Who needs live fillies to enjoy race frivoilities?

Melbourne Cup, Hong Kong style, is an interesting study in human behaviour. As in Australia, we frock up, don hats and fascinators, go to the race track, have a flutter, critique each others fashions, get tipsy on bubbles and finally prance home at some ungodly hour. However, unlike Australia, in Hong Kong there are no live horse races at the track on Melbourne Cup day. Instead, we all cling to Happy Valley's track side and watch the race on a giant movie screen and pretend for a moment that we have joined our fellow Aussies at Flemington. No one really acknowledges the fact that we are track side sans live horses but I think the excitement of seeing that much turf at one time and the gorgeous November weather more than makes up for it. 

As you know, I always love any excuse to dress up so wild horses couldn't stop this Pseudo Tai Tai from joining in the fun. Shopbop was having a sale a few weeks ago and I couldn't resist this Shoshana number...   

I matched my new little ray of sunshine with these trinkets. The belt is from Shenzhen many moons ago, the bag is Jimmy Choo, the bracelet is a gift from Mr PTT and I designed my fascinator with the help of my new friend, Tammy, at Sham Shui Po.

Here I am all frocked up...

Here's the only visual of my fascinator jammed into my updo that you are going to get. Unfortunately, due to the annonymous nature of this blog, full length body shots are not featured. If you can't put 2 and 2 together, visualise a 6ft floral Jacquard big bird.

Here's N, Yours Truly, J and L frocked up to the max and enjoying bubbles at 10:30am due to the Hong Kong/ Melbourne time difference... 

Here's me and my new friend V who has recently moved to Hong Kong from Sydney...

 Loved this fascinator. She made it herself and the print on the dress matched...

Here's our happy crew. S is on the end in taupe and she's now pregnant with twins!! Never quite realised how tall I was until I analysed this photo. Freaky!  

All the big names were there including Jeff Fenech and his wife Suzee. Hope Suzee wasn't chilly in the November Hong Kong breeze!

I did a little turn on the fashions on the field but alas, I did not win. Ah well, it was still fun!  I did however, win a tidy amount on the Cup from C's tip. Thanks C! I love how seriously you take your gigi races. I appreciate all the study that you did!

N is now gluten free. Her main was questionable... Dry frittata with odd phallic vegetables arising from the depths. It was the kind of thing that I might concoct for Prince and Princess PTT on a 'vegetables are fun!' night.

The normal menu options weren't that much better... Beef cheeks from what was obviously a flabby cow and...

Whole baby chicken. Such elegant autumnal luncheon food for ladies to pick at. All I needed was my chalice and dagger and I could have pretended I was in a medieval reality show.  

Happy Valley caterers thought just because N is gluten free, she must also be vegetarian and dieting. Here's my dessert - a nice little rhubarb arrangement in case you were wondering...

 and here's N's...

Here's C, race tip extraordinaire. We trekked out to Sham Shui Po together a couple of weeks ago and purchased our fascinators from our new find and fascinator guru, Tammy. C went for a couture Hiawatha vibe and customised a standard inky blue arrangement with some fun feature feathers.

 Here's another friend J. She's American and this was her Melbourne Cup initiation. She went for a tres chic black swirl affair. Top marks!

I loved this head piece... I'm always attracted to a cut feather. I was looking for a length of these to shove into the PTT fascinator but Sham Shui Po couldn't deliver. Oh well, next year!

A great day was had by all!

Yours,

Pseudo Tai Tai xx