Today Kitty stayed in Taipei to "bai-nian" (pay visits to friends for the New Year). I drove to the city of Hsinchu with Nick, Clara and Ginny to meet Ginny's friend Rick and his fiancee for barbecues.
Hsinchu is a technological boomtown - the Silicon Valley of Taiwan. Rick lives on the edge of town, in a house in the midst of farmland. It's a rather peaceful place, but you can almost see the boundaries of this fast-growing city expanding and encroaching upon the area.
It was a frigid, windy day, but we enjoyed a good old-fashioned Western-style barbecue out on the front patio, with succulently grilled steaks and sausages. Yes, there was beer too.
Afterwards, when it got too cold and we had finished our food, we went inside to watch some movies, arguing over their merits.
At one point we took a stroll around the area. Beyond the fields and orchards there were some interesting old houses and shops that were condemned. Many had already been torn down quite recently. Such is the face of progress in Taiwan: out with the old, in with the new.
We were amused by the name of this product:
