A Satisfying Sunday

Sunday was a delightful, event-packed day.

We went to Cafe Lavande on Prince's Terrace with some friends for brunch.  It is a darling cafe with a nice outside terrace (although it is hot enough now that we opted to sit inside with the air conditioning):

Prince's Terrace is that kind of calm oasis that we have not managed to find anywhere else in Hong Kong: centrally located, immediately off of the escalators, a block away from popular bars and restaurants, but completely quiet, calm and lined with flowers and plants.  In a word: lovely.

After a leisurely brunch, we made our way to the Happy Valley racetrack for a set of afternoon races.    

We were on the completely wrong end of the track so had some difficulty finding the proper entrance to the stands.  In the course of our wanderings, we discovered that Michael can basically walk into any private club that dots the perimeter of the race track, without question.  When we stumbled into one of the private members' clubs, Michael waltzed in without question but I was subsequently stopped and questioned and only allowed to go ahead when told that I was "with him".  It was really amusing at the time, but I also found the whole incident a disturbing sign of the misogyny and privilege (read: wealthy white boys' club) that still pervades the horse races in Hong Kong.

Usually at Happy Valley the races are on Wednesday nights but this time there were races on Sunday during the day.  It was really, really fun.  The track is absolutely gorgeous.  I still cannot get over how green the grass is.  Some of my favorite horse names were "Happy Yeah Yeah", "Fortune Red Pepper", "Go Lucky Go" and "Legendary Dragon".

off to the races!

the stadium

the stands

the fans

statistics and tickets

pounding towards the finish line - so thrilling and majestic!

As if that weren't enough excitement for one day, we rounded out our day with a tasty meal at Tuk Tuk Thai, a tiny little Thai restaurant tucked behind the vegetable markets on Graham Street.