Horse Races and Markets

This week was another full week in Hong  Kong! Wednesday some of my exchange friends and I went to the Horse Races. Horse Racing is one of the only legal types of gambling in Hong Kong, so it is very popular among both locals and tourists. 

We all decided to bet on a race and for healthy competition we all choose different horses! I choose "Victory Conquedor" to win the race, but he only came in second, so I didn't win anything. But one of my friends, Melyssa did win! She bet $20HK and won $27.5HK. Only about $1USD more than she bet, but she was still a winner! We had a ton of fun cheering on the horses and yelling for our favorite jockeys. 

On Friday, I went to another temple in Hong Kong. There are tons of famous temples scattered throughout Hong Kong and the one we went to was about an hour away from campus. A lot of the temples have similarities, like tons and tons of buddhas, burning incense, and the temple is usually accompanied by a shrine and multiple "offerings" like fruit and flowers. But it is really neat to see the differences too - like this temple shrine was very similar to the architecture in Thailand and was covered with glass and mirror mosaic tiles. The inside of the temple was covered with golden buddha and angel figurines that jutted out of the ceiling. 

Then after visiting the temple, we went to "the markets" - the "Fish Market", the "Flower Market", and the "Bird Market" - all three markets are about a 3 minute walk from each other. All of the markets are open air shops, so they are right off the street and the whole front of the store is open - there is no door. All of the dozens of shops are door to door. So fish store, after fish store...all selling tons of assorted fish. It really looked like a carnival - there were just hundreds of plastic bags filled with goldfish, hanging and covering the walls and entrance of the stores! 

Then we went to the bird market, where there were shops were lined with bird cages and birds! My favorite were the bright yellow canaries. 

And the best part about the flower market, was the smell! The fresh smell of flowers smelled so good! The flower market was beautiful, with all the different colorful flowers. I was amazed. 

Unfortunately, I am actually having to do more school work - in the next 6 weeks I have all of my final exams and final projects and papers! So for the next 6 weeks I really will be "studying" abroad....and of course, exploring more of Hong Kong!