Avalon

Taiwan.. Continued (Part 2)

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

On the fifth day, we went to Zhong Lie Ci in the morning to watch their passing over ceremony. It really reminded me of the old NP days except that obviously the soldiers had a more gruelling work schedule.

Ok so I promised to talk about Bei Yi Nu, one of the things that we (at least the guys)have looked forward to before the trip. But ok let's just say it is a slight disappointment. Once again we were divided into classes and this time round we attended two lessons each with the Bei Yi Nu girls. I have to say my host class was still ok, in fact quite warm. Managed to engage in some small talk with the girl sitting beside me, but no dream girls, no special surprises whatsoever. Well at least the class seemed quite reluctant to see us leave after the two periods. I use "seemed" because I am not sure whether that is a show of pretence or a display of true emotion. This will have to tie in with Alvin's account of how he and his group were totally ignored by their host class. That was probably what pissed him off so much so he now dislikes the school. He claimed he saw the true colours behind the facade. Obviously some of the LEP girls strongly sided Bei Yi Nu. It appeared that the girls in their host classes actually cried when they saw them leave after a mere two hours... I was like wow I didnt know that this kind of visit can be so melodramatic. Spare me. Ok I am not sounding jealous but hey I mean given if it were you would you believe this is all just a matter of being able to click??

So that was Bei Yi Nu for you. I hope I don't mislead people into believing that place is really pretentious and all. There are always the good and bad in one place anyway. On the sixth day we went to Tai Da, only to visit its botanic garden in great detail. If not for the good-natured guide who brought us about scrutinising different types of plants as though we are on a quest to get the Young Botanist Badge, I would have put myself on screen-saver mode. Then we got to take photos (Wow!!) as usual in some more popular hot-spots of the school grounds. (like 椰林大道) Then it was off to Ying Ge where we made our own clay models. It was great fun, although my model was 90% made by the instructor and so the sense of achievement is greatly reduced to less than 10%... In the evening we visited the Taipei landmark- Taipei 101. I thought the skyscraper looked quite funny in its architecture and I found it quite slanted when I looked up at it from a distance of about 20 metres. Ok parallax error... Anyway the things here are so mainly ostentacious goods selling at exorbitant (ok maybe normal for the richer class) prices, but definitely not a place meant for a bunch of students...

Into the seventh day with half of the journey left. We had Arts and Craft in the morning! It seemed like ages since I had Art and Craft and we were supposed to make some china knots which reminded me of campcraft sessions... Then it was one lecture before we headed down to Dan Shui to view the scenery and to tour the 淡水老街. Next day was quite boring. We had another Arts and Craft session before going to Cheng Pin Bookstore. That was such a disappointment in my opinion. It was just something like Kinokuniya and the books are not any much cheaper than that in Singapore. Shall skip mentioning the ninth day because we visited the museums and stuff.

The tenth day was quite interesting. We visited Xiao Ren Guo theme park and it was really fun. Too bad we did not have enough time to finish exploring the whole place (especially the Mini Europe) because we were busy trying out the different rides in the park. Then we were shoved to a Science Centre which was certainly better than our own, just to look at dinosaurs... Ok but I think the T-rex is really cool. One of the more realistic ones I have seen so far. I have to admit although I am an Arts person, I would love to find out a bit more about bacteria and DNA over there. Here I think I would want to end the account on what we did because after this what we did was more or less the same.

I shall now turn to more juicy topics... The fact that the whole HC group was glued to the TV set every night tuning into South Park was pretty interesting. Eventually everyone became so corrupted that the daily conversations were filled with South Park jargon... This is something we have to change now that we are back in Singapore or else we will only find out that we are the only ones laughing at our own jokes... Then of course the countless bitching sessions we had in Taiwan were definitely eye-openers. It certainly made me learn more about LEP people. Especially some of those whom I reckoned were rather soft-spoken or pretentious. Eventually the subjects were narrowed in on the few primary targets. Haiz... all the bad karma accumulated... But other than that, the trip really lets you know your friends, especially when you fall sick all of a sudden. I shall not wish to elaborate. After all, this sort of thing is supposed to be uncovered by oneself. I don't want to impose my opinions on others, even if the effects are small. So well, here's drawing an end to Taiwan. It had been a great experience and certainly a memorable one.

Envoy of the Stars @ 10:54 PM
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