TAIWAN, NAN HU ROCKS!

Its been damn long since i last updated my blog and the reason is simple--too freaking busy! Shit, Im already 3 quarters into my holidays and i have not even flip open i single page of my notes. Die sia, think next year would be an uphill task to overcome my workload. I can't even remember exactly what holiday homeworks i have.

Anyway, thats beside the point, i've finally come back to singapore after spending 18days there. It was so darn fun and honestly i have no wish to come back to singapore so soon. The 18 days in Taiwan was an eye opener for me even though it was my 3rd trip back there. However, this time was different--it was a lot more special. I really count myself as being damn freaking lucky to be selected for this taiwan immersion programme and i am grateful to be part of this 'nan hu' story with the rest of the people who where sent to nan hu as well.

During the 18 days, i was able to experiance 1st hand how the locals live and how their school life is like. and i must say its a damn stark difference from singapore. First thing first, the entire country is freaking environmental! its damn hard to find a single trashcan there cause almost everything have to be thrown into the recycling bins which were damn hard to find! I was also impressed by their school as the students have to split their rusbbish into the various types of materials and discard it into their respective places.

i shall now try recall what happened during my past 18 days there. In the first day when we touched down, we were immediately sent to nan hu senior high for a mini welcome reception. the moment we arrived at the school, i was totally blown away by the reception that was givemn to us. All the Taiwanese students that were involved in this programme were flanking both sides of the corridor leading up to the hall and were cheering loudly at us while we entered the hall. After the reception, we went back to our buddy's house to stay for the 1st night before we head for the 4 day tour the next day. Thank goodness Bo lun's house is only a 5min walk away from school as my luggage was freaking heavy and i had to drag that super dua ling gong all the way to his house. My first night in his house was funny and quite embarresing at the same time. I was given his elder brother's room to sleep in as he was staying in the school hostel. So i changed out of my school uniform in his room, not sensing anything was amissed. lo and behold, the moment i left the room and went into the living room whicvh was just beside it, i was stunned. the 'walls' of the room which i had just changed in and would be sleeping in for the most of the nights in taiwan were actually transluscent glass! Shit sia, i had actually given a free show to the whole family on the first day! Maybe they were being nice or maybe they had not seen what had happened cause they seemed to not know what had happened.

The 2nd day we gathered at Nan hu in the morning to be picked up by the travel buses and so begin our 4 day 'educational trip' of Taiwan. We went to Sun Moon lake where we had a superb view of the place. As the bus was traveling along the sides of the hills overlooking the lake, me and nicholas were like some idiots leaning into the bus window and snapping pictures of the scenery. We spent like the whole afternoon going around the lake so that 'we could have a good view of the lake at various angles' diao... We spent the night in some resort where we lived in little wooden cottages. Shannon was hao lianing when we found out that his room would be a VIP room. but damn i would not trade places with him cause his roommates were 2 other teachers. HAHA. My roommates were mao chian and 2 other tjc ppl (guan jie and winston). Guan Jie i hope you dont mind me if i call you snorlax cause you snor rather loudly during the 1st 2 nights of the tour. You have no idea how much suffering you have caused me, haha. As im a light sleeper, i found myself not being able to fall asleep easily. Do you know how did i manage to fall asleep on that night? I actually used my plug in earphones as earplugs to sleep! lol, but anyway it was fun knowing you and winston.

The second day, the itinery stated that we were going to some (jiu zhu wen hua chun) 9 tribal cultural village. I thought it would be a mundane trip as i imagined it to be museum filled with tribal relics. But it turned out that i was wrong and that the whole place was a freaking theme park! In the afternoon, we went to Xitou forestry park where we spent several hours walking pass hundreds of trees just to see one tree that had been struck by a lightning! The tree was called a shen mu because its a damn old tree. But seriously ah, we were freaking suay cause the moment we reached the tree and before i could take out my camera and take a decent picture of the tree, the fog closed in so fast that it almost completely shrouded the entire tree. Piang eh, so much so for trekking so long to take a shot of the tree. From a nature guide perspective however, i rather enjoy the trek as it was very refreshing for me to trek in such a condition rather then the ones back in singapore. There were also a lot of flora and fauna that i could not recognise and i think that it would be cool should there be a proper guide for the entire trek. We spent the night at Ming Shan Da Fan Dian where me, Nicholas and some of the vjc guys went to try out their sauna. It was freaking funny when i think about it. The place contains 1 normal pool which does not have a heater and 2 warm pools. When we went into the pool area, we saw some njc girls occupying both the warm pools. As we were shy, we didn't dare to enter the warm pool so we went into the normal one instead. IT WAS IMBA COLD. The pool was 17 degrees only! I think the njc girls on seeing our plight took pity on as they went to share a warm pool instead. The moment we saw one of the warm pool was available, the group of us immediately jumped out of the artic pool and dived into the warm pool. DAMN SHIOK AH! At night, it was reported on the news that a typhoon was coming and that all civilians are advised to stay away from mountainous areas. My first thoughts was pang sai! We tmr going up to ALISHAN, good game.

Dissapointingly, the typhoon never came. I was quite looking forward to it actually cause i have never experiance a typhoon before. The bus ride up the mountain was long and there was a period where we drove through a thick fog--or so i thought. However after like 30mins of drving through that thick layer and when we reached the top, i realised that what we had just drove through was not a layer of fog, but a freaking layer of clouds! That was so f***ing IMBA! We went to the peak of the mountain the next morning to watch the sunrise but the weather was so bad that we couldn't see shit. So we ended up freezing our butts off there in the 8 degree celsius chill.

After the 4 days, we went back to Taipei to stay with our buddies. But before that, there was a welcome dinner on the 5th night where we had to stage a performance during the dinner. VJC did a trio of singing, dancing and cheering. I was in the 3rd one and believe it or not, i was lifted up into the air and sitting on Nicholas's shoulders. For the sake of not breaking his shoulders when i land on him, he banned me from eating too much of the food before the performance. The cheering was executed smoothly and for that i wanna thank the vjc cheerleading ppl for giving us helpful tips on how to do some stunts. If not for your help, i think i would need to tap on the insurance that i bought for this trip. LOL.

On the 6th day, we were introduced to the entire school on stage. The way the students were organised in their hall are so much different for us back in vjc. Instead of lining up in a single file, they have to fall in macam army style like that and they would be scolded by the jiao guan (army officer--their version of our DM) if they were out of formation. The rest of the day was the school tour and the giving out of the school uniforms. Their school campus is hugh! It totally thrashes VJ. The school is 11 stories high, the track in on the 5th floor, they have a swimming complex and they own an observatory! Its called the Remote Observatory of Taipei (ROoT).

Everyday, we would sit in for the 1st 2 lessons of our buddy's class before we would go for the other classes that was specially made for us. We tried out various activities such as paintball, culinary class, mug making, astrology class, water aerobics amongst a slew of other activities. i think one of the activities that i would not forget is the water aerobics. It was freaking funny in the changing room la! Nicholas, Kennenth and Chang Yang were wearing knee length trunks and they laughed the moment they saw me cause i was wearing a pair of trunks that was damn short. This is not the best part, the moment Jun Bo came out of the cubical wearing his trunks, we laughed our heads off cause he was wearing a pair of T-shaped trunks. But sia la, he ps me, didnt go down in the water in the end cause he said that he was sick, lol. I initially thougth that the water aerobics would be slack but it turned out that i was wrong. It was damn tiring as we tried all these funny moves where we had to kick in the pool and such. It was fun nevertheless.

Their lessons are so much different from ours. For one thing, its conducted in CHINESE! I almost died in their lessons as i was completely lost from top to toe! Those who know how jia lat my chinese is would understand how much suffering i've been through, lol.

During breaking time, which is from 12 to 1, the students woould all buy their food and bring it back to class it. During the few days there, i was able to run a bit even though it was not the proper training which i had hoped for. Nevertheless, training in their school was a novelty for me as one round of their track is only 200m, haha. It was very cooling to train there too. And for once, i dont have to immediately take a shower after training cause i did not perspire a single drop.

While there, our buddies brought us to various places like Shilin, Rao He Jie, Miao Kou at Jeelung, Ximenting, Taipei 101, Mei Li Hua, Mao Kong and so much more. It was damn shiok and my appetite was bigger then usual while i was there. Maybe it was because of the fact that Taiwanese food are IMBA nice! Me and Nicholas gobbled down about 15 food snacks when we were at Miao Kou, which is this place were it sells tons of food!

The trip to Taiwan proved to be very enriching and its a petty that the 18 days just whizzed by so fast. During the mini farewell in Bo Lun's class, he cried when he wanted to say a few words to his class regarding the past few days. Even though i did not cry then, i must admit that my throat felt like there was an apple stucked in it. After that, Xiumin (she is a girl from tjc whom was in my class also) and I had to sing solo in front of the class. It was so freaking embarassing cause I am musically retarded!

During the farewell dinner, it was a bittersweet affair as we all bade a final goodbye to our buddies for the last time. We took every opportunity to take photos with our taiwanese counterparts and new singaporean friends. When the moment come for them to leave, dunno why, me and nicholas started crying. Then Bolun started crying also! haha. Freak la, practically everyone was crying!

If given the opportunity, i would definately come back and look for you guys again! Thank you everyone!

Bo Lun, thank you so much for giving me such wonderful memories of taiwan to take away back to singapore. Having been back home for 4 days already, i still could not totally get ues to life bak here. I miss waking up in the morning to go to school with you, i miss saying ZAO (morning) to everyone in class, i miss your form teacher telling his jokes in the morning, i miss talking to your father late into the night, i miss your mum's constant wanting me to eat fruits before i sleep, i miss your younger brother's revising his english, i miss seeing your elder brother watchign tv and most of all--i miss you company and guidance.

Taiwan rocks

Nanhu rocks

Birdwei rocks

Superman rocks

Xiao Hua rocks

Ming Kai rocks

Zhixin rocks

Ming Yao rocks

Chang yang's other buddy rocks

Ao Hong rocks

Camel rocks

Tifanny rocks

Xiumin's buddy rocks

Xiao Pei Lao Shi rocks

Yang Zhu Ren rocks

The rest of you guys rock

and most of all...............

BO LUN YOU ROCK!