The Beginning of the Beginning

The first step is always the hardest, and once that's over, everything should be easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy (courtesy of my P1 tuition student). After 6 months at Sony Gallery and 3 months at World Courier, it's finally time to enter the institution that's NTU. I'm proud and nervous, and that's an understatement right now. I'm feeling like a couldron-full of emotions, with its contents spitting, bubbling and over-flowing wildly, out of control.

In short - I'm freaking out.

Well, I've got more pressing issues at hand. My dad is insisting that he come and help me clean my room at Hall, and knowing how he is, he'd probably make a big fuss out of it. We dropped by yesterday and first he exclaimed it was really clean, and didn't need cleaning, but upon closer observation he felt the the place was pretty much in the dumps, with "spiders the size of those from Africa" and "HarryPotter's curtains". He exclaimed that the entire block housed guys and made a big fuss about not reading signs when I made a slight detour before finding my room.

My mom says it's his way of showing that he's proud of me, and he has to announce to the whole wide world that his son is in Uni. If I manage to survive the embarrassment of him dropping tonight, it'll be another story to tell.

Meanwhile, orientattion camp starts tomorrow and ends on Friday, so I hope there'll be enough fun things to blog about when I return!

Dan Shui

Haha... I seriously did not think that blogging about Taiwan would take the whole of these two weeks to finish, and there's at least 2 more days of material. I'm feeling less and less inspired as days go by so... bah.

Dan Shui is at the extreme end of on the the train lines, but still, with the MRT, it makes it easily accessible and the view is something you don't want to miss.



When we went there the sun was about to set.



And thus, such photos were produced. A hint of last light from the sun before it disappeared for the night.



It's kind of like Clarke Quay, but facing the sea and the row of shops stretch far beyond the eye can see. The funny thing is that they sell more or less the same kind of things at the same prices, like this ice-cream for example. And I also loved the way they were shouting for people to buy their stuff with all their enthusiasm. Fantastic stuff.

We took a ferry and went to Yu Ren Ma Tou, which is translated to Fisherman's Wharf. The plaec was rather secluded from the rest of Taipei, like in a small world of its own. I guess that's why it has such magical views of nature with little of the man-made to intefere.



Okay, that's not exactly true as what's the main attraction is a man-made one, which is this bridge over here.



I like the atmosphere of the place, and I think I'd like to go back and spend some time there. there were restaurants with some rather good singers. The speakers were turned on really loud, so anyone standing on that side of the bridge could here. We heard a few popular tunes, which was cool. (Can you tell how uninspired my writing is? Bah.)



of course the Fisherman's Wharf wouldn't be complete with actual fishermen boats.



More of the bridge. It's truly a unque piece of architecture as it wasn't symmetrical. It isn't held up by a similar bean on the other side. Rather, this is the sole thing holding the bridge up.



We ate a bit of food there, which wasn't really nice. After that we went back to the night market at Dan Shui and ate a bit more. The squid was absolutely delicious, I wish we could get it from road side stalls in Singapore. Other stuff that was available were prawn rolls, and other various seafood.

For some reason, we wanted to get our portraits drawn, so we went to this guy, whom Kherray has also spotted and took a photo of on her blog. What a coincidence! Actually we had a rather unpleasant wait while the artist argued with one customer who refused to pay up the actual amount of what his drawings were worth. We waited an entire hour for the drama to end and for him to finish drawing other people till it was finally our turn.



We were his last customers, and we even helped up pack up most of his stall. You could tell he was really serious about his craft. At the same time he was telling us stories about his tough life, how he learnt to draw and other artists who are along the street are unhappy with how popular he is!

I quite like how mine turned out, although almost nobody agrees that it looks like me!



Till next time!

Long Nai Tang

I was told by an angel to "nt let ur anger get the better of u" so I guess I'll be dropping the matter. It's someone whom I have respect for, don't talk to often, but knows me real well, so I'm at all ears. I'll be a good boy, although I know everyone craves for a scandal (from a guy with such a good track record as me) now and then. I just want to say I take my writing very seriously, and that if you do enjoy what's here, it's the result of a lot of effort. I take photos of road signs so that I'd the the places we've been to, I write frantically on the plane ride back to record what I've done and the schedule of our trip. That's the last thing I'm going to say about this issue.

On with the show.



I woke up earlier than the rest of the guys because I volunteered to get breakfast. We were really sick of the food they were serving us and Wee Hong had recommended this burger place just down the street that you'd see if you walk from Nanjian Rd to Xi Men Ding. It was pretty good, better than the Mcdonalds I had later in the day! I let the rest of them sleep a while longer as they had a late night. I entertained myself by reading this magazine with Edison Chen (the king of style) on the cover!



And also cam-whored a bit, but I couldn't find any angle that I looked good in. I'm aware I look like crap. It's all in the angles. Anyway, this is the view from the toilet, so if you happen to be an exhibitionist, you could probably pull the blinds up and pee in full view of the street below! After that, I took a walk around Xi Men Ding to look for Luo Zhi Xiang's shop with the address my sister gave me but I couldn't find it! We made our way to Xin Bei Tou in search of our hot spring as the weather looked good.



Just a photo to show the translation of Transformers in Chinese! This was at the train station.

Okay, so when we stepped in the hot spring, our eyes were assaulted by the sight of naked old men. I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but we felt like... fish out of water. We were aware of what the situation we were putting ourselves into. It's easy to talk yourself into something but being in that actual situation, we did feel a bit uncomfortable. It wasn't a very expensive one. It costs about SGD 5 per person. The walls were grey, with a huge wooden rack for putting shoes and bags. The men laid on the benches, almost as if suntanning their balls in full glory. I thought of many other gross descriptions but I think you get the idea. And initially we hesitated about taking it off, despite having seen each other in the army shower stalls before anyway. I'm don't think of myself as a conservative person or anything of that sort but I suppose we just weren't used to it.

We did feel like outsiders though, because we didn't know what we were supposed to do exactly, so most of what we did was from observation.

The water itself was freaking hot. There were two pools, one that was further away from the pipe and we guessed was cooler than the other. They weren't exactly seperated, but I was directed away from the hotter pool by this old man. Anyway, the water is so freaking hot that if there were girls hotter than that (as mentioned in opening entry of the Taiwan trip), you wouldn't even be able to stand! The second, hotter pool was worse. I had to control myself from running out the moment I submerged myself from running out.

Despite the discomfort of being in the nude (and here's the really ironic part), it did feel really liberating. I don't know how to explain it but we all agreed that it was an eye-opener, and that it was definitely worth our time. If we were to turn back time we'd do it again, but if we were to do it again after this experience... haha, I guess I'll have to think about it!



I totally agreed with Terence's caption of his friendster pic, "Beitou all nude hotspring!! Conquered that.."!

After that while walking back to the MRT station, we came across a library which we went in to explore.



I thought that it was really cool, because it looked like a treehouse. The outside was surrounded by greenery and all and it's interior was mostly made of wood. Going into something as common but as essential to a community as a library really gives you a more intimate view of the people's culture.



We took photos with the stones because they had all these funny symbols.

I can come up with a 101 reasons for cam-whoring.



After that we dropped by this place for food. I can't remember if that's Yakult or Vitagen but they gave it to us for free. Although the stall was small and simple, it served surprisingly good food. In fact we hadn't tasted something this good in quite awhile. Apparently soaking in the hot spring does work up quite an appetite too!



We then made our way to Jiantan to visit Shihlin again! There were huge sports shops that we explored once more as we already had a couple of shoes in mind. It was a matter of getting a good price for them, so we had a crazy time hunting around for discounts and all! The bubble tea shop in the bottom left picture was playing Jolin's Wu Niang album, so we decided to buy a couple of drinks from them! Haha... also, Daniel couldn't quite stay away from the doll-catching machine yet again! He didn't leave empty-handed though! We didn't buy the shoes as we found it rather impossible to make up our mind. The sun was beginning to set and we made our way to Danshui.



Where the view was incredibly breath-taking.

LMFAO

Remember when you made the claim that, "When we go to the wrong place we'd always find someone to blame?" Then when I asked you how often it happened, you said that it happened plenty of times. Of course, being the fair person that I am, and willing to hear you out, I asked when was the last time (or any other time) that you, or anyone got blamed.

You didn't have an answer.

Let's do this again.

Which part of the trip did I get the schedule wrong, and what "half-truths" have I written on my blog?

I was about to type something more mean, but well, you won't want to see the FACTS that I can name from your stunts in army.

Lots of love,
Jason

Long Shan Shi, Xi Men Ding

So after our hour-long wait for the bus, we finally made our way down the mountain. The rest of the guys were pretty tired and went to sleep. I entertained myself with the sights outside.



The buildings crowded together more intensely as we travelled closer to Xin Bei Tou, where we had our lunch. Initially they wanted to eat Yoshinoya, but I objected. Then after that we went to a normal food stall but SH said he couldn't stand the smell of smelly tofu (he endured for about 4 minutes or so) and thus we made our way out. Seeing that there was almost nowhere else to dine, and out of hunger, I gave in and suggested that we have Yoshinoya instead. There was a bit of a heated "discussion" between SH and me before we settled down in Yoshinoya.



Being the treasurer I can roughly remember how much the meal costs. It's about NT 250 (SGD 12.50) for two. The price may be similar to what's in Singapore, but the taste is totally different. I had no regrets eating at Yoshinoya after tasting the food. I really don't understand how the same franchise can have food that tastes so different though. I had beef and chicken and it tasted real heavenly. There were also huge windows which exposed us to the beautiful view of the mountain that we came from.

After the good meal we went around looking for a Hot Spring. However because of the great number of choices that were available, we became rather confused. Anyway, all of a sudden it looked like it was going to rain. We followed this rather old man with a prosthetic leg to a hot spring called Long Nai Tang, but it was closed for piper repairs. With the impending bad weather, we decided to abandon the idea temporarily.



SH was saying that it wouldn't rain and he'd checked the weather forecast for the 5 days that we were in Taiwan. Well, it did rain eventually and we made our way to Long Shan Shi station, which was my suggestion. I must say, it didn't turn out very fruitful.



This was supposed to be the underground mall, and we didn't find anything interesting. I don't know if we were looking in all the wrong places, or that it wasn't late enough in the day for the day to come to life yet. But it was really quite disappointing.



I can't remember what this night market is called but it's supposed to be a tourist spot as well! There unique stuff you'd find inside are things like dishes made from snake. They've got drinks from snake blood, snake meat and stuff like that. It is kind of freaky to see snakes in cages and all! There's a lot of stalls selling seafood, but we were in the mood for shopping instead of eating.

We continued walking through the streets and I realised how different it was compared to the central of Taipei. This place looked more like what films from Hong Kong portrayed in the 1970s or so. Speaking of which, we missed out on Jiu Fen on this trip, which is supposed to be some resurrected ghost town which in the past was crowded with people trying to mine for gold.

Along the way SH managed to get a bao and asked the shopkeeper for directions. It turns out that we've walked quite a distance and the nearest MRT station was Xi Men Ding! We also had ice cream but it wasn't very good. It continued to drizzle a little and made walking a tad hazardous due to our slippers.

So we made our way back to the hotel. It was then that we realised that there was no electricity and I had to sit outside to get my camera battery charged. Also, they were all showering in almost complete darkness. Thankfully, they changed a room for us, this time without a bathtub but relatively more spacious. After changing into clean clothes, we made our way to Xi Men Ding again.



The thing at the top left corner is the rather nasty tasting hai dai. What's it in English? Eh, SH ordered it and in the end we played the Secret Number game and I got to eat one of the last ones, with pepper on it. Yuck! SH and Daniel indulged in more doll-picking machines.



We went to this shop that sells all sort of things for anime fans. The top floor was for dressing up as anime characters. Then the other floors had all sorts of different things. The biggest one was the second floor with its extensive comic collection.



And after walking around a bit more it was back to the game machines!

Actually I would say Tiapei seems to be obsessed with games. Almost everywhere you go, you'd be able to find game shops. They're never one too many for them! The people are friendly and they'd adjust the dolls for you to have greater chance of catching them. Although it's not necessarily true all the time, but seeing it tithering at the edge makes one more determined to get it once and for all. Haha.. It was great that they were so generous and more focused on customer satisfaction than anything else.

Yang Ming Shan

We set off the next morning to Yang Ming Shan. Don't ask me how we got there. I can't remember!



Okay, so I can, vaguely! This is the what can be seen at the underground entrance to Xi Men Ding MRT. The Harry Potter movie's brilliant, so I was delighted to see such a humungous poster of him over the entire building! Anyway, we went to Jian Tan before taking a bus up the mountain called Yang Ming Shan.



The ride was a surprisingly smooth one. It's amazing how they've managed to make the mountain so habitable. The roads were good, as compared to those in some of the mountains in Thailand or Myanmar. By the looks of the plentiful buildings which included houses, schools and shops, they also seemed to have no problem with the sloping terrain.

The only problem we had was that we didn't really know when to pay the bus fare, but the bus driver informed us! It's still kind of confusing, but I think I get it. Sometimes you pay when you get on the bus, sometimes you pay when you get off the bus!



Upon alighting at the interchange we searched for a bit of information about where we were headed. Without much ado, we made our way up the mountain. It left us gasping for breathe and the ache in our legs were intense, due to how we walked all day the day before!



Along the way we saw more senior citizens than young people. They seemed to be in good shape, running up and down like it was no challenge at all. Meanwhile, the four of us wheezed heavily going out the sleep side of the mountain, before making it to higher ground. We were rewarded with great scenery of the entire place. I'd love to return one day and go up to as many of the peaks as possible. I'm sure they're different from one another, each hiding a special secret or a unique view.



We got a little closer to wildlife when we encountered squirrels, butterflies, caterpillars and storks.



Unknowingly, we trespassed onto private property while trying to find out way out! The view was even more specracular from there! It was a small farm, and it was really an eye-opener to be in a far on the mountains. Things we learned in Geography like irrigation came alive in front of our very eyes. Thoughts of spending money to get a piece of proerpy to spend my old age there actually crossed my mind. Anyway, it was only after asking the owners of the place, who so kindly led us to the correct path and told us that we were trespassing, that we managed to walk to YMS's information counter! The lady at the counter advised us to go to Xin Bei Tou by bus, as we wanted to go to the Hot Springs.

We walked some more and soaked in the gorgeousness of a small waterfall that some passerby recommended.



Looking at this picture makes me want to go back immediately! The weather was cool and the sound of rushing water was calming. We sat there for quite awhile and took our time enjoying our surroundings as it was still some time before the bus was due to stop at the bus stop which was about 10 minutes away. I think it's probably only the second time I've ever come across a waterfall, or the first! I can't really remember but most of the time in countries like the aforementioned Thailand and also Brunei, they've got clear, rushing rivers that are so tempting to strip off and dive into. Anyway, we didn't bring extra clothes and neither was the body of water big enough for us to soak in, so after about 20 minutes we left for the bus stop.

Only to miss the freaking bus as Terence and I went to the toilet. It took a complete hour before we managed to catch a bus to bring us to Xin Bei Tou, where the promise of a Hot Spring awaited.

Harry Potter

After this time, I shall not come online till I finish the final book of the Harry Potter series. I have no idea why I love the book so much, especially since I caught on relatively late. I'm not exactly crazy over it. I don't own the previous book. But the excitement is just too much to bear. Someone ruined the Half-Blood Prince for me by telling me part of the storyline. It didn't give me the kind of kick from reading it for myself. Therefore I shall make sure that nothing gets in my way and I will find out the ending for myself.

Yes, I'm obsessed. And you can probably tell that the world is obsessed as well. Everyone is cranked up with anticipation. There's no release of a freaking book that would cost so much in security costs. I'm sure you'd have read about it in Life! today, or any other random entertainment websites that you'd have come across. I don't have to explain what a big deal this book is.

It signals the end of an era. We'll never know if there'd be series as big as this in our lifetime. It has manged to capture our imagination like no other.

I've watched the movie and I gave it 5/5. There was this bitchy ah lian complaining about how there wasn't enough action etc. but I think she went to watch the movie for the wrong reasons, and thus she ended up feeling dissatisfied.

Dumbass.

Go watch the movie if you're a fan, I think it's a rather decent adaptation. And to see most of the cast growing up, yet being so dedicated to the completion of the movie is just a rare and amazing sight. I felt for the various themes portrayed in the movie.

If you don't like it you obviously lack depth.

But I'm running in circles with this entry anyway. I can't wait to get my hands on the book, along with the rest of the world, in six hours. In six hours the tale that began in 1997 will finally meet its end.

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Shihlin Night Market

Look at it and tell me that it's not tempting.



Bet you couldn't do it with a straight face! I was really addicted to it when I was in Taipei! Anyway, we walked back to the train station and Daniel and SH were stunned when they saw Yong He Dou Hua or something like that!



I have the picture of the signboard in the other computer, but I didn't put it up. Anyway, it's a pretty famous brand. A trip to Taipei 101 introduced Yong He as a place which is famous for its soya bean products, so I'm guessing that's where the shop got its name from. Blogging every day on Taipei is getting me tongue-tied. It's beginning to sound rubbishy. Anyway, after that we made our way to Shihlin Night Market, although it wasn't quite night yet! Weirdly enough though, the market wasn't at the Shihlin stop. Instead it's at Jiantan.



And our jaws were on the floor the moment we stepped out of the train. It's not everyday you see a mountain in view from the train station back in Singapore. So we kind of stood there for a little while, in awe at our surroundings, amazed at how close we were to landforms not seen at home.



We had a bit of interaction with the locals while playing some of the games there. There was this girl who was rather cute, teh-ing Terence and Daniel to play the basketball game. After that Daniel went to play this mahjong game which involved the characters being on the paper and having to do something like Bingo with the mahjong tiles. The girl in charge of the game was merely 16 and rather friendly as well. Some way or another, we found out that she was learning Japanese. Upon further conversation, she revealed that she would be attending a student exchange programme as she was ranked the 5th student out of 3000 in school. We were impressed.

Other than that there was this guy from Malaysia who was in charge of this dart-throwing stall. He told us that he watched one of our local shows, Holland V and he kind of liked it. And he also turned Jay really loud on the radio till the boss asked him to turn it down. For the life of me I can't remember what song was playing but we managed to win a Xiao Ding Dang doll from him! he looked our age or older, so I was quite surprised to find out that he was only 16! Oops!

I'm impressed that they were so friendly towards us. One might say that it's because we're tourists and they're out to get our money, but somehow I feel that the connection we made was a bit more than that. It's really cool that they have so many young people out working at a young age.



And this is the very famous Ji Pai (for the life of me I can't remember what it's called in English) that's humungous and really tasty. It costs NT45 (SGD2.25) which I felt was a freaking good deal. The locals seem to think so too as the queue constantly has about 10 to 15 people in it.



This is the market coming to life at night. The layout is a huge mess, which I felt adds to the flavour of the place. It was super re nao, and it was a weekday! I might be because of the holiday, but people were thronging the place like there was no tomorrow!

Everyone seemed to be in high spirits, enjoying themselves tremedously. I also liked how they were hawking their wares loudly. Even if they weren't the most patronised, or even if people walked by without noticing, they would still go on, spirits undampened. It wasn't really that they were determined to do business. It was more of the fact that they were enjoying themselves tremendously, bellowing and persuading the general public and at the same time it livened up the atmosphere.



We bought lots of clothes at this shop situated at one of the smaller alleys. Then as we walked towards the train station Terence passed by this shop selling watch straps and stuff like that. Terence changed his and hung around for a chat with the auntie regarding the various places of interest in Taipei while Daniel and I went back to the food place across the street to buy food. I took a photo of this strange practice that was relatively new. They'd stick a burning candle into your ear and it's suppose to attract all the wax onto the candle's wax. The process clears out your ears effectively. Not that I'm speaking from experience of course!

We went back real late, and was contemplating whether to continue with our plan up Yang Ming Shan.

Speak Chinese, Am One

I was repulsed when I read this article in the Forum page of the newspaper today. I mean, my parents are always asking me to read so that I'd be aware of what Singaporeans' concerns are but I get disgusted everytime I read something like this. It just stinks of what is the famous, typical Singaporean style - complain, whine and expect others to make something happen. In fact I'm so disgusted that I can't put down my thoughts into words properly. But I'll try.

And I shall (try) not resort to vulgarities even though I'm very tempted to use them because the points that were brought up are ridiculous.

I've been through all the rote learning that the Chinese cirriculum mentioned has to offer and although I don't think I'm very proficient in the language, I appreciate what I've been put through. I have no regrets and I know that I've done my best in mastering the language during the course of my education. I took Higher Chinese in P5, dropped it a year later. I took it again in Sec 1 and 2, but got switched to Express Stream after that. I'm not proud of the fact that I didn't succeed but I don't see it as a failure either as I had greater opportunities to increase my exposure to the language.

I don't believe that "having a flair for languages is more the result of nature than nurture". She believes that our education system must allow students to tackle the challenge of mastering a second language at their own pace. If what she says is true then we do not require a syllabus. We can allow everyone to study Maths and Science at their own pace so as to cultivate their interest in these subjects, unless she's so narrow-minded to think that languages are the only thing that are the result of nature.

Of course I believe in nurture especially since we're not in the topic on why shorter people have a disadvantage in basketball or volleyball, but that's not the point here.

"Writing words repeatedly or weekly spelling which tests nothing except the student's power of regurgitation", but isn't that true of other subjects as well? With any damned subject, you must know its contents at your fingertips before you're able to manipulate them. You need to know your History before you can give your views on them. You need to know your Science so that you can give an explanation on the test results. Regurgitation? There's plenty of that going on in almost every subject, so why point your finger at Chinese language specifically?

"It's not the good and worthy who prosper. It's just the motivated." (Animorphs, The Ellimist Chronicles) Her suggestion to "delink mother-tongue examination results from students' progress in the education system" is preposterous. She should find a better reason for this action because it'll definitely not encourage bilingualism. If students are studying Chinese for the sake of doing well, then will taking away that reason cultivate their interest in the language?

I think not.

Having struggled with it for most of my life, I was real happy to be able to understand almost 99% of what the Taipei tour guide of the 228 Memorial Museum was talking about. My efforts in learning the language has not gone to waste. Having grown up in this batch I think that we're really able to appreciate Chinese as a language, and it's advantages as compared to English. And my point is the one that my mother has been trying to drive into me since young - English is the what I use to communicate with the world; Chinese is the way to my roots.