Every single time.

奇怪的人

小的时候，拼命的想长大。

长大后，拼命的想当小孩。

真的很矛盾。

Grey areas

As we grow older, things that could be easily pin-pointed as right or wrong in the past don't seem so clear-cut anymore; black and white zones are no longer mutually exclusive, and the grey area has also increased tremendously.

The accumulation of life experiences and lessons over the years has made it so much easier, and yet, also much harder to make objective judgements evaluations about the people and events in our lives. So much easier because we are now better equipped with the vocabulary to talk about it, but more difficult due to clashes of personal beliefs, or the realization that everyone can be unwilling victims of circumstance (sometimes).

I've been made to believe that I'm effectively bilingual since the secondary school days; my principal insisted we all were.

However, the bilingual module that I've been taking this semester has made me re-look at what defines an effective bilingual, and made me realize that I'm not so much of the competent bilingual that I've always thought I was.

I may have used to be slightly better back in the early 2000s, but I've now lost whatever language mojo I had back there :(

I want it back.

After this semester ends in a few weeks' time, I'm going to pick up some Chinese materials (books, magazines, newspapers, whatever) and read away!

Family Sunday

Mumsy always knows what I'm thinking; just like a worm in my tummy.

We were watching some travel show on telly earlier this evening when I felt a need to pass some gas. 

As I lifted my right ass cheek off the sofa, Mumsy shot me a dirty look immediately and asked: "你是不是要放屁?" before giving me a hard shove.

I love it when she can read my mind sometimes. Hehe.

The 2 most important men in my life.

Today was a family Sunday. Headed to Peach Garden at Orchid Country Club for a dim-sum and Peking duck brunch with Grandma and some of my paternal relatives since one of my uncles is back from KL for the long weekend. The food tasted pretty good in general; and I was quite happy to eat the 流沙奶皇包, even though they weren't really the best ones I've had so far.

Made our ways to the ever-crowded Ikea post brunch and the children had a good time running about. The Ikea visit ended with an ice cream cone for everyone. I can't remember when was the last time the different families actually came out for a meal and shopping trip like that, but it was good. Grandma looked really tired though; she looked like she could fall asleep while we were at Ikea.

And that's about it for today.

Came across an inappropriately-shaped cereal during YEP meeting last Tuesday:

They're supposed to look like rockets, but the cereal didn't quite match the picture that's been advertised. Rocket-fail. 

worst hostel experience so far

Few days ago, a friend remarked that I seemed to be very busy travelling this year and asked if it's tiring to be scooting around all the time. We sat down and counted the places I've been to so far in 2011 and it totalled 6 by the end of June (averaging one country per month).

It sure seemed like a lot of travelling, on hindsight, but it felt nothing like that when I was busy getting my passport stamped at the different immigration counters :x

Anyhow, I did a Sumatra trip with some of my new friends who were also in Hong Kong for exchange. Yvonne and Doris had planned to visit Medan, Sumatra, just before Chinese New Year, and asked if I was interested to join them girls (and Tuomas was able to make it in the end too). In all honesty, Sumatra wasn't a place on my to-go list so I didn't think I was going... that was of course until I finally got my tickets booked. To say the least, I'm really glad I decided to go for it, because we had such a great time throughout...

... okay, maybe not the first night.

We arrived in Medan close to/just past midnight, got a taxi amidst all that driver chaos at the airport terminal exit and ended up at some dodgy-looking street where our hostel's (Yvonne reserved beds for a night online) supposed to be. We had the impression that it was going to be a lively youth hostel, but our driver stopped us at the door-step of some weird-looking-building-that-turned-out-to-be-a-church. The owners didn't look too pleased to be woken up by a bunch of noisy backpackers, but after some verifying, it turned out that was the place that Yvonne made the online reservation with. The pictures, description and reviews on the website were one of the most misleading ones I've ever seen in my entire life; there was absolutely no mention that the so-called hostel is located within the same building of a run-down Catholic church. 

Digressing, Catholic's the religion of approximately 60% of the population in Medan according to our cab driver (need some verification with the figure though).

#1 Sleeping arrangements for the first night

Back to the room...

there were cockroaches scurrying around when we finally reached the 4th floor (i.e. top of the building) where our beds were; and there were even a couple of them on one of the beds. Tuomas didn't seem to have a problem with those insects so we gladly offered him that bed. The windows of the room couldn't be opened; they were taped up or something, and since there was only one standing fan in the room (that was falling apart quite badly; I was worried the entire night that the revolving part might just fall off the stand anytime), it turned out to be awfully stuffy.

It was near impossible to sleep. After tossing and turning on my grimy mattress for what seemed like forever, it started to pour heavily outside. Heavy raindrops were coming into the room through the taped-up windows, nice. Not to mention that it became increasingly stuffy with the downpour outside and lack of ventilation in there. It was about 3 plus in the morning that I finally dozed off.

You'd think that was the end of my our attempts (gone horribly wrong) to get some sleep...

But no... we had to be woken up by a rooster's incessant crowing at 5 a.m. (I looked at the time on my watch and cursed the crow). Things were so bad (blood-shot eyes from not getting enough sleep and all) that everything seemed to be funny all of a sudden.

#2 Rise and shine!

We pulled ourselves out of our beds and glanced across the beds at each other to acknowledge the fact that the night didn't turn out too well. Then we went on to wash up and pack our stuff (in fact, I didn't even bother taking anything out of my bag apart from the toiletries; tried to sleep in whatever I'd arrived in), and had some toast with jam that the lady-owner sent to our room.

I can't recall when was the last time (prior to this trip) I wanted to leave a hostel/hotel so badly, but I was definitely glad that we were not going to be spending more nights here. As we made our way down the stairs, we realized that the 2nd and 3rd storeys were areas for mass/prayers (complete with the long benches). An old lady (whom I presume is the lady-owner's mother) who was working in the kitchen saw us and bade us goodbye with a "Selamat jalan".

Even though that wasn't a very pleasant stay in general, I'm still thankful that we had a roof over our heads, and that the experience opened my eyes to the different worst case scenarios to expect while travelling, and provided me with a benchmark to compare unpleasant accommodation experiences with!


Thankfully, things got infinitely better afterwards :)

Taipei: Rest of the short escapade

Found some remaining photos of the city that I've yet to post here:

#1 Taipei 101 (台北101)- 15 minutes away from my hostel by foot. That was the time I took to finish a chicken cutlet for lunch.

#2 Taipei 101 (台北101) - View of the city from the indoor observatory on the 89th storey; would've loved to take another look from the outdoor observatory too but the weather didn't permit.

#3 Taipei 101 (台北101) - Toy cars from way up here

#4 Taipei 101 (台北101) - Another view from the top

#5 101 (台北101) - A part of Taipei that looks really densely populated.

And enough of these unspectacular aerial shots... let's move on to something more uh, random?

Wandered around Wu Fen Pu (五分埔), the wholesale clothing market (that somewhat reminded me of Bugis Street) after a shopping spree, and since Raohe Night Market (饒河夜市) was just round the corner, I decided to drop by to take a look. 

I managed to snag two pairs of shoes for NT180 at the night market and that made me really happy again!

#6 Raohe Night Market (饒河街夜市) - Angry birds and pigs waiting to be clawed.

#7 Raohe Night Market (饒河街夜市) - 包心粉圓; there was a red bean or two found in the centre of each of these gelatinous balls so I suppose the 心 refers to the red beans. It was piping hot and served with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream by the side.

I really liked how the different stall vendors at these markets will try to get the attention of passer bys; like shouting out funny taglines of their products/brands happily (or at least appear to be).

#8 Sunflower Farm at Taoyuan.

Thought I'd like to head to somewhere less crowded on the second last day of the trip, so I arrived at this super far-off sunflower farm after a 2-hour long train ride, a 30-minutes cab ride with a friendly driver. It was so out of the way that the driver had to ask for directions several times along the way, and he even offered to pick me up again after I was done with the whole farm visit thing because there were so little cabs in that area.

#9 Rows after rows of sunflowers

To be honest, it felt a little depressing to be visiting a sunflower farm after a heavy storm; to be looking at sunflowers that have been badly pelted by raindrops and looking tired instead of radiating positivity, water-logged muddy furrows.

Just my luck!

Anyhow, the farm itself is a pretty cool place. You can arrange for walking tours where they'll introduce the different species of sunflowers (I didn't know there were so many variations until this visit) to you, share some interesting facts about the type of plants they grow at the farm, and at the end of it, allow you to cut stalks of sunflowers to bring back home. Barbecues can also be held here, and they'd even prepare the food for you. Apart from that, there's also a cafe and shop selling sunflower-themed merchandise.

A local group was there when I arrived, there were many happy figures in ponchos and rain boots who were armed with pairs of scissors in their hands. All of them looked really excited about the cutting despite the gloominess, and that was quite a lifting sight.

#10 Still at the farm...

#11 Post-rain lily

#12 'Almost there' - took this while waiting for the same cab driver to pick me from the farm; he took a 2-hour long nap while waiting for me to be done. And shared a lot about his family, and Taiwanese in general, with me on the way back to the train station; we had a really great chat!

I'm somewhat convinced that I have some sort of knack for getting into interesting taxi-driver encounters overseas.

#13 涼拌面; last meal in Taipei before heading back to Hong Kong.

#14 牛肉貢丸, 白蘿蔔湯. Looking at the picture makes me crave for a bowl of this NOW.

And that's all the pictures I have for Taiwan! For now.

Dear Taiwan, 

I'll be back in December.  

Mumsy and YF will be coming to visit too.

I hope you're excited to see them :)

Love,

AJ