30/12/2013：
It's a monday.....so it's time for 每周一句! I went up the stage and shared this sentence: If you fail to plan, you plan to fail, credits to Mr Quek. HAHAHAHA. I shared this as it's quite meaningful....I do hope that the students get what I meant.
Then it's lesson time. It's already week 5 and I want to give something to the teachers and staffs in Shimen Elementary School before I go. I actually wanted to ask my mum to airmail me some packets of coffee from Singapore and use it as a gift before I leave. However, I realized the coffee that I drink in Singapore is not suitable for most Taiwanese as they prefer small sachets. Therefore, I came up with another idea: to give them handmade-dragonfly. I went out that day to get the materials to make the dragonfly. Googled for the nearest and biggest bookstore near me and found out that there's one near Tainan Train station. SO RELIVED CAN! I was quite worried what if I really can't find a shop that sell the materials I need? Then I will have to come up with other ideas......
Anyway, I went out to get the materials. I got the pegs (for the note), strings (body of the dragonfly) and was hesitating for the beads (eyes of the dragonfly). The reason is because they don't sell round beads with holes big enough for the satin cord to thread though. I just have to make do with the small and rectangular-liked beads. *SIGH*
OH....Ashmin and Kiatni were at Tainan and we were supposed to meet for dinner that day. However, when I told them I was near the train station to get the materials during lunchtime, they replied saying that they were at the same area too. In the end, I met them and went back to 安平区 together. They were waiting for me at the bus stop. The moment I saw them, I was really happy and excited. It's like finally able to see some familiar faces AFTER SO LONG (okay not very long, it's just 4 weeks and I do Skype with my family, but still....in real life is different.....). I think only those who experience this can totally understand what I'm trying to say here, just like how Kiatni understand it too. When we board the bus back to 安平区, Kiatni saw a friend who was boarding the same train too. It's such a coincidence! It's really nice to meet someone familiar when you're overseas. Trust me. ;)
Once we're back to 安平区, I have to attend a class before I can have a break. I have yet to have lunch at that point in time so I munched on some biscuits in my bag before coming out to meet Ashmin and Kiatni for lunch at 周氏虾圈. I finally can try their 担仔面, it's delicious!!! 果然名不虚传！Next up, I went to have some 冬瓜茶 since the weather that day was quite warm, We walked around the streets before heading back to the school together for my last class for the day. Ashmin and Kiatni's Tainan Trip is supposed to be a relaxing one so they didn't plan to visit any historical site. Instead, they sit through my lesson and watch me teach. *SO SHY CAN* However, the class that day was the naughtiest and the noisiest among my 4pm to 5pm class. Therefore, the side which they saw was the ugly and bad side of my teaching. The children were really out of control. There was a teacher behind but it's the same, useless. Lucky for that lesson, I planned some dancing and game for the class which sort of caught their attention. Some attention.
The kids had fun with the 2 new sisters and Ashmin even took photos with them. :) Putting the naughty and noisy side of them aside, all of them are really very cute!!! Taiwanese children are so adorable. The questions they asked, what they do, their actions are just CUTE, ADORABLE, CUTE, ADORABLE........not sure about Singapore kids as it's a long time since I meet a whole class of them.
Dinner was just eating along the way......焦糖番薯，蚵仔圈，嫩肉饭，大肠 and 丸子汤. I took them to the pier to have a look at the beautiful scenery and we camwhored there too. ;) I mean it's a must to take photos to keep them as a memory. It's something for me to look back and think back about my trip in the future. :)
I sent them off at the bus stop and walked home after that. They are leaving Taiwan the next day for Hongkong before they go back to Singapore. So good for them to be able to travel to so many countries consecutively...I do hope that I can do that in the future but first, build up my courage to do that, alone.
31/12/2013:
Went to school as usual, from 8am to 5pm. Once I got home, I packed some stuffs and at around 5.30pm, my host family and I head off to 崗山, 高雄. Maggie once live there and her parents and siblings are all there. Maggie's family prepared a countdown New Year Eve's dinner that day. We went to her sister's house which is 6 storeys high and so they even have an elevator in the house. My host family and I stayed over at her sister's house, on the 5th storey as there are 2 bedrooms on the 5th storey. It's a very pretty and cosy house. The first 2 level are her sister's family business office and the rest are her sister's home. They have a open air rooftop where we had BBQ and lots of food for dinner that night. I had LOTS OF LOTS OF FOOD. Maggie's parents and sister kept feeding me food that day. 只差沒有撐死！真的好撐啊！However, the food are REALLY VERY GOOD, especially the boiled smelly tofu prepared by her sister. I normally prefer the fried ones but that night, her sister's smelly tofu just changed my view towards the boiled ones. IT WAS SUPERB! *SLURPS*
Anyway, we ate and chit chat all the way until it's time for countdown. I prepared my camera and was all ready for the fireworks. YES, fireworks. Her sister's house is 6 stories high and the surrounding houses aren't very tall, unlike what we have in Singapore. Therefore, although the fireworks were very far, we still can see it as the sky was very dark and not much buildings were blocking our view. I think this was my second countdown. My every first was at my aunt house and I was still quite young that time.
01/01/2014:
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! We woke up and ate the leftover food from the countdown dinner last night for breakfast. Of course, I had more boiled smelly tofu, just couldn't resist. Then I chit chat with Maggie and her sister for quite a while before I head off to an insect and animals exhibitions with Hanson and Maggie's sister's daughters, Yining and Wanqi. For a moment, I thought there will be real insects and animals for the exhibitions but I'm wrong. There's real animals, only at 1 section of the exhibitions. This exhibitions was to introduce the different animals and insects that can be seen in Taiwan and all of them were just air-pumped figurines or statues of different kind of sizes. It's an exhibitions for kids, I find it not very interesting though but it's still an experience for me.
I spent the whole afternoon at the exhibitions and once I reach back to Maggie's sister's house, it's time to bade farewell. It's about 1.5 to 2 hours ride between 台南 and 岡山 therefore my host family and I must leave early. I'm really thankful for Maggie's parents and sister. They were very friendly and made me feel like I'm at home. They were very hospitable and nice people too. It was a great time able to meet time and interact with them. Maggie's sister even gave me a tin of tea before I leave her house. She's really a nice person. I've added her on Facebook so will definitely keep in touch with her. :)
02/01/2014-03/01/2014:
Back to school and same time again. I shared about the festivals celebrated by each race in Singapore. For Chinese, I specially chose Hungry Ghost festival so that I can show them how Getai is like in Singapore. I also showed them some snippets of the movie - 881 to make them understand how is it like to be a Getai singer/performer.
For Malay, I basically touch and go about Hari Raya Haji. I realized they don't have much special celebration which I know of.
Lastly for India, I talked about Deepavali and Thaipusam. For Deepavali, I talked about Henna. I actually bought 5 tubes in Singapore before coming to Taiwan as I know the students here will love this kind of things. I helped the lower primary to draw and allowed the upper primary to choose to draw themselves if they want. All of them enjoyed it and even asked for more. :)
04/01/2014: One day trip to 高雄
I traveled to 高雄 myself and explored 2 places. I took the 区间车 to 左营 and took their metro to 凹子底 I station to go 爱河之心. The metro in 高雄 only accpet their very own ezlink card so I can't use my 悠游卡. I didn't buy their 1-day pass ticket as I will only be going to a few stations. I bought single trip tickets throughout my day in 高雄 if I were to take the metro. Their single trip ticket comes in the form of a plastic coin. I was very puzzled when I first got it as I don't know how to pass the gantry with the plastic coin. Their gantry is the same as the ones in Singapore. There is an area where you can scan your card. I went to ask the staff at the station and she said just scan the plastic coin at the scanning area..........I felt so stupid after asking her for help. LOL. It's quite cool, the plastic coin works the same as the card. When I'm coming out of the station, I don't need to scan the plastic coin. Instead, there is a hole at the scanning area that I can insert the plastic coin. The purpose of this is to reuse the plastic coins. I think this idea is quite good, very environment friendly too.
First stop, 凹子底 station. I walked about 5-10 minutes to get to 爱河之心 It's a beautiful place. There's couple dating along the river, people having their morning jog and family having some fun time together. As for me? I'm all alone enjoying the river and camwhoring myself. HAHAHAHAH.....I spent about 1.5 hours exploring the river......
Second stop, I took a bus from 凹子底 station to go to 三民市场. I read about this yummy yam local delicacy on a travel guide book and decided to go try it. It looks DAMM GOOD in the book, plus, I LOVE yam too, just have to try it. There's something I still cannot get use to it in Taiwan, that is, the waiting time for their public transportation - buses. I waited for about at least 40 minutes for the bus just to go 三民市场 *FRUSTRATED MUCH* Once I got there, I found the stall BUT 晴天霹雳......the stall owner told me that the fried yam biscuit is out of stock! I waited for soooooooo looooooong for the bus, traveled all the way there and it's OOS? He told me I need to wait for another 20 minutes for the coming batch. *OH WELLS* Of course I wait for it.....meanwhile I was so hungry that I had 小笼包, 水饺 and 烧麻糍. The 烧麻糍 was so interesting. It's in a form of a baseball size of ball and it was in submerged in boiling water. It's served without any water or soup but was coated with either sesame powder or peanuts, depends on which one you want to have. I tried both....it's was very different from the 麻糍 I had before. It's more chewy, tender and GOOD. I prefer this kind than the original ones. I wonder if other places in Taiwan have this kind of 麻糍 because it's my first time seeing it in Taiwan after coming Taiwan for the 3rd time. When I went back to the stall to buy the fried yam biscuit, I was too full to eat it so I just bought it and move on to the next stop.
Third and the last stop, it's 美丽岛 station. Maggie told me that there's this famous bakery named 不二家, selling a famous and delicious yam cake. I love pastry so I definitely have to try it. When my reached the bakery, it was about 3pm and the staff told me that it's out of stock! X.X I placed an order and came to collect it after 2 hours. While waiting for my order to be place, 3 customers came in and asked about the yam cake. This proves that it must be very delicious and famous! While waiting, I went to 美丽岛 station to shop. Yup, shop. There's many shops at the station and most of them were about art and handicrafts. The things over there were really very interesting and cute. There's a lot of things too see so I took my time to visit ALL the shops in the station. I bought quite a few things for myself and gifts too. :) Oh ya, I ate the fried yam bisuit! IT WAS SO SPECIAL AND GOOD! Totally worth my trip down. It's my kind of snacks luh. Oh, I forgot to mention that 食尚玩家 interviewed them too.
Before I collect the cake, I went to 六合夜市. I couldn't stay in 高雄 till very late as I need about 2-3 hours to get back to 台南. I have to leave at about 6pm. So, I went to 六合夜市 at around 5.30pm to have a light dinner as I was still quite full. The night market was a big one and there's a lot of food over there. It's really a pity that I'm full and couldn't stay much longer. I woud love to go back and visit 六合夜市 someday. I bought their famous papaya milk as recommended by the travel guide book and a cup of 杏仁菇. Their papaya milk is so creamy, tasty and you won't get sick of it at all, no wonder it's highly recommended. Once I finished my dinner, I went back to collect the yam cake and went straight back home to 台南.
I reached home at around 8pm and my host family rent a DVD for the movie named, 总镨师. We watched the movie together and had the yam cake. THE YAM CAKE WAS HEAVENLY, OMG. The yam was super duper creamy and there's still small bits of yam in it. The sponge cake which layered with the creamy yam was super light and it went so well with the creamy yam. I really flew up to heaven and came back down. T.T Too bad I can't buy more because this cake has to be consumed within 3 days. Furthermore, it's freshly baked out from the oven that day and it's about 8.70 SGD for the cake which served about 7 slices. SUPER WORTH IT.
The movie was a good movie too. It's about a Taiwanese culture and there are some jokes in it. It's a funny and interesting movie. In addition, there were a lot of places filmed in 台南 too. The theme is more towards vintage which I absolutely love about it. It's a movie worth watching. Before watching this movie, a teacher in school told me about it and asked me to go catch it if I can.
05/01/2014: One day trip to 鹿港, 彰化 with my host family
It's about a 2 hours ride by car up to 鹿港, 彰化. There's a lot of temples there. That day, I think I went into 4-5 temples to have a look. The main highlight of the one day trip was the 鹿港老街. As comapred to 安平老街, it's much bigger. It's like about 3 to 4 times bigger and longer. There's so much things to see. Most of the shops there are of 古早味 and the food there are very traditional too. I had 面茶 and my host family bought 2 packets for me to bring it back to Singapore. It's some kind of starchy drink which is good for breakfast or tea time. I bought 2 containers of 黑糖姜茶 for my grandmother. I bought them for her during my previous trip and she loves it. So I bought more for her this time round. There's really a lot of things to see but we don't have much time. I don't think we finished exploring the old street and went home. It's along ride back and have to rest early today since my host parents need to work and Hanson and I need to go to school the next day. 鹿港 is a place worth going! My host family told me they will visit 鹿港 once in 1 or 2 years.
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