Happy CNY!!

Haha long time no blog because school has been quite crazy!

I love that my family had this tradition of cooking abalone porridge on new year day. It's totally delicious and most of us have second and third helpings!! 

Also we will always take a family portrait of our 20 plus people clan standing at the same positions every year! So funny to see how my brother became so huge and long-legged in a span of a few years and a new addition of my little niece in the picture. Too cute!

The stress of school doesn't evade me on CNY day. Even while visiting relatives I occasionally reminded myself "YOU HAVE 2 PRESENTATIONS NEXT WEEK". :0 haha, chill Angela chill. -hypnotize self-

Visiting has become quite sian ever since we became teens. Like we have to wait for adults talking and talking non-stop while the kids (still considered kids in the family haha) watch the super lame programmes on tv. Sobs where are all the good movies when you need them?!

Selfie with fav coussie!

Only when someone decides to play blackjack or 21!! Totally the highlight of CNY woo.

Going Malaysia to visit mummy's side of the family tmr. In preparation of the likely long waits while adults go on and on (as usual), I have already downloaded running man as entertainment for me and my bro. Victorybaby.jpg 

Happy new year!

IM A QUALIFIED DRIVER

Test center: BBDC

Warm up: 1.25

Test time: 2.45

Wee I finally did it!! After so long and after spending so much money, I finally passed on my third try!!

With each failure I felt upset and like a loser, but not anymore. To whoever who hasn't passed, I'm not a loser and you're not a loser. It's a matter of time. The wait makes the feeling of passing sweeter. :) Don't ever give up until you pass!

Just some insight I got:

1) select the timeslot around 10-11am or 2-3pm where there are lesser cars.

For my first try I noobly selected the first time slot, not knowing that it was the peak hour. Haha I'll admit that that was a total lack of common sense. And at the u-turn, I did a dangerous lane change (car beside me was going too fast for me to cut in safely) that caused me immediate failure. One of the instructors told me that someone passed without executing the u-turn because road conditions didn't permit it. So remember to confirm safety before lane change!! Don't do it dangerously like me.

2) don't let your nerves get the better of you. 

But that's real hard isn't it. How to not be nervous in a cold waiting room where everyone else is shaking their legs, rushing to the washroom and sighing super loudly haha. Good for people who have low neuroticism. 

For my second try my warm-up instructor scolded me once I switched on the engine because I didn't step on brake pedal. He was like "try one time already still don't know?" But I really didn't know leh, usually the instructors switch on the engine so I didn't take note. =.= I was on to a bad start and it didn't help that the tester's face was completely black. And I immediately struck the kerb when I exited s course. Following which I struck again at the parallel parking. Which costed me 20 point. =.= but another instructor says DONT GIVE UP even if you made any "fatal" mistakes. If overall you prove to be a safe and competent driver, especially on the road, he might overlook small mistakes!

Remember to do each of the stages real slowly and breathe! Don't let your nervousness impair your judgement.

3) don't be afraid of the tester. I've realized that most of them have this super stern and intimidating look, but just try to focus on driving. 

4) be determined. I was fortunate enough to meet an instructor during my revision who immediately knew I wasn't confident in my driving abilities. Haih, traumatized twice already. He spent like 20min (hog parallel parking lot haha) to tell me how I was sabotaging myself with my lack of confidence. "Don't try, just do," he said. 

Conditions were great too! Good weather conditions (bright and sunny), nice warm up instructor who told me repeatedly to calm down and nice tester.

Of course, praying a lot helped me too. My parents were anxiously praying for me at home too.

“Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.” Romans 12:2a (NLT)

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" Philippians 4:13

Thank you God, you brought me through another hurdle :)

Post week 1

Can't believe that I just flew back on Monday. In a short span of a few days, I already gained so much knowledge! As usual, everything is brand new, and I'm experiencing total information overload man. At least it's interesting. "Wastage of intellectual capacity during holidays", as Jocelyn would say. Lols

But boy, the stress catches up so fast. Always rushing to finish homework sigh. Juggling driving too and also looking for a job. Hope I settle down soon.

And I crazily signed up for not only SF's Jdc (which is compulsory so nevermind), but I also signed up for fusion (which is the combined performance from all dance ccas in NTU) @.@ turns out that I'm the only person in my OG who signed up. Round of applause please. =.= 

Ntu sem 2

First day of school with 2 lectures! I'm pretty excited, lecturers are good!

Money flying away steadily since I needa buy my textbooks. Jocelyn worriedly handed me a pamphlet for employment during lecture. (￣▽￣)

Revelation after coming back from Taiwan: 

1) Singapore is so colorful and bright! In Taiwan the buildings aren't so colorful and it's not so sunny as well (winter)

2) the searing heat is killin me. Better than freezing though haha. Me and Jocelyn finally saw our bare limbs after a month lol

3) can throw toilet paper into toilet bowl!!! At Taiwan the toilet paper is thrown into a rubbish bin beside the toilet bowl so sometimes it stinks.

4) I unconsciously stand on the right side on the escalator now OTL hopefully driving is not affected

Aiesec winter explore day 40. LAST DAY

Hehe, blogging from plane again :)

Woke up at 5.50am today because not only did I have to DO my skincare, I had to PACK my skincare. Ah, the tedious quest for good skin. When will it pay off~~~

Anyways, I was super tired because I had to pack my huge luggage yesterday, occasionally body slamming it to ensure maximum compactness. And I did cards for my 3 host families too. Hands were totally NOT used to writing in Chinese and I had to type the words out on my phone before penning them down. -mental drain-

Went to school and tried to download movies that we can watch on the plane (Finally successful, but guess what? On the plane my laptop battery died halfway through when Akiyama was going to reveal his fabulous liar game strategy!!! Sorry Akiyama-kun... The tragedy). 

Suddenly, I was called to go class 102 cause the kids finished their exams and had nothing to do. So we danced to Singapore Town. With me in front alone TT Phina jiejie where are you TT But I'm glad the kids loved this activity. Like quite a few teachers/parents told me that their children look for the song on YouTube and dance to it! Become even more patriotic than Singaporeans already haha.

After that lesson, kids would come in periodically to give me cards and gifts :) so cute. The teachers would organize "draw-a-card-for-teacher-angela" activities since they had nothing to do after exams so I had many cards to bring home lol.

Went online to stars planner to see that all the indexes I wanted are all taken. Oh well, still hope school will be awesome next sem!

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When I was about to leave zhuren shouted to the whole staff room "Angela 要回新加坡了！” everyone started to wave to me. Awkwardly, I spiraled around 180 degrees waving back to everyone. Lol.

Went to airport early but our flight with scoot was delayed 45min due to turbulence. TT quite worried because I have 2 lectures tomorrow. Need sleeppppp.

We went to weigh our luggages and I realized that I exceeded the weight. So one of my hand carried bags of food had to go in- should it be pineapple tarts or beef Maggie? Since pineapple tarts were more ex, I decided to check in the Maggie. The counter lady said I could stick "fragile" on the bag and I was elated! Yay, there's a chance that my Maggie will not be manhandled. However, almost immediately, the luggage-loading man took my Maggie bag and landed it hard onto the conveyor belt!! I looked at Jocelyn but she was engrossed in the old man who had to drink up his whole bottle of medicine because there was an onboard restriction, yikes. :( and dear Maggie, I'm coming for you soon ok? Please survive the throws.

I guess this summarizes the day! Really excited to be going home. Almost seems like yesterday that we uncertainly stepped into the plane to Taiwan. So blessed and happy that everything worked out fine and we gained much valuable experience (cheesy but it's true). Who knew that we could have a whale of a time in a hostel that we chose and booked, following the itinerary that we planned and successfully make it to all our destinations (with much help from google maps lol). I'm sure my parents would be proud of me ^_^

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I've received so much kindness from the people here, more than I could ever imagine. Especially with my host families, they could have just given me the minimum food and accommodation that was in the contract, but they really went the extra mile to show me around, give me recommendations and treat me to the local food that I "must try" at Taiwan. About a month ago we were strangers, but they were so kind to me and helped me with every need. I'm thankful to Aiesec for allowing me to experience this. It's really eye-opening and I am truly humbled.

But of course I miss my home. The colorful painted buildings (somehow building are quite dull here), wearing tee and shorts, connectivity and transportation, my bed (your own bed is always the most comfy right?), knowing all parts of the country, eating with spoon and not just chopsticks, eating spicy food, most importantly, my family and friends. There is nowhere like home. Can't wait!

Aiesec winter explore day 39

Went to church in the morning!

Theme today was on love!

Pastor and his wife are so nice. Upon knowing that I would be flying back to Singapore tomorrow, they gave me a box of chiayi's local biscuits to bring back. (I'm so dead, currently have 3 hand-carried bags plus backpack)

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After that the geeky duo Angela and Jocelyn went to the national Taiwan science education center!

Photo with DNA~

Rolling beads to see Pythagoras theorem in action! a^2+b^2=c^2 anyone? ^_^

Selfie time cause we were tired again lol

Nice butterfly exhibits at the bug section. Poor Jocelyn was so afraid of seeing cockroaches lol

Bike with square wheels work well on curvy ground

Huge buggy at the lobby

Overall the center was quite okay, but many exhibits weren't working properly TT we didn't get a full experience of the museum but were still wowed many times haha. The awesomeness of science *_*

A must try is the 3D show where we put on 3D glasses and the seats could move! Spoiler: it shows a crazy trishaw ride where we travel along the Great Wall of china! Very realistic and fun!

Ok hasty end cause i need sleep! Flying home tomorrow!!! Yay!

Aiesec winter explore day 38

Angela and Jocelyn the pigs slept till 12 noon today ^_^ how nice sleeping in. 

After we went out of the room, we were immediately ambushed by huijang's daughter to play monopoly. Board games are totally not my thing but aish... The kid seems so bored. So we played till 3 and play uno for another 30 min. After that we retreated into the room to watch running man!

And at 6, Huijang brought us out to treat us Japanese style grilled meat!!! Eating meat is my thing! Lol

Meat was super good and fresh. There was also seafood and steamboat!! 

Check this out! They said that this is Japanese muah Chee. After grilling for awhile, it expands and becomes like this:

When it's poked it deflates lol. The muah Chee looks like it was breathing 0.o

And jocelyn told me to take a photo of the intestinal villi-like thing in the passion fruit. -bio geeks- 

That sums up today! Uneventful but satisfying :)

Aiesec winter explore day 37

T to the G to the I to the F!!!

Finally, it's Friday!

I thought today will be the usual lineup of video watching, but Beverly laoshi brought me to 501 for Q & A session! So the kids were to bombard me with questions regarding Singapore.

For good food In sg, once again I raved about chilli crab, laksa, satay etc and to my surprise, the kids could remember everything! In Singapore whenever we have "extra knowledge" classes, the tendency would be to just switch off our brains lol. Quite shocked that the kids could remember what I taught 2 weeks ago with Josephina. Haha maybe food is a topic of interest all around the world. 

The most epic question they asked was who is my favourite artists. I just told them SHINee truthfully hehehe. And the hardest question would probably that about punishments for various crimes in Singapore. Haha not that sure myself!

After the class ended, the kids were told to give me a hug and all the girls came! Only 2 boys dared to hug me and they ran out of the class screaming LOL. So cute 😍

101 was waiting outside the classroom for me and they danced to Singapore town and gave me cards! (Cannot understand because they used zhu4 yin1)

Then the teacher told them to thank me and they shouted "THANK YOU ANGELA TEACHER AND JOSEPHINA TEACHER". Then they looked around and realized Josephina wasn't here already. Hahaha.

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After that I left school to buy the "chia te" pineapple tarts that are raved about. Met with Jocelyn at the mrt and I was late again. For the record, I have been late almost all our meetings in Taiwan and I am terribly sorry about it OTL Always miss the bus!!

When we reached chia te, we saw a long queue! (Friday afternoon) 

Of course must join the queue! ^_^

I burnt a huge hole in my pocket. Bought 5 boxes of 12 and that added up to 1620nt. Had to use card cause only have 1000nt cash left. ~chews off all my fingernails~

Jocelyn only randomly chose one each for her family and for 3 of our friends. Haha we not cheapskate hor! Still think of our friends in poverty. 

Backstory: Jocelyn normally doesn't like pineapple tarts. She normally eats the biscuit and throws away the pineapple part.

After we walked out Jocelyn opened one to eat. In a ratatouille-esque manner, her eyes widened and jaw dropped. "This is good" she said. 

Guess what, we rejoined the queue for her to buy 2 more boxes home. Lolol truly we live up to the Singaporean spirit of queuing for good food.

After that we had nothing to do, so we set off to perm our hair. ._. We are like some comedy duo right. Actually Jocelyn wanted to curl her hair to a perfect bob so she doesn't need to use water to twist her bed hair properly.

Arrived at ximending to see hoardes of people

We went to eat ah Zhong mee sua first. I can't believe I thought it was mediocre last time. For Singaporeans, you have to add lots of chilli and garlic. Makes a super shiokalicious bowl of meesua!

After walking along ximending for the longest time, the goal finally became to find a place to sit down LOL. We then started to look for a facial place to slack.... Things tired kids do...

At last, couldn't find it. But something caught our eye! A street artist was drawing caricatures and all his works were very good! (Also we were delirious from standing so we wanted an activity that allowed us to sit)

Next came the moment of unbearable smiling. We had to smile widely so that the cartoon looks comical. Mouth was so sore!

This Jocelyn is hilarious.

AUTO THUMBS UP WHEN SMILING.

I was like "what's that thumb doing?!"

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After a long wait, here is the end product

Oh my, looks like us!! Really like it! We saw the price colored drawing-400 so we thought it was cheap. Turns out to be 400 per person. OTL money fly. Haha we were saying the artist gave us the hair we wanted to achieve in the salon!! Hohoho

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Now Jocelyn is crashing huijang's place with me! In view of our low cash flow, tonight and tomorrow will be spent watching running man. This guiltless pleasure of running man only comes during the holidays! 

Aiesec winter explore day 36

After school zhuren bought me out to eslite bookshop at city hall mrt on blue line!

Took a look at many cute stationary and loads of Chinese books.

And viola! I found another 2 easy piano books for 250nt each. They aren't considered cheap but I couldn't resist them. 

Oh my gosh I just checked and I only have 1Knt left!!! Didn't I just withdraw 5K?! OTL money flows like water.

After we came out of the bookshop there was this strong fragrance of garlic bread from the bakery!! 

Turns out that a batch of garlic bread was being baked outside the bakery (how innovative!) and it was going to be ready in a while!

Seeing the queue, the kiasu Singaporean in me had to queue as well. Must be good right?

Wahaha, zhuren and I got our hands on the garlic bread! As usual, a picture of it bring half eaten. #hungrypeopleproblems

Warm and soft and fragrant garlic bread totally welcomed in linkou's cold weather.

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Next we went to chiang Kai sheik memorial hall to take a look. On close inspection, I realized that I've been here last year during my family's vacation at Taiwan. 

Instantly the cousins-cabbed-back-to-hotel-for-cup-noodles memories came back. Haha. We were quite bored the last time we came here la, after one while day of visiting museums. The tour guide forced us to answer his history questions that we had no clue about on the bus when we were trying to sleep. TT The adults were having so much fun though. Remembering all that made me chuckle to myself like a lunatic. >_< ahh, family's the best. Missing them

Aiesec winter explore day 35

It's 5 more days to the start of school and this morning I already had a nightmare about it. I dreamt that I fell asleep in class and missed the whole thing. After class I couldn't understand anything and the person whom I tried to copy the answers from got everything correct and didn't copy anything so I couldn't copy the model answers. I'm the type of person who like to copy the model answer even if I got the final answer correct lol. In the first place I don't ever sleep during class! #nerd 

Anyways I woke up with a start and went to school.

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No points for guessing that I was bored today. （−＿−；）

I feel kinda depressed that I'm so unproductive LOL. Wanted to lay in bed but have to go to school... with nothing to do.

Luckily for me, I found out that there was ukulele class after lunch! Without missing a beat, I jumped at the opportunity haha.

I thought I could just look around because I didn't have a ukulele but one sweet girl brought me a nice purple spare one!

My host family kid was in the class!

Hehe sneaked a picture!

Class was quite fun! Easy enough for me to read the tabs because I used to be in RV's guitar ensemble hoho. But on the whole still very noob haha

Made me reminisce the good old cca times where everyone had fun with the guitar together. The chords! The melody! The harmony! Life was good~

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After school zhuren wanted to bring me out for dinner and to buy yiduzan. Lucky for Jocelyn, she wanted to tag along and thus had an awesome meal treated by zhuren!

We ate a lot and also had tiramisu! Good food ftw <3 also had a good chat over dinz.

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Woohoo, bought yiduzan to bring to Singapore! That day Josephina and I tried and compared yiduzan and manhandacan's Maggie and we ascertained that yiduzan is better. So Zixin, I'm getting yiduzan for you instead ok? (You are still reading my blog right? Haha)

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Received my Christmas gifts from le BFF finally!

Yay now I have 2 more in addition to the owl and the life-vest one, which both of us lost lols. Furthermore we had matching bag and matching rabbit ears and matching rilakuma socks. Power anot hahahaha 

Aiesec winter explore day 34

Another boring day...

Today I finally went to do something slightly school related and looked at my next sem timetable properly.

Going to have a 4 day week from Tuesday to Friday. Not too bad, most days start at 1030 so I don't have to crawl out of bed.

I'm also going to aim to get a job next sem so I wont constantly be so poor =.=

Henna-ed my wrist out of boredom... OTL

Can't believe school's about to start. While it's super boring now, next Tuesday I'd be super busy already :( don't know which to prefer. 

Err... Nothing much to say already HAHA. Too uneventful. At least Jocelyn and I are going to do some last minute souvenir shopping in out last weekend. Ahh, I need some excitement in my life!!

Aiesec winter explore day 33

As expected, totally was epically boring!!

Coming to school to brave noisy children with Josephina beats coming to stone the whole day.

So I tidied the cards that the children gave, did my nanshih reflection and watched YouTube a lot. =.=

After awhile, class 202 came into the staff room and gave me gifts and hugs!! Best class ever

Last period seriously takboleh tahan already so I went to a random class and was greeted by a confused teacher and confused kids and asked if I could join the lesson. Of course they wouldn't say no haha. 

Turns out that the kids were having their recorder examination! Recorder as in the music instrument we played in primary school. Quite scary cause the music teacher is usually so gentle and nice but became so strict in front of the kids! Only 6 kids passed out of 20 so the class got a scolding while I sat awkwardly at the side.

The teacher made the class stay back for 10 minutes after school to practice in unison. Suddenly the girl in front of me started sobbing while playing her recorder (°_°) looks quite sad trying to play with tears streaming down her face. I'm totally a boy when it comes to crying girls, so awkwardz. Normal conscientious, girly girls (CGGs, remember?) would know how to comfort the crying person. The only thing I could do we to put my arm around her shoulder and say "jiayou". =.= hope she feels better.

Went to eat at the beef noodles shop near my school. 90nt for delicious soup, generous beef and nice noodles! Quite worth it!

On the way back, sunlight was good so...

Black roots 0.0

Aiesec winter explore day 32

Checked out of hostel at 11am and landlady gave us detailed suggestions on how to go to lotus pond and national science and technology museum, and even told us where to find lockers to put our barangs till we come back. Service is totally impeccable man! It's old Taiwan (liouhe) hostel. :)

We set off to lotus pond by taking mrt to zuoying mrt and then bus 35 (red). Upon arrival we realized that... There is awesome sunlight available to take awesome photos again HAHA

Although it was quite difficult not to squint >< very sunny! It's cold when we were in the shade and the cold wind was blowing. But totally nice to be in the sun :)

They said to enter through the dragon's mouth and exit through the tiger's. Not sure why. Doesn't the lion look cute? Haha 

After that we paid 50nt to take the tour bus around the lotus pond because it would take forever by foot.

Quite interesting because they had a tour guide to explain the different statue/temples and their stories to us. 

There was a point in time that only Jocelyn and me were in the bus and he tried to interact with us. Unfortunately i wasnt well versed in historical stuff so i just sat through the ride silently lol. TT

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Next stop was national science and technology museum to "satisfy our inner geek". Cabbed there because it was already 3.30 and the museum closes at 5. 

6 floors to cover!!

We toured the place at the speed of light. 

There was this facilitator guy who told us we can take a tram ride if we played games at 5 stations. We tried to play but there were so many science terms in traditional Chinese so we read it real slowly. The facilitator fed us with most of the answers. ^_^

After that the tram ride turned out to be like a trishaw thing where we had to cycle super hard =.= thighs almost gave way lol. Enough of cycling...

Many exhibits were closed because we were too late already :(

Finally, cabbed back to Kaohsiung main station to take 5 hour bus ride back to Taipei.

Bought macs to eat on the journey. Shiokness! Just that the macs here doesn't have chilli sauce and curry sauce. Only tomato sauce is available sobs.

Still, another awesome day!

Tmr is school again but without Josephina TT gonna be lonely 

Aiesec winter explore day 31

Took the mrt to yenchengpu because we are setting off to the love river! 

But before that, pudding milk tea!! Ahh missed that so much!

Tastes like the one at share tea!

Reached the mrt station and it's soo modern!

Lights dome

Even had piano showcase!

Reached love river (10 min walk rom yanchengpu mrt) using google maps and the view was stunning! Also it was super sunny like Singapore TT 

We soon realized that this was a perfect place to take pictures!

Near love river there are many exhibits and wall paintings that were so pretty!

Sittin' on the fence~~

Even had #ootd wall hahaha

After that we took the ferry from the pier to cijin island! Remember the ferry comes every 40 min, starting from 1.20pm on weekends and public holidays. 40nt per ride.

Picture filtering in progress hahaha

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When we arrived at cijin island, we rented a double bike (danger object!) for 200nt (can be used the whole day, single bikes are 100nt) and cycled to the cijin light house.

Super tired walking up to the lighthouse! Kept stopping to take pictures haha. 

The sunlight made our pictures quite pretty!

Finally reached the lighthouse after forever! And took more photos...

We stopped at a seafood place for lunch and it as fresh! Jocelyn had a nice dosage of fish.

(As usual a half eaten meal cause us hungry kids forgot again)

Cycled to cijin beach! 

Keke spastic jump shot!

Regarding when I said the double bike was dangerous, it's because we were sharing the roads with other cyclists, trishaws, motorbikes and cars!! Totally had to put my driving instructor's  nagging to use to "keep checking my blind spot". No instructor to step on brake for me = I need to survive. Lol.

Sigh, luckily we made it safe! 

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We took the ferry back and proceeded to kaisyuan mrt to meet Rachel and her family for kaisyuan night market! 

Had an extraordinary amount of food there. 

Also we met a male manicurist (patronized by Rachel and me) whose heart was won over by Rachel in 30 minutes. LOL. He was sad that she didn't use "LINE", which is the whatsapp for Taiwanese people. 

Sigh, was going to take a picture of the manicure in good sunlight but it literally didn't live to see the light of day. After bathing it got cracked =.=

Left hand's manicure is still surviving

Finally it was so late that we missed the mrt and took a cab home.