First off, the drunk and lively South Stand supporters and most of the stadium sing Hey Baby …

Here is a short video which sort of shows one of the pitch invaders (aka fully clothed Streaker) in a Tiger suit who started from the North Stand, climbed up and on to the goal posts in front of the South Stand, evaded a few security, played with the match ball at the half way line before finally being pummelled into the railings back at the North Stand. Impressive display.

And here’s a story of a same but different performance back in 1993.

A great final, a great weekend and Samoa lift the cup as a Firework display explodes over the Stadium

For those with addled brains, here’s a good link to Day 3 As it Happened

Roll on the continuation of the party in the bars tonight..

Yes, I think they were all drunk and definitely a few of them just a little bit queer.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

As the traditional Chinese calendar follows the phases of the moon, the Chinese New Year will fall on a different date each year, usually at some point in late January or early February. In 2010, the new year coincidentally coincides with Valentine’s day, on 14th February.

A traditional part of welcoming in the new year, is to make offerings on New Years Eve to the dead. Today you can still watch in parts of Beijing local Beijinger’s make a small fire on the corner of the road and make offerings to their lost ones. Following on from this, Chinese will set off red fire crackers to ‘drive away the evil spirits’, which are combined with more colourful displays of firework displays on nearly every street corner.

Fireworks were banned by the government in Beijing until 2005 (too many accidents) and since then the yearly display seems to grow exponentially, both with official displays in public places, to local restaurants and bars to celebrate a successful year, to almost every local resident competing with one another for the biggest, loudest and most colourful display!

The fireworks will be set off all through the day during New Years Eve and culminating in a huge show of mass celebration at midnight. As you can see from the short video above, which was taken from the 7th floor of an apartment block in the residential neighbourhood of Tuanjiehu (directly south of Chaoyang Park and 1km north of the new CCTV tower) the fireworks are literally set-off from every corner, from rooftops and even out of windows. This was actually at 12:10 AM, so the peak had already ebbed somewhat. And I am sure closer to the centre, in prosperous areas or purely from a higher vantage point the display would be even more impressive.

The noise of the firecrackers will continue all through the day for the next two weeks … ???? .. xin nián kuài lè!

Cheering on the horses at Happy Valley
By yabbox

A Night at the Races

If you’re in Hong Kong on a Wednesday evening you have to go to the races. I arrived in Hong Kong on a Tuesday and stayed for 9 days, which meant I could go the races twice! Racing in Hong Kong is very accessible, in terms of travel and getting involved; it’s a lot of fun, a lovely grass race track where the going is always good and a great mix of local’s, mainland Chinese (both of whom love gambling), with a lot of working foreigners and other tourists from all over. Everyone rubs shoulders which each other, except I presume those in the private boxes and members enclosures. I met Hong Kongers, Singaporeans, English, Irish, Dutch, Germans and Japanese – another lot who love gambling!

It is also a cheap evening out – depending how much you lose on the horses! Entrance to the General Admission stands is just HK$10, a draught beer is HK$30+, a Ballentine’s Coke HK$34, a bowl of roasted pork with crackling served on rice HK$34 and the minimum bet is HK$10.

There are two racetracks in Hong Kong, Happy Valley and Sha Tin. Unless you’re a keen racegoer, don’t bother with Sha Tin. Maybe if you want to experience the day out and can’t make a Wednesday evening event, go to Sha Tin on a Saturday/Sunday. Maybe.

Happy Valley is the oldest track, founded in 1845 by the British on an old swamp as opposed to the relatively new course at Sha Tin built in 1978. Despite Happy Valley racecourse being rebuilt in 1995, the stadium still keeps a great atmosphere on race night. There are sections of the stands with commentary and live video feed in English, lot’s of beer and food tents and two public floors of bars and betting as well as outdoor stands, access to the Parade Ring and viewing right up to the race course edge.

The public stands sit next to the Members Enclosure, so the finishing line is quite close, but you can’t get alongside, unless you have access to other stands. For example you can pay HK$180 at Gate C, which has more exclusive bars, and stands.

The first race is around 7pm and there are normally 8 races on the card, with varying distance and standards, but normally all have 12 entries.

How to Bet

Betting in Hong Kong is different from what you may be used to. There are no independent bookmakers and all bets are controlled by the Hong Kong Jockey Club, which operate like a TOTE and invest money back in to the future of racing. They also operate an amazing website, where you have live odds, live races, rebate checks and lot’s of background info on each horse. There are HKJC Betting shops all over Hong Kong, you can spot them easily when racing is on as there will be a crowd outside!

But how to place a bet at Happy Valley? There are betting rooms and small stands dotted all over the course, but you won’t find the pitches and tic-tac show on course as in England. There are Customer Service desks that can also help.

• Buy the day’s paper with the racing section before arrival.
• Upon entry pick up a racecard (A4 sheet for free) or official racecard for HK$10.
• Have a look at the Parade Ring to view the horses and jockeys as they mount.
• Look at the TV screens, consult your race card and check the form.
• Go to one of the betting halls and find the tray of betting slips, which vary depending on which bet you wish to make. The blue ones are for Win / Place (each way) / Quinella bets. I will explain this below.
• Complete the betting slip.
• Queue up at the window and place your bet – check the betting slip you receive before leaving the desk.
• Watch the race.
• Collect your winnings!

How to fill in the Betting Slip

I will start with the general betting slip which is blue.

This betting slip can be used for five different types of bet: Win * Place * Quinella * Quinella Place * All Up *

Win – Your chosen horse must be first past the post.
Place – Lower odds, your horse can come in the top four* (depending how many horses start).
Quinella – You chose two horses in the same race, they must finish first and second, in either order.
Quinella Place – You chose two horses, one must finish first, the other must be placed, i.e second, third of fourth.
All Up – Not sure!

The betting slip may look like a complex mathematical paper, but it really is quite easy. Place a diagonal mark in the upcoming RACE NO (number). Then underneath the ‘SINGLE RACE’ chose the ‘POOL’ in which to enter your bet: either Win, Place, Quinella or Quinella Place. Ignore the pink shaded boxes and instead in the bottom left under ‘SELECTIONS’, mark your chosen horse number. Then on the far right side, mark ‘UNIT’ and then mark how much you wish to bet. The minimum bet on a Win / Place is HK$10.

Win / Place Example

So, for a simple WIN or PLACE bet, there should be 4 sections filled out. Race Number, Pool, Selection and the amount you bet. There will be a minimum of five marks on the slip, as you also have to chose UNIT$ or TICKET$. Furthermore, if you bet HK$60, you will mark the $50 and the $10 box.

Quinella / Quinella Place Example

With a Quinella bet you are choosing two horses in the same race. The TV screens will have the Live Quinella odds on display in a chart. Find your horses number along the x-axis and the y-axis and run along to see the current odds. You will complete the form as above, but chose two numbers in the SELECTION section. You are not making a preference over which of your chosen selections will win, or be placed. As above, you chose a UNIT$ price and this is a total price for the combination bet. You are making one bet. Both horses must

Use a separate betting slip for each bet, unless you are making a combination bet. Hand the ticket over the counter together with your wager and you will receive a printed betting slip in return.

As I mentionned before, there are Customer Service Desks and lots of staff who will be only too happy to help you complete the betting slip, it is after all your money that you’ll be spending!

Clutch that winning betting slip and join everyone else at the rails or in the stands are cheer your runner home! Should you be lucky, you can claim your winnings as soon as the Official Dividends have been announced. You can also check online later to double check if you had the winning ticket rebate due.

http://bet.hkjc.com/default.aspx?lang=en&langRedirect=true

Getting There

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Valley_Racecourse

More

http://trivialmatters.blogspot.com/2008/05/happy-turn-of-fortune-in-hong-kong.html

My office colleague has borrowed a Canon EOS 400D Digital Camera for her first trip to Hong Kong and so we wonder down to Victoria harbour so she can take her first souvenir shots of Hong Kong.

I’ve been meaning to upgrade to a Canon Powershot G9 or G10 for some time. Now I’ve seen there is a G11 on the market and still I’m managing with my little Ixus 80.

But Zhaonan wasn’t comfortable with the size of the 400D, or with all the options, so we ended up doing a swap. It was good for me to see how I would get on with a bigger camera. The ghost ship (left) was one of my first shots. Not perfectly focused, but it was at night without a flash or a tripod and I like the ghost-like appearance of the red-sailed junk and the reflections of the Christmas lights in the water.

Bamboo Scaffolding
Originally uploaded by yabbox

The next shot was of the Hong Kong Cultural Centre and the impressive Bamboo scaffolding clinging to its’ side. It’s a photo which takes a second to work out because of sharp diagonal line combined with the lighting shining through the trees on to the building and the dark sky.

Funnily enough, apart from looking like a tourist with this clumpy thing around my neck, it gave me more freedom to take photos I wouldn’t normally have bothered with. Not necessarily to experiment more, but to feel more professional, rather than a happy snapper. I certainly wasn’t expecting that.

Now I know I need to upgrade my camera..

Train K26 – Shenzhenxi to Nanjingxi
Originally uploaded by yabbox

My last entry explained my stressful journey from Hong Kong to Shenzhen Xi Train Station. That is where I boarded this train to Huangshan.

Shenzhen Xi is a little used train station in the industrial part of Shenzhen. The K25/K26 train service is a privately run route from ShenZhen West ??? to Nanjing West ???. I’ll be travelling as far as Huangshan ??.

I didn’t know there were private train lines in China and apart from the branding in the restaurant car, it is little different from any other train journey in China.

My soft sleeper cabin was tidy enough, but the carriage was certainly showing it’s age and not as clean and practical as the modern soft sleeper carriages found on more popular ‘tourist’ routes. Just little things like an electric outlet in the cabin, electric touch open doors, cleaner toilets. But it is quite serviceable and not very busy, so I’m sure the overnight journey will go by without problem.

Train Warnings
Originally uploaded by yabbox

Probably the most interesting thing on the train are the bilingual signs, like, ‘please take good care of your kids’. There’s nothing wrong with a little bit of social guidance popping up in strange places now is there!

It reminds me of other signs I’ve seen on trains, telling you to ‘throw garbage in it’ or to ‘beware of nipping hands on sliding doors’.

I ate in the dining car twice, first for lunch with the rest of the train crew and secondly for dinner, with the rest of train who were mostly army cadets. The food was cheap and spicy. The staff cheerful but sour.

Despite travelling north through China from the relative humidity of Shenzhen to the desperate cold of Anhui, the air conditioner stayed on throughout the night, humming away and keeping the cabin like a fridge.

Huangshan Rice Terraces
Originally uploaded by yabbox

I woke up at around 6am the next morning and peering back the curtains of the cabin had a lovely view. It’s not every day in China you see green mountains and picturesque rice terraces. My camera was lying on the coffee table and I snapped this through the hazy window.

Dried Spice
Originally uploaded by yabbox

The train was meant to arrive in Huangshan at 07:33 but strangely it was a little delayed, pulling in to the small station around 15 minutes late. I had an hour to wait for Chris and after checking my bags into left luggage in the main hall (for ¥5!) I set off in search of a bank and breakfast. The Bank of China was on Hehua Lu, and just next door the morning market, which sold all sorts of fun and strange foodstuffs from pickled vegetables like bamboo, seaweed, to fresh fruit, live birds, dried spices, fish jumping from their bowls and more. The staff were all super friendly and welcomed my photo-taking.

Just outside I found a little shop selling some delicious hand pulled noodles in a spicy meaty broth (for ¥6!). A perfect breakfast and a perfect hour killed waiting for the train from Shanghai to arrive. I went back to the station, saw how much of Huangshan is being redeveloped and arranged a taxi to take us to the foot of the mountain…

K26 train route is as follows:
ShenZhen West ??? – Bantian ?? – Dongguan East ??? – Huizhou ?? – Heyuan ?? – Longchuan (Guangdong) ?? – Ganzhou ?? – Jian (Jiangxi) ?? – Xiangtang ?? – Yingtan ?? – Lepingshi ??? – Jingdezhen ??? – Huangshan (Anhui) ?? – Jixixian ??? – Xuancheng ?? – Wuhu ?? – Maanshan ??? – Nanjing ?? – Nanjing West ???.

Some things don’t change the world over. You have a day off, and you go grocery shopping to stock your fridge for the coming days. Everyone thinks that China is a cheap place to live. It certainly used to be, and in many cases it still is. Although my apartment isn’t ideal, I have nothing to complain about especially when it is ¥2,100 (£188) a month, exc bills. It’s big enough with an entrance hall and kitchen, bathroom and living rooms leading off this, then a balcony and bedroom leading off the living room, and includes most furniture and electronics. There are some anomalies, the lift stops working at midnight – I live on the 7th of 11 floors, and the fridge is in the living room, but that’s standard here. Also, the hot water pressure is questionable to say the least, but then it is so often in England as well. I am not sure about quarterly bills yet but you can get 2mb broadband for ¥150 (£13) a month, which I suppose isn’t so different from the UK prices.

But food is the big thing, isn’t it? Well that can be very expensive if you don’t have the taste for Chinese food, or the language to order in a small local cafe/restaurant. You can eat very well in Beijing with a huge selection of cuisine, not only from around China, but the rest of Asia and the world. Xingjiang lamb kebabs, Shaanxi noodles, Sichuan spices, Yunnan mushrooms, Beijing duck, Korean barbecues, Moroccan couscous, Vietnamese fusion, Thai curry, Japanese Yakitori, teppanyaki, sushi, Italian pizza, pasta, Belgian seafood, waffles, French pate, steaks, and more and roughly in that order of growing expense too.

My small kitchen has two gas hobs above a huge (rather old and dodgy looking) gas oven and you can buy imported Western goods in a number of shops (Jenny Lu’s, April Gourmet) and markets (ShunYuanLi Market) where you can find most things from Kellogg’s cornflakes, Japanese sushi ingredients, Thai lemon grass, Heinz baked beans, to Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce, Belgian beer, American pancake mix – yeah you get the idea. Of course these imported goods are all at inflated prices as you would expect, to account for the import duty, the relatively small supply and demand, the luxury nature of the goods and just getting it here in the first place. ¥240 (£22) a kilo for President French Brie, ¥9 (£0.80) for Heinz Baked Beans (made in Guangzhou). 10 packets of the US brand Springfield Instant Oats akin to oatsosimple for ¥45 (£4) but some amazing bargains such as a 35cl bottle of Leffe for ¥17 (£1.50). Of course the raw ingredients are cheaper than the pre-packaged items and you can buy a loin of pork, fresh vegetables, or sushi grade raw Japanese tuna all very economically.

I went to my local Jinkgelong for a basket of every day provisions and after living in various parts of the City over the years have come to realise how the stock, service, cleanliness in each of these outlets varies greatly. However you can always buy every day products with ease, but some stores have a wider selection of goods, for example in the Western enclaves their will be more fresh milk on the shelves and Pringle’s as well as Lay’s crisps. I’m in Tuanjeihu at the moment and the stores are quite small so there is not a huge selection available and annoyingly, foodstuffs are one side of the road, bathroom and dry goods are in a store opposite – so you need to queue up twice.

So I come to the point of this post – the cost of a shopping basket in Jinkgelong China compared to that in Sainsbury’s England. I bought 13 items, including eggs, bread, butter, crisps, ham, lettuce. The total price was ¥98.40 (£8.80) compared to a comparative shop online for £12.91. S0 there’s not much in it, especially when you consider some products aren’t the same. For example butter comes in smaller packs, bread comes in smaller loaves and at the same time quality does not always compare, the ham is very different, the salad not always as fresh and organic products are almost non-existent. You also need to take into account how the Chinese RMB is so strong against the British Pound these days. Here are the receipts from each store.

JINGKELONG
Pear Juice 1L – ¥11.50
Crisps Beef 45g – ¥2.90
Butter 140g – ¥11.90
Instant Noodles 120g – ¥3.45
Sprite 600ml – ¥2.40
Shopping bag 60*38cm – ¥0.30
Shineway Shanghui Supreme Ham 150g – ¥13.56
Bread 300g – ¥4.90
Eggs 732gXL12 – ¥18.50
Fresh Milk 500ml – ¥4.50
Lettuce loose – ¥5.29
Real Mayonniase 215ml – ¥8.00
Dairylea Cheese Spread – ¥11.20
TOTAL – ¥98.40


SAINSBURY’S
Apple Juice pressed 1L – £1.49
Walkers Crisps 34.5g – £0.40
Salted Butter 250g – £0.69
Instant Noodles 85g – £0.28
Sprite 500ml – £0.97
Cooked Ham 300g – £2.40
Kingsmill Bread 800g – £1.22
Freerange Eggs Mx12 – £2.64
Milk 568ml – £0.45
Lettuce – £0.49
Mayonnaise 200g – £0.99
Dairylea tub 200g – £1.11
TOTAL PRICE £12.91

I also went to Jenny Lou’s Grocery Store at Chaoyang Park, which seems to get bigger everytime you go in, with a sandwich counter, huge wine section, fresh deli and a DVD store hidden in the various alcoves. In this store you have to be careful with prices as they vary massively depending on where the item was sourced I presume, but a small shopping trolley can soon add up. The six items I bought cost ¥162.30 (£14.50) compared to a similar basked at Sainsbury’s online costing £7.83. This is roughly double and what makes it worse is that some packet sizes vary, for example I bought twice as many teabags in Sainsbury’s, more Jam and more Bran. Again, here are the receipts from each store.

JENNY LOU’S
Twinings Tea Peppermint 25 bags - ¥27.60
Heinz Baked Beans – ¥8.60
Springfield Oatmeal 10x39g assorted - ¥45
Sunny Select Raisin Bran 500g - ¥37.60
St Dalfour 4 Fruit Jam 170g – ¥16
Clovis Wholegrain Mustard 200g – ¥18.60
Shopping bag – ¥0.30
TOTAL PRICE – ¥162.30

SAINSBURY’S
Twinings Pure Peppermint 40 teabags – £1.79
Oat So Simple Original 12x27g – £1.98
Sultana Bran 750g – £1.61
St Dalfour Fruit Spread 284g – £1.38
Wholegrain mustard 210g – £0.59
Heinz Baked Beans 200g – £0.48
TOTAL PRICE – £7.83

Of course this doesn’t account for the average salary in each Country and the shop girls in Jenny Lou’s must have a double take every time an expat pays for his small bag of shopping with 100′s of RMB notes.

And other things are so much cheaper – a bus ride costs ¥0.40 (with an Oyster card), taxi flag fall is ¥10 for the first three kilos, a bottle of local beer is ¥15 and you can go to the cinema for ¥30.

We saw two ostriches (or Rhea) yesterday, while we were on horseback, I had forgotten. Today nothing happened until el patron came back from Montevideo around 10am, with another member of staff, or a friend. We then went off to survey his land by ute, thus going further than on horseback, which I’m kind of glad about as my lower back is quite sore, aching. I think extensive horse riding has got to be good for some with back posture issues, like myself! We went to his ostrich farm first off! Yes really. Twenty or more of them roaming around the fields freely. I remember the ostrich farm in North Korea. These didn’t seem quite so big, but we didn’t get quite as close. For sure these ostriches, like the citizens of Uruguay, are much freer. But these ones ran away from us – probably because they could! We stopped down by the river (I forget the name, but it borders Flores e Durazno province) which is so tranquil e peaceful and no crocodiles apparently! He keeps Holland cows as well as Hereford / Hertfordshire? and more and they are all castrated apparently. Perhaps that’s why they cry and not because they have horrible eye infections (at least a couple of them anyway). I’m at a cross-roads, they seem to live a pretty organic and happy life, for it’s a massive estate with that much livestock per acre, but the animals are scared. That’s natural I guess, but the ones with bad eyes, it turns my stomach. You don’t eat the eye do you. And I can imagine Aunty Anne producing a lovely rare rib-eye (no pun intended) on a Sunday and me feigning not to want any – yeah right! Let alone what my Dad would think, vegetarianism is not for me. There are plenty of sheep grazing on the same land, I believe they are five or six years old so I wonder what their purpose is, surely too old to eat? Mutton? Surely there is a higher price for lamb and less time looking after? Well, I’m no farmer.

We then passed a dis-used but not in too bad a shape cottage e barn (on his estate, near the river, about one mile from the main house) and it got me dreaming, living there .. it had power, it once had a lovely garden, great potential. There was a large iguana (lagoda?) which wandered across and into the barn, adding to the abandoned but surreal feel of the place. To live on his land, to renovate the house, make it into a sellable plot, or a tourist estancia. Even advertise for help (builders, plasterers, carpenters), even film it for tv. Live on the main site (early stages at least), get to horse-ride in the afternoon in return to their work in morning, or something. Mountain biking, canoeing, horse-riding, cattle-herding, etc. etc. Only dreams though. As I said before, I’m no farmer! It could work if I had a live-in 21 year old Spanish teacher though!

So that was all in the morning and I’m glad I wrote it up after lunch as loads more adventures to remember in the afternoon. We went on horseback along the dirt road with Juan the gaucho, as well as el Patron and trotted the whole way down the road and some, further than I’d been before and I wondered why we were going so far on horseback. It was quite hard work as well, my stirrups weren’t quite right, probably because I don’t have proper gaucho boots and my shoes are not ideal to say the least. My shins are getting a bit sore from the stirrups. But more worryingly, my shoes keep falling out of the stirrups as we canter along.

I’ve been a right proper farmer (exaggerate the ‘ar’) today, been on a tractor and all sorts! Eggs and bacon for breakfast – a farmer’s breakfast! Out on horseback, but my stirrups weren’t so comfy today and here was the surprise, El Patron gave me his horse – no beginners stock on this ranch then! The brown was more comfy, especially on the trot (I didn’t want to use that word yesterday!). I’m not sure if it’s adjusting to the different diet, or my stomach being loosened up on horseback. We surveyed the land and his cattle again together with el gaucho but didn’t do any herding in particular. We were back on the ranch by mid-morning and I took myself off for a stroll. I’ve only been here 24 hours and my muscles can feel that morning ride for sure. The purple daisies (marigolds?) were out again, it seems they curl up to sleep overnight. There is still some dew on the ground too. There are some amazing birds around, nothing big, but so colourful and with ‘bits’, like crowns and that and boy, do they know how to sing. Another hearty lunch and I had built up an appetite today too. It was only after lunch I went for my walk, I thought it best after I’d stuffed myself with locally produced and cooked food. Gaucho was teasing the electric fence earlier, it really scared the horses so must be quite a current. It was a bit horrid really, but it sure made the birds flee their nest. We came across some lovely ‘wild’ horses too, which Gonzalez had let run wild. They were very friendly, rubbing noses with Gonzalez and very photogenic too, with deep shiny coats. Gonzalez was off in the afternoon, he was driving to Montevideo to see their daughter on her 21^st birthday. She is the youngest of three, 33, 32, 21, agro-engineer, architect, vet student, respectively. So I went off with Hector, the cook – come house-boy-servant and the farmer on the tractor to collect and distribute some cattle feed. We stopped by a derelict outhouse and wandered down to a large, slow river I hadn’t seen or heard before. There were even more birds chirping away down on the river banks and in the woods. Pinto is a friendly dog and a big softy. I sat on an easy chair in the sun and read some until the sun went down. It was just myself for dinner with Hector trying to be friendly. How can I learn the basics of Spanish when I can’t even remember any words (even numbers – I think I was a bit better at Portuguese)?!