This year I decided to attend the hugely popular Chinese New Year Races at the Shatin Racecourse in the New Territories.

While gambling on the third day after Chinese New Year is moerse auspicious to the locals, they couldn’t have chosen a worse day: the mercury dipped to an all-time low of 7 degrees celsius.

The anticipated cold weather didn’t deter the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) as they laid on the usual off-course entertainment including the usuals: the Fortune Market, various Variety Shows, Fortune Tips by Fung Shui masters, etc.

In stark contrast to last year’s huge crowds, this year’s sparse crowd as well as online and off-course betting still netted the HKJC a whopping HK$ 1,2 Billion! You read that right… I did say BILLION. The Hong Kong Government netted a neat $149 Million in betting duties.

Word to the HKJC though, for those of us who couldn’t get into the premium boxes with their restaurant food and waiting staff, you could do better than offering dumpling joints and sickening KFC fare. Just saying.

I stayed until Race 5 when the cold forced me to back to my warm apartment in Hung Hom.

This race’s winner (and the stand-out horse all-round) was aptly-named Kung Hei Fat Chong which means ‘Happy New Year‘ in English. I played that horse in my first-ever Hong Kong races bet (see video of Race 5 below) and yes… I won $74.50 !

Happy Year of the Dragon!

Kung Hei Fat Choi.

Thankfully I had my iPhone4S with me and snapped some footage:

When we lived in Ma On Shan in the New Territories, I used to frequent one of the loveliest golf driving ranges in Hong Kong, convenient located about 10 minutes from our apartment.  These days I don’t mind making the hour-long trek out that way, especially when the weather is as nice as it was today.

The WhiteHead Golf Driving range is located about 10 minutes (by taxi) from Ma On Shan’s town centre.  There is also a free shuttle bus from the Sunshine City mall (where the Ma On Shan MTR station is).

The charge per hour is HK$100 and you can also rent clubs if you don’t have your own or don’t feel like lugging them all that way.  You are not restricted in terms of balls and buckets filled with balls are stacked 4-high behind every bay.

You can also rent kiddies clubs for which the charge is HK$10 per club (refundable deposit HK$100)

Other than the driving range, you can also rent bicycles  and explore the seaside area all the way to Wu Kai Sha where you can find a plethora of really good seafood restaurants.

If you’re into “Chinese-style” braai (BBQ) then you can reserve a BBQ-spot that comes complete with a (Chinese-style) BBQ pack.  Right down to the ubiquitous two-prong forks.  Beer is a wee on the expensive side from the sea-side kiosk (HK$15 Heineken/Blue Lady).

Click here to read more about the WhiteHead Club.

I took some photos today:

A stunning view of the Tolo Harbour with Plover Cove Reservoir in the background. (Pic: Mike Jansen)

Deck-chairs at the kiosk… (Pic: Mike Jansen)

Try your hand at one of the over 100 bays (Pic: Mike Jansen)

Perfect follow-though. Trying my hand at hitting a small white ball (Pic: Mike Jansen)

My son’s school’s Parent Teacher Association (PTA) has an annual outing that normally takes participants way out into parts of Hong Kong that foreign visitors, let alone foreign residents hardly ever see (unless you’re married to a local).

As we don’t have a car in Hong Kong, my family always go on these very enjoyable outings.  Last year we went to a quaint herb farm near Fanling in the New Territories and even went strawberry-picking in the afternoon.

This year around, the PTA-outing took us to a public farm and botanical garden started by the school’s namesake, the Kadoorie family.

————————————————————————————————————————————————

The family were originally Iraqi Jews from Baghdad who later migrated to Bombay (Mumbai), India in the mid-eighteenth century.

Ellis Kadoorie arrived in Shanghai from Bombay in 1880 as an employee of the Sephardi Jewish firm David Sassoon & Sons. Within a few years he had accumulated large sums of money and had gone into business on his own account, with companies in both Shanghai and Hong Kong. Over the next two decades, the Kadoorie brothers made their fortunes, achieving success in banking, rubber plantations, electric power utilities and real estate, and gaining a major share-holding in Hong Kong Hotels Limited. (who owned the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong)

Sir Ellis was knighted in 1917.

(source: WikiPedia)

————————————————————————————————————————————————-

This year’s PTA outing saw us visiting a farm that was started by the Kadoorie family in the days when there was a massive population explosion in Hong Kong and a great need for fresh produce.  These days the Kadoorie Farm & Botanic Gardens is essentially an educational establishment and botanical gardens.  Schools and families flock to this vast property near Yuen Long in the far northern New Territories.

Of course, as this seems to be strawberry-season in the SAR, we once again found our way to yet another strawberry farm where we could pick our own fruit.

Ethan going through his strawberry harvest

You can read more about the Kadoorie Farm & Botanic Gardens here

Here are some pics we took on the day:

Last year we told you about all the signs warning about what not to do in Wan Chai Park.

I recently visited the very beautiful Ma On Shan Park situated next to Tolo Harbour in the New Territories.  My family used to live next to the Park in our first year in Hong Kong and while we live in the city these days, we often still visit the area because of its natural beauty as well as the tranquility and serenity of the seaside town.  There’s also a wicked sea-side driving range but more about that in a later post.

Both these Parks are run by the Hong Kong Leisure and Cultural Services Department and it was no surprise to find Ma On Shan Park also plastered with signs warning about what not to do…

(Mike Jansen, Hong Kong 18 November 2010)

I cover quite a number of sports events in Hong Kong on behalf of Howzit-HongKong.com and BlitzBokke.com and obviously I have my favourites.

I have never been good at golf, but the Hong Kong Open in November must rank right up there with my personal favourite, the Cathay Pacific/Credit Suisse Hong Kong Sevens.

Funnily enough, not for athletic reasons at all.  To those who know me, no… it’s not because of the free Nespresso booth, sandwich bar or the well-stocked, well-iced Heineken freezer in the Media Centre.

Having a reason to take the MTR to the New Territories town of Sheung Shui for four days in November every year is bliss.  If you’ve lived in a city like Hong Kong for about four years, you will understand.  Let me give you a simple reason:

I can count on one hand the number of times I have felt grass under my bare feet.

I know what you’re thinking and coming from South Africa, it’s almost ludicrous to think that such a simple experience can be missed so much. But it is.

I attend quite a number of rugby games which makes it even more unbelievable, but this being Hong Kong, you’re either not allowed to touch the rugby turf by over-enthusiastic security guards, or it is not real grass but “astro turf” instead.  Like at the Hong Kong Football Club for the Hong Kong Tens or even at King’s Park where a lot of club games take place.

But again, I digress.

The HK Golf Club in Sheung Shui seen from above

Sheung Shui is located in the furthest part of the northern New Territories, a few minutes away from the Hong Kong/Shenzen border.

It’s a leafy town with roads so wide, Lee Shau Kee and the other Hong Kong ‘property pirates‘ must drool whenever they pass through.

It’s a town with more trees than there are cars. Trees that are, unlike here in the city, unlabeled.

It’s a town where mothers collect their little ones from school by bicycle.

It’s a town where, in the early evening… you can smell the soil, the trees, the freshly-cut grass.

Like I did today, at the conclusion of Day 1 of the UBS Hong Kong Open.

I love Sheung Shui in November.

The sun sets over the Hong Kong Golf Club in Sheung Shui (Pic: Mike Jansen)

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) can be broadly divided into 3 areas, of which these are are further divided in smaller geographic districts (in brackets):

Hong Kong Island (4 districts)

Kowloon (5 districts)

New Territories (9 districts)

Below is a navigable Google Map of the 3 broad areas of the Hong Kong SAR.  Like any other Google Map, you can use your mouse to scroll around the map. (Click on the links below to access the Google Map of Hong Kong)

Kowloon (Map below)
View Larger Map

Hong Kong Island (Map below)
View Larger Map

New Territories (Map below)
View Larger Map