these are the friendly people that say hi to me everyday - they run the "dai pai dong" (street food restaurants) right in front of the building where i live, in stanley street in central. when i moved here, this street was packed every night with regular locals and adventurous foreigners feasting on freshly cooked food. the energy of this street was one of the reasons i chose this apartment. a few months ago tho, the health and sanitation department decided to close all the food stalls in the street and do a major clean up (the rats and roaches haven't forgiven them yet). the stainless steel stalls you see in the background are all new, they replaced the makeshift stalls (patches of incongruous materials) that used to be here. the street was stripped, sprayed with disinfectants and pesticide, laid with proper sanitation fittings, and repaved. they finished putting up the stalls last week.
the dinner (photo, above, taken new year's eve) was a dry run to test if things work. at least one of them (the one that serves seafood specialties) should be open again for business tomorrow.
XXX
