So turns out karaoke is a lot of fun. Nothing untoward happened, just a bunch of women drinking gin and tonics, beer and cider, eating fried chicken and singing loudly and badly. The KTV was just what you'd want for a private party. The place is just a bunch of rooms with really good sound proofing. Our room was lined with couches and tables with a small stage at one end and a huge tv screen. We'd brought food and the staff provided the plates and glasses and delivered beer, ice and tea throughout the evening.

I wonder if they regularly stop by all the rooms just to keep an eye on things. You don't hear much about illegal activities at the KTV's - there's virtually no drug activity in Taiwan so that takes out a whole swath of potential bad things happening - but I imagine you'd like to see it stay that way if you're a business owner. The Taiwanese women at the party said they all went to KTV's in high school and college to hang out with friends and there was never any sense of it being unsafe or seedy. Not unlike your local neighborhood bar without the pool table and every group of friends gets their own room.

On a completely different note, we had a nice ride up and over Monkey Mountain on Saturday morning. Since we were out so early the traffic was light so we explored the streets along the harbor before heading home. Here's the view back towards the "mountain."

It doesn't look so impressive when you're not actually biking up it.

Some of the statues at the art park seem to have gotten a new coat of paint.

We also saw this pair in an area known as the Banana Pier.

 There were a pair of dogs waiting patiently outside the door of the not-yet-open restaurant hoping for a handout, presumably.

In the afternoon I felt like a little baking and pulled out this little treasure I'd found at the grocery store: cookie mix straight from the USA.

I like that they just slapped a sticker with the Chinese directions over the already printed English directions. The laundry porch smelled delicious while the cookies baked. That's where the oven is, which is nice because it doesn't heat up the apartment while you're baking. The cookies were a big hit among the people I shared them with. I'm hoping to find more treasures like this the next time I shop.