Chinese Visa & Horse Races

Week 8-9 (2/24 – 3/9)

These past two weeks have been pretty chill. Classes are long and a little bit hard to focus since they’re three hours straight, but at least I only have them once a week. I would say that my highlights of the past two weeks are that 1) I got my Chinese Visa and 2) I went to the horse races for the first time.

It took me like a month and a half, but I finally got my Chinese visa. Though the process only really takes like 2 hours, I was lazy, so I kept putting it off. The visa is important because I can now go to China as many times as I want for the next 10 years, and I can stay for up to 60 days. I paid around $170 USD, which feels like a deal since the more you go to China, the cheaper each visit gets (if you think about it). Having a visa also means I don’t need to sit and wait to get a port visa every time I go to Shenzhen, I just need to go up to immigration. Having the visa for the next 10 years makes me want to make the most of it, so I’m going to try to go as often as possible.

Now, the Horse Races. Those were fun. It’s located in Happy Valley on Hong Kong Island, and I got to take a DingDing (cable car) for the first time. The stadium is so huge, like, way bigger than a football stadium, and holds a lot of people. My favorite part was looking at the horses' names, then betting on them. Some of the horses were called “American Dream” or “Dark Knight”, which, in my opinion, is really funny. Cheering for the horses was also really fun, and even though I only won 1/3 bets, I had a really good time, and definitely recommend it if you’re in Hong Kong on a Wednesday night.