Carols, Elections, Karaoke, and the little Ding-Dong!

Hello Good People!

Christmas is around the corner, so we decided to sing a Christmas carol for you. Our instruments are compiled from junk on the beach.

Science parks in Taiwan are not museums where children learn about Science. They are big industrial areas where many Scientific companies are situated. There is a massive one in Hsinchu (that puts the city on the modern map).

I found this smaller Science park while exploring the nearby area on my Scooter, and I thought surely they must be having a laugh with the name of this place. I mean, the word "Ding-dong" has references! and lets just say that I'm not thinking about a bell! ...and then to call it a "little" - thats the best! If I was a suit that worked here, I would be a bit embarrssed to tell people where I worked. I mean really, even look at the picture...they really didn't need that little "piece" over "there".

Recently they had the city and provincial elections in Hsinchu, but it was pretty crazy! I cannot

believe how much advertising, campaigning and hoo-haa there was for leadership of the province (not national). These guys have been campaigning since we got here in August, and they only keep the power for one year.

These guys are making some noise for their campaigning party. Noise is an integral part of all the campaigning. Each party has little trucks with speakers on the top, and they slowly drive all over the city blaring out political songs and party promises. But my favorite is when they light fireworks into a box, and hold it out of the moving truck, sending little popping rockets flying in

all random directions (while you are trying drive). It gets my attention, but just don't know if its very responsible.

The weather has been great lately, clearish skies and comfortable temps. So we headed down to

Ciding beach on Saturday afternoon (after Tim did his Christmas thang at one of his schools). We didn't swim too much, but it was hot enough to laze around and search for treasures amongst the trash. Tim is holding his "Indiana Jones whip" in the above pic.

I concentrated my trash exploring efforts on collecting bottles, in order to build a musical instrument. You can see it featured in the videos.

On Saturday night, I ended up going to karaoke with a group of good people. This wasn't some temporary setup in a bar. This was a fancy hotel-like place with multiple stories, and you get your own room to strain those vocal cords. Leather seats, flat screen tv, pumping speakers, and they even provided tambourines! Some of hits of the the big hits where "Hey Jude", "Summer

nights", and "Man on the moon"

See the above progress of Tims agricultural explorations.

I caught this guy sleeping in our nearby shopping centre (Carrefour), catching some z's. In taiwan, it is very acceptable to read books in the store. Whenever you walk past a book store, you will always see people sitting or standing in the isles, completely involved in a book, for long periods. This guy obviously got a bit too comforatable.

Tim recently purchased us a mini xmas tree, and that is our new map of world in the background (with Taiwan as the centre of the world).

We leave you with this sexy little number (in which we know so many words...)

Goodbye good people! Cliff and Tim.