so not hollywood road! (these are the people in my neighborhood)

© Joselito Briones

something else that's new - this was the first time ever that i saw a religious procession in hong kong. i was climbing up the escalator, at night almost always full of suits on their way back to their posh mid-levels apartment from work, or party goers coming down to hollywood road and soho, when they started ascending with their candles (is that even safe, i mean lit candles on escalators?). as more and more of them appeared, their song, a church hymn, also got louder (the track on the video was added in, the audio originally recorded was of very poor quality).

i used to see a lot of this kind of candle procession growing up in the philippines, so it was a nice surprise to see it here.  i hope they don't do this often tho.  i remember how fascinating it was first time i saw a bunch of hare krishnas chanting and dancing and doing their drum thing in soho in london, but after seeing them again and again over a couple of months they just looked weird.

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renewed (these are the people in my neighborhood)

 © Joselito Briones
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.

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christmas meet-n-greet

 © Joselito Briones
more holiday get togethers.  some of my nicest friends since high school: (r-l) christie, cynthia (whose youngest is my godson, poor child), and joy (here with daughter nikki). they dropped by my parents' house when they learned (thanks, eric!) that i was gonna be there this holiday season.  last time i saw cyntch and christie was at eric's wedding last july, last time i saw joy before this was probably high school graduation day.  she seems a lot more down-to-earth now, and happier.  she has this spiel, poking fun on herself by saying that she breezed through high school because two of our senior year teachers just happened to be her parents.  first time she did it i searched her face for any indication that she might be looking at how someone reacts to this (if only to see if the intended audience agrees with the statement or not), then decided she really was doing this just for comic effects.

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