Taipei

Marching Competition

Can you spot me? XP

oh oh..and we came in second place!!! :D

南門社授證

I let them talk me into singing.

It was 南門社 (Rotary Club of Taichung South)'s Anniversary dinner celebration. They asked me to sing a song with Jack who's ROTEX and his dad's a rotarian from that club.

The last time I sang sang a proper song in front of an audience (Rasa Sayang doesn't count because I had background music and there was someone singing as well) was when I was 8 or 9. I froze on stage and forgot all the lyrics of my song. Yeah, horrible basically sums it up.

This time it was a Taiwanese song. We spent quite a bit of time preparing for it, and both of us sang it as a duet and he played the guitar as well since we couldn't find the Karaoke version of it.

On that day, Jack came to pick me from my house to practise. My face was practically frozen when we reached home cause it was super cold that morning and we were on a scooter. Me having a perpetual cold didn't help either..was becoming more and more afraid I was going to sound like a duck being slaughtered when on stage later that night.

The anniversary dinner was held at this very grand place called 中僑會館 in Taichung City. It was where the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival was being held.

We were there early for sound check and after that I just remembered having to keep telling myself not to be too nervous. lol.

The dinner started with the usual speeches and stuff and what they had that was quite special was that at the begining, they had all the past presidents and their wives doing the 'red carpet' walk. XP and they were all holding balloons- the men held swords and wore crowns, while the ladies held a flower. When I saw that I was like..eehhh I want one too XP Just kidding lah

After everyone has made their way onto the stage, suddenly they play this birthday song and a freaking cake comes rising up from the stage!! SIAO or not?! I'm thinking this Rotary club seriously has too much money too spare.

Food served looked very yummy but I couldn't really eat much of it cause most of it was seafood and plus the butterflies in my stomach made it almost impossible for me to shove anything down my throat.

Feliz Aniversario

HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY 17th BIRTHDAY DEAREST AMANDA!!

Wishing you all the best and the best of everything!

祝妳生日快樂,夢想成真!

A change of wind XP finally..Tse Leng's saved

YES! you guessed RIGHT! XP I finally changed host families!!! ><

I'm now staying in Wujih, 烏日, a place south of Taichung city. My host parents are much much much better :) they're family's very different from my previous host family, and I have a lot more freedom here now. We seem to get along better too XP

My host dad's name is Apple 莊正和 he works from home and has his office just downstairs. So ground floor is his office, 2nd floor is basically our living space, and the 3rd floor is sort of a storage place that is insanely messy (and when it's coming from Tse Leng, I mean it's REALLY messy) and a little rooftop garden and a place to hang out laundary.

My host dad deals with computers, he reparis them, sells them etc. My host mum is a housewife but she's very busy herself cause my host dad invests in property and she's in charge of renting them out, collecting rent and even renovations. (she actually does most of it herself! no kidding! she knows how to remove and fit a new toilet bowl, fit new doors, tiling..they save a whole lot of money on renovations XP)

Besides my host parents, I have 2 host sisters. One's a year older than me, she went on exchange 2 years ago to the US. And my other sister's 14.

And..we have a cat XP. Quite differnt huh? Back home I have 2 brothers, a father who works away from home and 3 dogs. Now, I have a father who works from home, is home almost all the time, sends us to school, 2 sisters, a cat, 3 birds and fishes.

His name's Dan Dan. They didn't buy him or anything..he was a stray cat actually. There was a very strong typhoon sometime early August, before I came to Taiwan, and 烏日was badly flooded. Some of my host family's things were washed away so after the water receeded, they walked out to try to salvage anything that they've lost. They didn't find all of their lost items, but instead, found an almost new born kitten by the road side without it's mother.

So they took it home and here it is XP

And..this is my room. It's much smaller than my last room, but it's still comfortable. The pictures aren't really taken very well since it's a little hard to squeeze myself to one corner of my room and try to capture my room..it's almost impossible cause my room's so small.

Well if you can see I don't actually have a bed. My room has a little Jap style to it, so I basically have a thin mattress that I spread out on the floor and that's my bed.

See the wooden frame? My host mum fixed that up herself..she does most of the interior designing herself as well :)

My tiny miniature table..

Oh..and I don't really have a closet either XP most of my clothes are still in my suitcase. Most of my clothes are summer clothings anyways..so I don't really wear them now. I remember how much trouble it was to pack all my things when I moved from my 1st host family, so I decided that I'll just unpack what I need when I need them..so at least when I move to my 3rd host family I won't have to pack as much XP yes I know I'm lazy. Shut up.

I'm liking this place much better than my last..it's much more convinient as well! Right outside my house is 2 seven-11s. and across the road are rows of shops and in the day there's the day market, and at evenings is sort of a miniature night market where they sell lots of taiwanese food etc.

more later..toodles

IT'S GETTING COLD

HELP!!

Saturday it was a tad bit windy and it was drizzling a little. But Sunday was insane. Rained the WHOLE day and it was freaking cold!!

In just like one or two days, we had from summer temperatures down to 16 or 17 degrees. SIAO OR NOT?!!!

I was out on Saturday with shorts! and now I'm wearing like 3 layers. - . -

My host family wanted to bring me to see this flower exhibition in 大坑 somewhere near 霧峰. It's a little hilly there.

Hilly + Rain + Mud + Cold = Not a very nice experience

The flowers were really nice, it was plots of land, filled, like a sea of flowers. Something I've personally never seen before, and I don't think there's anywhere in Malaysia where you can find something similar.

I tried taking some pictures, but they all turned out horrible cause I was struggling with my unbrella, trying not to get wet, trying not to get my camera wet, and at the same time trying to take pictures. Not an easy task.

Anyways..will take some time to put some words to the pictures I've uploaded donkey years ago ><

烏日社三日遊-台南

10th of October is Taiwan's National Day. Lucky thing that was a Friday, so we all had a long weekend off. I wish it was a Monday though, I hate Mondays. 4 freaking periods of sewing class
- . -

Anyhow, my host club, 烏日扶輪社 organized a 3-day trip to the south of Taiwan. About 60 of us were going.

Dragged my ass out of bed at like 6 in the morning to do some last minute packing then we were off to catch the bus with the others.

Our group picture at the old fortress

Our tour bus was pretty cool. You don't get such busses in Malaysia. It had like 6 tv screens (the ones you usually get in busses in Malaysia, but our busses have only one.) and one huge ass flat screen right in front.

Malaysia- 1 tiny tv screen the size of a matchbox

Taiwan- 6 tv screens + 1 HUGE tv screen- so huge it's longer than you if you lie flat.

We left the house a little later than planned, (as usual - . -) so we didn't have time to grab breakfast. But lucky thing, Taiwanese people eat like every 15 minutes and are ALWAYS ALWAYS well prepared.

When I got on the bus I was given not 1, but 2 Mantous 曼頭..and that's not it.. + 1/2 a Guava 巴樂

Yes I'm happy I had breakfast XP

Our first stop was 台南 to visit an old Japanese fortress. (at least I think it was Japanese) but if I'm not wrong it was later taken over by..someone else..and some architectural changes were made to the fortress. The tour guide wasn't exactly helpful, she was walking ahead of everyone else and talking away into her mic like she was giving the fly behind her ear the tour.

Yes, everyone carries an umbrella.. I remmeber complaining about this when I was in Cambodia, where all these Korean, Japanese and Chinese tourists came in packs all armed with umbreallas. They would squeeze their way past you, so some would abruptly just jostle you aside. I'm pretty fine with that, but their umbrellas were the problem. As you know, us Asians are not that tall.

Their umbrellas, hence would not be held very high, and in fact held rather dangerously at our eye-level.

I almost had my eye taken out by those passing umbrellas. Not funny.

But anyhow, I see it's the same over here. I steered clear of all umbrella-carrying people.

My 3rd host parents :) Implant and 夫人

Note: He's Implant, not because he's a plastic surgeon, but a dentist. XP I assumed he was a plastic surgeon when I realised these guys name themselves after their professions.

I'm very curious though, what if you totally change your profession? Let's say, you're Dentist today, but what if something happened and suddenly you're dealing with insurance? Are you going to change your name to Life?

I think my 3rd host parents are pretty nice :)

My host mum loves shopping, dolling up and stuff. So at least I don't think I'll be deprived of shopping when staying with her ^^

And my 3rd host dad used to travel a lot to Indonesia and Malaysia for business purposes, so he still speaks a little Bahasa Melayu. First time we met, he was happily trying to talk in Malay :)

My club President, Life and 夫人

Nicest people ^^

My future and present host sisters =D Angel and Elain

Rotarians singing a Taiwanese song 台語歌