Off to the Races and other pursuits

The beautiful souvenir race night ticket and my badge for the Members Enclosure for our Race Night.

And what a night it was! When I said in the last post I thought we would get something to eat and a wee drink, how wrong I was! We had a full on buffet dinner and free flowing wine. It was amazing. Our table was right by the window, we could see the finishing line below us. The track was floodlit and the horses gleamed. I loved the spectacle of it all. However, the betting was a different story. Mine were all donkeys and the ones that didn't fall, throw off their rider or actually collapse on the track are probably still running....
We had a great night even though I won nothing and Les won only a few dollars.
On Thursday morning I had signed up for a 3 hour walk and after the late night and free flowing wine, I felt like staying in bed. I'm glad I went, it was a flat walk so easy on my old knees and for most of it we were on a new promenade right by the waters edge.The weather was dry and not hot, so perfect for walking. At the end of the walk, we went through the Science Park and saw this amazing giant egg shaped structure which on closer inspection turns out be an auditorium. Cool!



At the weekend, we went to a Damien Hirst exhibition. The "Spot" exhibition was being shown simultaneously in eleven galleries worldwide: 4 in USA, 2 in London, then Paris, Rome, Geneva, Athens and here in Hong Kong. Altogether Hirst painted over 300 spot paintings in 25 years. All different. All spotty. Les was completely underwhelmed, even when I tried to point out how no two spots were the same colour and in every painting every spot was precisely the same size, even though from painting to painting the spot sizes varied from one millimetre to about half a metre across. I can tell, I'm boring you now, too, aren't I!
After that,we went away to the huge furniture warehouse at Ap Lei Chau because as a loyal customer, I had a dividend of $1,200 to spend. However there was just one snag..to get it, I had to spend ANOTHER £1,200. We looked and looked and finally came to the conclusion that we simply didn't need anything! So instead we went to a different store where we knew they had free biscuits and had a wee snack before coming back again. It sounds daft to go all that way for nothing ( it takes about an hour) but we didn't have pressing plans and the bus journey away over the island and back is always interesting.
On Sunday, I took Les to the Chi Lin Nunnery as he hadn't been before. I like that place more every time I go there. I've been in May, July, November and now March and the colours in the gardens are different every time. Also, because they change the route you must follow every time, I come across things from a different angle so they always look different.We met some people we knew as we were making our way back to the station, it's always amazing when that happens as it is such a big, busy city.We had a cheap Chinese lunch of noodles in hot and spicy soup with some dim sum as well and it cost about £5 for the two of us. For a change, we took the bus all the way back instead of the underground train. It took a long time, over an hour, but sitting upstairs in the front seat gives great views of all the local areas we pass through. As a bonus, Les gets a nap.The last part of the journey was on another bus, this time the wee 16 seater green and yellow minibus which is like a toy in comparison, but great fun!
I looked on the Hong Kong Observatory site earlier and the Spring forecast, March to May,is for normal to above normal temperatures and normal to below normal rainfall, so that is good news for our first visitors. 18 days and counting! I've bought the coolest cutlery set for Callum, it is in a box and has tiny chopsticks as well as a fork and spoon!