Make it a Happy Night

Wednesday night...

Happy Valley Racecourse
I had expected from the reviews and the articles that horseracing in Hong Kong would be a wild, rambunctious event! Having worked at TVG back in LA, I know the basics of betting and trivial things like what the jockey's silk colors mean. So I'm not totally in unfamiliar territory when I pay my $10 to get in and have my choice of McDonald's or Carlsberg for dinner. I get there just after the first race finishes, so understandably the crowd is quietly focused on choosing their next bets... right? It's about time for the second race. No bugle call, no over-excited announcer... basically nothing interesting happens when they start the racesl - wait - did the horses just run by?! Ummm, ok. I guess the race is on. Odd. So we bet on a few races. And James and Darren figured out quickly that you Always Always bet the opposite of me at the race track.

Happy Foot Massage Parlor
Several people at Disney rave about about this foot massage parlor and I see the sign on my way home every day. Usually I think about dropping in on the place around 11 o'clock at night since it stays open until midnight. But I never seem to make it - and it's just around the corner. I mean, how good can a foot rub be? Well, after 14 hours in heels, tonight was the night I finally stopped in. And as wrong as I was about racing, I was wrong about foot massages... actually, it isn't a foot massage - it's REFLEXOLOGY. Reflexology is the theory that certain places in your foot correlate to other bodily functions (see image).

China and Thailand both have tons of places dedicated to this practice. And there is nothing like 50 minutes of someone pressure-pointing, rubbing, and slapping your feet to help you go right to sleep. The next morning I woke up and the area of my foot relating to the kidneys was hurting... hmmm, maybe there is something to this after all *wink*