Weather was cool at around 20C the night I landed. However, my luck did not persist as there was a cold monsoon wind sweeping through Hong Kong from Siberia. Temperatures plunged over the days and got to 10C by New Year's Eve. Chris and I had wanted to head out around 11 p.m. to Central (or somewhere) for the fireworks. In the end, I was quite happy staying home (we had gone home to rest before thinking of heading out at 11 p.m.) watching Season 2 of Heroes and we gave up the idea of braving the cold and the crowds for the fireworks. We had a very expensive KFC delivery meal (HKD 100 = SGD 20), watched Heroes as we had dinner and was generally riveted by the episodes. Midnight crept upon us and we watched the live countdown telecast. The fireworks at IFC was not as fantastic as expected; so we were both quite glad we stayed home instead.
Most of my days in Hong Kong was a blur of shopping. We went to Festival Walk and I contributed to the Swedish economy through H&M. They had a pretty good sales going with 50% on selected items. I was lucky that they still had the small sizes so there was a good sales selection. A grey checked trousers I bought cost only HKD 150 (SGD30)! Very good value-for-money indeed. Chris got me a pretty pair of white Puma trainers for gym and I took a snap of us in our shoes. He bought his pair of white Reeboks a couple of weeks before and I must say he does look quite cool wearing them with jeans.
The blurry picture with me wearing Chris's shades was self-taken on the bus-ride from Stanley Market. The bus was really in a rush making its way down the winding roads. Stanley Market was very nice and we had a good time shopping and looking at the quirky stuff for sale. The most memorable was our big breakfast of ham, bacon, sausages, eggs, and toast at a cafe. I was very happy after the meal because it was all the breakfasty foods that you could think of eating. It was really yummy because I was almost half-way through it before realising that I have not taken a picture!
When the odds for the last race was shown, I was shocked. Singing Diners was the hot favourite and Congratulation was a moderate odds horse. I decided to bet a win on Congratulation (rationale: higher earnings if it won) and a place on Singing Diners (a place would mean I get a portion of the pay-out if the horse came in 1st, 2nd or 3rd). The race started and Singing Diners led the pack. Mid-way, Congratulation accelerated and it was in top place! I was yelling my lungs out when I saw this; finally my horse was going to win! It was a neck-to-neck finish as another horse which I did not bet on closed the gap with Congratulation. When the results was finally published on the LED board, I was estatic. My horse won! Even happier, Singing Diners came in 3rd! This meant that both of tickets had winnings to collect! Although the win was insufficient to cover my loss from earlier races, I had alot of fun and the loss was only $20. So that explains my very wide smile in the picture. Chris had good fun too; he picked a winning horse from an earlier race and placed another 2 in separate races. We decided that we will do horse racing in Singapore on New Year's Day 2009.
It was a good way to start the year and I hope 2008 will be a better year.
