Off to the Races!

This past weekend, Tim and I went with a group of our friends to the Seoul horse races!  I'm telling you, Korea has EVERYTHING!  It was a blast!  The racing stadium was in a suburb of Seoul where there are races every weekend of the year.  On Saturdays, there are usually about 11 races per day.  At the stadium, there are 5 levels, all with an outside and inside section.  Outside is where you sit and watch the races.  Inside is where you can get food, watch the races on the TV screens, and most importantly, place your bets!  We bought an informational book that told all about the horses and their stats, so we used that to help us choose who to put our money on.  (I chose horses with low odds and cool names.)  The actual betting process was all automated.  We put money on a ticket at the beginning, and then used that ticket as our money supply.  To place a bet, all we had to do was put our ticket and betting card into a machine, and it subtracted the amount of the bet from our money supply.  After each race, we could put our receipt and ticket back into the machine, and it would tell us how much money we had won.  Don't worry, we didn't place any big bets!  Any bet over 1,000 won (1 dollar) per horse was risky business. :)  There were different kinds of bets that could be placed.  You could guess the winner or choose a horse that you thought would place (1st, 2nd, or 3rd).  The more hardcore betters could place bets on which two horses would come in 1st and 2nd.  We definitely saw some hardcore betters.  Men dressed in suits, smoking, and cheering loudly as the horses raced to the finish line.  We were happy that we didn't have any significant bets on those horses because that would have been stressful!  For us, it was just a fun way to spend the afternoon. :)