was winning race five, yet dramatically fell backwards through the field just it neared the finishing line to end up in about sixth place.
For race five, we were taken down to the track area t see the race trackside and the horses parading beforehand, which was an existing experience and one of my favourite parts of the night. It was so nice to be enjoying the buzz of the crowd. Yes, our room was very nice, but it was a bit far from the action (like eight floors up!) and you just didn’t get the atmosphere up there.
The horses parade before the race The finishing post The winners (not my horse) parade
We headed off about 10.30, back to the bus and, all in all, we both felt this had been a good night out. It was certainly an interesting introduction into one of the huge past-times in Hong Kong and I can see how people easily get hooked on betting, although there was no chance of that with the performance of the horses we picked! Some final photos on the way back to the bus
We were dropped back at the Exchange Hotel and decided to catch the subway back to our hotel. By the time we walked back from the station, it was probably nearly 11.00 and to be honest, it was only then that life was starting to slow down on the street. It’s amazing how busy the place is this late.
Today we walked 10.61 miles. The weather today was hot and sunny with temperatures in the high 60’s. The best thing today was Museum of History. The worst thing today was losing money on those horses at the races. Today we tried going horseracing And the result was it was a fun and interesting experience. The most magical moment today was seeing the flower market.
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Thursday 21 February – part one: want a sampon ride?
It was another late start (methinks we need our sleep right now!) and when we did emerge, we decided to be brave and head over to Aberdeen on the south side of Hong Kong Island. To do this, we had to first find the bus station at Exchange Square, which was quite a challenge, but we made it and we then found the bus, the number 70. Now usually I shy away from taking buses in foreign cities. I don’t believe in taking them, unless you really know where you’re going and know which stop to get off at, but this was simple, as we were just heading for the bus terminal at the end of the route.
The journey there was quite short, only about 30 minutes and when we got there, although it was still built up, at least you could see a lot more green everywhere you looked. It was much more pleasant and you could imagine living here, whereas there is no way I could live in Hong Kong itself.
I just had to get a photo of the name of this shopping mall!
We got off at the bus terminal and must’ve looked lost, because an old woman told us that the subway to the harbour was the other way. How kind! But soon we found an ulterior motive as she followed us and tried to get us to take a sampon ride around the harbour. That’s how a lot of families make their living here and she even had photos of her family’s boat. I’m sure it’s fine, but I just didn’t like the idea (I mean what safety measure do they take for starters?), although we did see plenty of other tourists on them.
Instead, we kept walking, politely telling her and a few others “no” to the various sampon rides we were offered and instead took the free ferry boat ride over to the Jumbo restaurant. That’s what I’d come here to see. It’s moored in the centre of the harbour and was created in the 1970’s by a famous hotelier. It really is opulent and we’re talking on the class of Las Vegas here. As we drew closer, we were able to take in all the detail. It was breathtaking.
I was expecting to immediately be asked if we wanted to eat, but not a bit of it. I guess they accept that a lot of people come here just to sightsee and are fine with them, so that’s exactly what we did for a while, looking around at the theming and the seafood preparation area, which was interesting.
I was just reading in my parents' Eyes & Ears newsletter for CMs that they gave the first boy and girl babies born in Hong Kong on Feb 7 free lifetime passes to all Disney Theme Parks around the World. How cool is that!
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Donning my Wellies to cut Peat in Scotland
Melissa
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Unbelievable that my horse was winning race five, yet dramatically fell backwards through the field just it neared the finishing line to end up in about sixth place. 
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