Beijing and Tokyo

We're off on Monday for nine days in Beijing and Tokyo! We had enough frequent flyer miles to do a trip up to Tokyo, then found out that for just a few more miles we could get a stopover somewhere else, too. We added on Beijing. Both China and Japan are new countries for both of us. We've changed planes in Narita like everybody else, but that's it. Mateo and Deanna live in Tokyo these days and we'll be staying with them for the Tokyo leg, no way we could afford to do that otherwise! Beijing is first on the itinerary, however, three full days there to see all the sights in one of the fastest moving cities in Asia.

Election monitoring in Nakhon Sri Thammarat

On Sunday we caught an early flight out of Bangkok to Nakhon Sri Thammarat to do some election monitoring for the snap election that PM Thaksin called about a month ago. Nakhon Sri Thammarat is down in the south (not the violent part), and is heavily anti-Thaksin. The opposition parties were boycotting the election so most people ended up voting "No Vote" which meant the ruling Thai Rak Thai party candidates ended up getting beat by a "none of the above". The election as a whole went off pretty smoothly where we were, the polling places were well organized, most people came out to vote even though it was an odd election. After polls closed each location went through rigorous security procedures, taping up the ballot boxes, signing the tape, wrapping it with string and putting a wax seal over the string. Everyone trooped off to the local indoor basketball arena where dozens of college kids were busy taking the ballot boxes and organizing the ballots for counting. The political situation still isn't settled yet, but it was nice to see people taking such a civic interest. Democracy's come a long way here.

The shot is at the first polling station we stopped at, just before polls opened at 0800. Already had a few people waiting to vote. At 0800 the election authorities showed everyone the ballot boxes were empty, then sealed them with a plastic lock and away they went.