A day at the beach and a night at the races

Since it was Chung Yeung festival on Tuesday and the Hong Kong Government decided we should have the day off, we thought we'd hit the beach! (Traditionally the idea is to go sweep your ancestor's graves and then have a picnic high up on a hill with family).

We'd heard good things about Stanley being one of the nicest beaches on Hong Kong Island (there's plenty more beaches for us to explore on all the other islands too!) so thought we'd go check it out. The bus there comes quite near where we're staying but we got the tram into 'Central' to guarantee ourselves a seat. After some initial confusion about where the bus stop was (not part of the main bus station it seems!) we got straight on. The fare was a whole $7.90 (64p) each way and the buses left approximately every 3 mins, still loving the public transport!

Beach!

Promenade 

We had a bit of a wander round - so strange the contrast to the big city, only half an hour or so on the bus and you could almost be in France / Portugal! We also had a quick snoop at Stanley market - a good selection of tat and fake stuff so I'm sure I'll be back!

I've actually managed to get a bit of a cold so was feeling a bit sorry for myself so we sat and had a picnic of tasty food under a nice glass canopy and just sat people watching enjoying free wifi. Was strange to be sat there in the boiling hot sunshine reading tweets about people going to work in the cold and wet!

The cold nearly stopped us going in the first place but I decided to be a rebel - to sneeze / cough / sniffle on public transport is a major faux-pas over here! People walk round wearing a face mask at the first hint of a sniffle. This doesn't wash in the office mind (perhaps where I caught the thing from!) everyone is sat at their desks coughing and spluttering!!

Chilling in the sunshine 

This explains the Waitrose stuff in all the shops! 

Only £4.50 for some British raspberries...

We then headed home (got straight on a bus, naturally) and I had a small snooze in an attempt to feel better (any excuse).

Repulse Bay from the bus, will be heading back here another day! 

Bus is pretty scary on mountain roads! 

Repulse Bay again

I was feeling much better after my nap but had a horrible sore throat - what better to soothe it than a frozen margarita!

I'd also lost my tastebuds temporarily so didn't want anything fancy for tea so we thought we'd try the Chinese version of McDonalds - Fairwood. It was really quite pleasant (what I could taste anyway) and for £7 for two meals (cooked fresh!) and two drinks you can't really complain.

Back to work on Wednesday, payday for me! I swear banking over here is 20 years behind the UK, odd considering HSBC is based here - you get paid on different days depending on who you bank with too?! Anyway, despite opening an account over a week ago I'd still had no correspondence from them so had to be old school and go into the branch, present ID and sign to be told my balance!

Agh spend too much time here, least they have free wifi!

Was worth queueing though since I'd been paid (turns out your salary looks pretty good in thousands of HK $$$$!) so means we can get hold of local money without worrying about bank fees / exchanges rates, even if it does mean I have to queue to get hold of it for the foreseeable future...

In the evening we went to Happy Valley Races, now I'm not sure either of us have ever been to the races in the UK but over here it's a very popular thing to do on a Wednesday night! There was also the added incentive that it's Oktoberfest there at the minute. I was slightly disappointed by the lack of Bratwurst (you could have had one as part of a 3 sausage platter but one of them had cheese in and it came with sauerkraut, enough said) but I had some deep fried beer battered prawns, pretzels and beer instead, so was fairly content.

100% genuine.... 

Only £10 for  2litres....

Pleased with this pic :)

We put a couple of small bets on (think $20, £1.60 small) but failed to win. Was just a good night though and good to catch up and get to know people :) think we'll go back but perhaps not every week!

Almost weekend, just Friday to go.... just a lazy one here I think, kick this stupid cold!!