Happy new year!!!

There was a free outdoor concert downtown on 12/31, featuring mostly local talents.

fireworks to follow at midnight was special, similar to the fireworks during the summer concert..

Here are some of our friends attending the concert.....

Frankie came down with the flu and we took her to the Menonite hospital, one of the two large hospitals in Hualien. The other is Tzuchi. During the holidays, they even have staff musicians to entertain patients while waiting for treatment, cool eh?

Taiwan has a great universal medical plan, which costs about $20us a person a month, which also includes dental, TCM, and prescriptions. Just to make sure Frankie is not infected with a serious virus, we took her to the hospital where she was tested with xray and swap. In less than two hours, we got the result (negative) and went home with her medication. In Canada, we would wait for many hours at the hospital, and the tests would take a few days, what a difference!

With the Taiwan election just a few days away, the campaign is heating up with both KMT and DP pulling all stops all over Taiwan. I was invited to a local KMT rally and dinner, my first such experience here.

I have no voting rights here because I am only a resident and not a citizen. But being an observer, I find the Taiwanese people are very passionate and quite active in the process, and people are split between the blues (KMT) and the greens (DP).

The entertainment was good with some celebs from Taipei singing a few songs at dinner.