Day 21 – Hong Kong

January 14th 2009

Late start again reading the papers and generally easing into the day and we head into the Langham Place Mall attached to our hotel for some brunch.

Yesterday we picked up an excellent little booklet from the Hong Kong tourist information centre describing a number of walks around certain areas. Today we're going to do the Yau Ma Tei and Mong Kok walk which takes in 8 markets in Kowloon.

Firstly it's one stop along the MTR to Prince Edward station and we're walking to the Yuen Po Street Bird Garden which is half market half park where owners take their birds “for a walk”. Not my cup of tea I'm afraid, the cages are often far too small and we move on swiftly.

Next the flower market which is, and the clue's in the title here, on Flower Market Road. The road isn't closed off for this market so it is a little like walking past shop after shop selling flowers as opposed to strolling through a market but the colours are beautiful.

After a further short walk we get to the goldfish market which, like the flower market, is shop after shop selling all manner of fish, tanks, and accessories. It's all very colourful but we don't hang around long here, plenty more to see later.

Onto the Fa Yuen Street market, and this is serious stuff now. The road is closed to traffic and there's stall after stall in the road with shop after shop behind the crowded pavement all jostling for business. While there's a bit of everything on display most prominent is ladies' fashions and footwear, Sarah has a good look through a string of shops that only sell ladies' boots – this is a trend here, pockets of shops all selling exactly the same thing – as she “needs” a pair of brown boots.

Not too far away from the Fa Yuen Street market is the Ladies market which isn't full of items for ladies, there's a bit of everything. I stop at a football kit stall, being after a cheap 97/98 season Inter Milan away kit (if you saw it you'd see why) – the woman on the stall sees my interest and is immediately on my case as to what I want... “Inter Milan away? Yes, here it is” (which itself is pretty incredible) except she only has the 98/99 season. “Why would you want the old one, I only have the new one” - is a fairly obvious question I know but she's genuinely puzzled and, in a playful way, actually starts hitting me for my own stupidity, we're all laughing by the end – which is unusual as the traders hate to see a sale walk away.

Halfway down this market we come across an English bloke who was either plain stupid or thought we'd come down in the last shower. He was basically a tout for a holiday complex elsewhere on the island. We've all seen this before, the patter was that they were conducting a tourist survey blah blah, no personal information collected other than to ascertain that we fitted the bill as a potential owner of a timeshare or whatever. At the end, as a thank you we are both given a scratch card. At this point I'm really hamming it up - “I'm feeling really lucky today, I think we're going to win big” - of course I scratch my card and I've got a t-shirt, cue tout letting me know I can pick that up at one of their booths around town but then **shock** Sarah scratches her card and she's won the star prize! The look of amazement on all our faces is suitably perfect and the tout expresses his delight that we've somehow managed to pick out only 1 of 6 star prize winning scratch cards. All we have to do is take a 20 minute taxi ride to collect our prize and we'll be happy and he'll get £100 – it's a win win. Eventually we do start laughing and hand him back the card, which he doesn't understand – of course – and I try and find out where I can get my t-shirt, which he doesn't seem to be able to tell me any more because we have to go get our star prize. We walk away laughing but I've retained my card and read as we walk away the t's and c's which would have seen us sit through a 90 minute holiday promotion video – oooh, that'll have been fun. We've now had the same scam in Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, and now Hong Kong. At least the Fuerteventura guy had the decency to know the game was up when I bet him we were going to win the star prize.

Sarah does a bit of haggling on some boots but the price quoted is much dearer than the shops we've already been to so we move on and the essential purchase is made around the corner at a bricks and mortar shop instead.

Shanghai Street is next on the way to the Jade market. The stuff in the Jade market does look nice but the guidebook warns of being sure about what you're buying. There's nothing here that seriously appeals so it's a simple browse and we're on our way to the Tin Hau Temple which is dedicated to the Goddess of Seafarers. The temple's in the middle of a suburb but apparently it used to be on the coast and all the land between it and the Victoria bay has been reclaimed. Put it this way, you wouldn't want to walk it in a hurry, it's 2 stops on the underground and then a bit more walking before you reach water.

We see the famous Temple Street Night Market being setup, but as it's just before 4pm the action hasn't started so we head straight back to the hotel for a rest before our night at the races.

The journey to Happy Valley is much smoother than the Concierge suggested, although it is rush hour so we have to queue a bit for the MTR. The suggestion of a taxi for part of the journey though turns out to be nothing more than a 10 minute walk so even with Sarah's new boots that's fine. The race course is amazing (of course) although apparently Sha Tin in Kowloon has twice the spectator capacity. It's a double first for us, horse racing under floodlights and a contained racetrack that has the appearance of a football stadium from the outside. Inside there are 15,000 spectators (according to next day's paper) and with 8 races on the card from 7:15pm to 10:45pm there's plenty of action from the word go. Of the 8 races a jockey with the nickname the Durban Demon wins 3. I bet on him twice of the 5 races I have a dabble on. He comes last in both races – cheers. One of the advantages of our tourist badge is that we get right down to the winning post which is brilliant being so close and when we do get a win its a great one as we watch our jockey bring the horse through perfectly from the back down the straight to win by a short head right in front of us. While we only get the one win, as there are no red hot favourites in these races it's enough to win most of our outlay back. The other interesting side of Happy Valley is the price of everything. Normally at racetracks you're paying a premium but here everything is cheaper than outside the stadium. Beer – from all over the world too, choice has been very limited in the bars – is about £2.80 a pint as opposed to more like £4.50 in the bars and the fast food is actually delicious and about the same price, I have a more than substantial Thai Red Chicken Curry with rice for about £3.50, compare that to the £5 spent on a cheese and ham panini at Chester races this summer...

We leave after the 7th race wondering if we'll have a winner on the 8th (the newspaper the next day reports our horse was 12th from 12 runners thanks to the Durban Disaster - thank you Sarah for the clean version of that) and head back to the hotel, first time before midnight but again absolutely shattered and ready for a good sleep.