Hong Kong Ends

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Wednesday at the Races

During the cooler months in Hong Kong, the ones that dip below thirty degrees Celsius, horse racing is held. Because much of the local population are most certainly not wager-averse, as soon as the mercury drops below a level where horses are able to run, every Wednesday evening sees Happy Valley race course packed. For shear architectural volume, Happy Valley puts any racecourse I’ve been to before to absolute shame. I don’t claim to be a race-goer, but Happy Valley’s terraced stands, the kind I’ve seen only along the finishing straights of the pony pitting I’ve attended previously, wrap around half the course! The published capacity is thirty five thousand. If you can imagine Ellis Park, the venue where South Africa won the World Cup for the first time - cut it in half, swap the players for horses and jockeys and the fans for punters jostling to make a bet, you’re not far off Happy Valley. I’m pleased to say that the only money that left my wallet found its way back into it, or was replaced by mugs of cold lager.

The View

For my last night in Hong Kong I heeded a morsel of local advice that Rich had dropped my way, broke away from my train obsession, and headed across the channel to Kowloon on the Star Ferry. The crossing is a very short one, no longer than ten minutes, but by the end of it I felt like I had watched a five set tennis match from the umpire’s chair. The trouble was deciding which side of the channel to look at. Both being equally impressive with unique skylines defining their individuality, watching one, I could not shake the urge to look the opposite way across the black water to make a new comparison. Fortunately we arrived in Kowloon before I could damage the connection between my brain and everything else that rely on it to function and my attention could be on Hong Kong Island only. The advice from Rich was not only to cross the water and look at Hong Kong Island from the Kowloon side, but to look back specifically from “Felix,” a bar on the twenty eighth floor of the Peninsular Hotel. The advice was good, my following the advice was better, but the view that resulted from my following the advice was incredible. The windows of the bar had open louver blinds down the two story face of glass forcing anyone looking out to only look out and not down. Doing so from my perch twenty eight floors and a bar stool high, I saw Hong Kong island at its flashiest best. The white dots engulfing each high-rise and the multitude of colours from electronic advertising banners reflected in wavy pools on the water below like a giant watercolour painting left out in the rain.

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