So I think I haven't blogged about PW ending.. And yes, it has finally ended! :D
Don't really feel extremely relieved now that I'm blogging as it ended on 14th November, which is approximately a month ago.. That sense of relief is no longer that great as before. Definitely praying and hoping for an 'A'!
Anyway, after PW ended, school was rather enjoyable in the sense that there wasn't really much work to chiong or mug really hard, which was definitely great. School hours were short, breaks were long. Haha. And then after the holiday lectures which lasted for a week or so, it was the long-awaited Taiwan Trip! :D
I had been looking forward to it for a few reasons:-
1. I had never been to Taiwan before.
2. I had never been on a school trip before.
3. I would be going to Taiwan with a couple of friends, i.e. Amanda and Felicia! :D
4. Hopefully, it would be a great opportunity for me to interact with more MJCians and widen my social network, given my pathetic social circle in MJC.. hahaha.
Anyway! The trip was from 24 Nov 2012 to 30 Nov 2012. Cost was approx $1.1k after Edusave deductions and other stuffs. It was REALLY FUN! There were lots of food, shopping, and the people there were really awesome! The tour guide was damnnn nice (& I think he's rather good looking, although others beg to differ, oh well..). The people there were friendly and approachable, not just the stall/shop owners, even the locals themselves! When we were shopping for stuffs, and asked the shop owners some questions, but eventually chose not to buy, they would not 板黑脸 to you, and continue to smile and be friendly. Really good service! And when we were eating our food at a food centre that looks kind of like a coffee shop, some locals actually conversed with us. In terms of food, I believe Taiwan has been quite renowned for their food, especially food sold in their night markets, which I also agree that it is really delicious! General pricing of their items are quite reasonably sold, especially for food, which is definitely cheaper than Singapore's I think. Clothes wise, just slightly cheaper than SG's.
I'm going to try to recall from my memory the places we been to and include some images, so they're not actually in chronological order.. heheh.
Then there was a one-night farmstay at a farm, of course. Made my own 笛子 and this bamboo spinning toy thingy (pic above). Sadly, on its way back to Singapore, they suffered some damages, so they don't really work as well as they did.. :( Anyway, the farm stay was pretty alright. Since I have been to Australia's farm before, it didn't really differ too much, like animals & crops. Yeah. But it's in a different setting. This farm was like in a valley/ on a mountain or smtg like that. So we had to climb some hills and all. Woke up in the morning around 5am, hoping to catch the sunrise, but it was too cloudy that day so we couldn't catch it. And it turned out that out of the entire tour group, all the girls and only 2 guys turned up to watch the so-called sunrise. 女孩子还是比较可靠吧！不像那些男生，放一百导游的飞机。 :D
Oh yes, and the night before, we actually got to 放天灯！Really cool mannn. But it was a rainy night so I couldn't get good shots since I brought my DSLR to the farm... And there were also fireworks display after that.
And there was also a visit to the 921 Earthquake Museum. The remnants of the earthquake on 21st Sept 1999 让人看了之后感到心寒。Some photos below:-
Collapsed classroom
Debris
Classroom ceiling/rooftop at ground level
Sports track
A resulting hill caused by earthquake
Height of the hill
On a lighter note, we also visited a tea plantation and experienced plucking tea leaves and processing them etc. We brought back to Singapore the tea leaves that we plucked! :D Quite interesting :)
And we also stayed at a hotel/resort that offers hot spring in our own rooms. So Amanda and I, being roommates, sat in the hot spring tub twice for the 2 nights that we were there. Never experienced it before, so it was pretty interesting. Too bad we can't have it in Singapore ah! :/
We also visited a geological park, with all the rocks and sand and mudholes all that looking like different things.
a shoe/slipper
a parrot's head
Also went to 集集火车站坐火车到车程，看见美丽的风景，也在火车轨道上照相，甚至有一张在模仿《那些年，我们一起追得女孩》的一部景象。有点懒得 upload 那张照片。。hehe.
我们还去参观了一家制纸厂，挺新鲜的，因为从来都没去过这样的工厂。
除此之外，我们还到了著名的日月潭。风景还相当迷人，可是没有想象中的那么好看，也许是时间的关系吧。。那里卖的阿嫲茶叶蛋还真的蛮好吃的！
一些其他景点包括：
- 蒋中正纪念堂
- 西门町
- 五分埔
- 市林夜市
- 逢甲夜市
I have truly enjoyed this trip to Taiwan! Given the chance, I will definitely return to Taiwan again! :D
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Anyway, today's 21st December 2012. According to the Mayan's calendar, the world is supposed to end today. But it didn't. Otherwise I wouldn't be here typing this post right.. Sources have said that there was a miscalculation and the world should end on 3 September 2015. True or not? We'll know the answer in 3 years' time...
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A random thought I had last week or so:
Facebook is able to sustain because it survives on human's need for conformity. Whenever we post something on Facebook - a status, a photo, a video etc - many a time we do hope that there are 'likes', 'comments' or even 'shares'. Why? Because we want to know that others have also experienced whatever you have, or understand what you mean. And what does all this equate to? Our need to feel "the same" as others. I feel, that without the 'like', 'comment' or 'share' function on Facebook, it becomes a boring social networking site where you simply read off your newsfeed and know what others are doing without giving a response of some sort. Most probably when one does not have many 'likes', 'comments or 'shares', he'd be reading the posts on his newsfeed rather than posting more stuff of his own. Which brings me to the point of why most teenagers (who use Facebook and other social networking sites often) lack self-expression, i.e. their ability to speak up. That's because they don't post their own views and lack their own perspective - sitting at a corner and absorbing information passively. Something commonly seen in the classrooms of Singapore schools. I say this because I myself am a Singaporean student doing just about the same thing. Really. So what I think is that social networking does affect our communication skills and subtly influences our character. I wouldn't say to stay out of them, but to "use in moderation", as it still has its benefits like enabling us to keep in contact with old friends and being updated of the latest news (to a certain extent).
* P.S.: I kept using Facebook in this as I don't own a Twitter account, or other accounts for that matter, so I can only say in from a Facebook user's point of view.
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Another random thought:
"Money is the root of all evil."
Well, I beg to differ. Without money, we would most likely be living in a world of barter trading, where we exchange a bunch of bananas for a piece of poultry. I think money is a really important unit that exists in our lives. True enough, it does result in cases of robbery, corruption etc, but without it, and assuming that barter trading continues to go on, our lives would be worse off. That's because people would be killing each other in order to have a successful barter trade that pleases them. There would probably be no humanity. You know what I mean? Uh never mind if you don't get it. I probably wouldn't get it if I read this in the future.. Haha, who knows.
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Oh yes, did I not mention that I had spent the first few weeks of my Dec Hols watching dramas?
Really wasted a lot of time on that. Hehehe.
Some dramas I watched:
My Princess (Korean)
My Lovely Sam Soon (Korean)
Office Girls (Taiwanese)
... I think there were other dramas too, but I can't really remember what they are.. Heeeh. :)
They're all pretty good, especially My Princess. Kekeke. :D
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I think I should probably end my post here.
Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year to everyone in advance! :D
Bye! :)
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