So yes... I have been lazy and have not blogged anything in more than a week... my bad... many apologies to all you ardent readers out there for the absence (this is me assuming that there are ardent readers in the 1st place... ahhh self-disillusionment)
anyway... I suppose I shall update briefly about the weekend of 28 and 29 March, aka last weekend of March aka my 2 month anniversary in Taipei... how time flies!
If I could choose one word to describe that weekend, it probably will be "Weird"... here's what happened...
SaturdayI was going to visit Cheng Chi University and do a bit of hiking with Jhenyu (LCP of CCLC) in the hills in that area.. the hike will supposedly bring us to 貓空 (mao kong) area where we will be just about in time for dinner and some post dinner hot tea up in the hills... I was supposed to reach the university at 4.30pm, so I dutifully traveled to the right MRT station, found the bus stop and boarded the right bus number... Just when I was wondering why the journey was taking so long (Jhenyu definitely mentioned that the university is quite near the MRT station) when our bus exited the tunnel and horror of horrors, I saw Taipei 101... which meant I was headed in the opposite direction and was back in the city area!!
Lesson 1: always check the bus boards for the bus routes, and if I can't seem to understand the routes (which I occasionally still cannot manage), ASK THE DRIVER!
so I had a brief tour of the 101 area on a busy Saturday afternoon... only consolation was seeing the Merlion appear in Taipei:
Yes the Merlion was featured on the poser for some Taipei Travel Fair :)
After that round trip by bus, I finally reached the university at 5.40pm... and since the sun was starting to go down, Jhenyu and I mainly walked around one of the smaller slopes on campus... better than nothing I suppose... :) after that we took a bus up to 貓空 and headed for one of the tea shops along the slopes...
Dinner was good as usual... featuring my goose meat mini hot pot meal, and our chinese tea set... thank god for Jhenyu.. despite many tea joys in Singapore, I have yet to master the art of making chinese tea...
Sundayso I had a good dinner on Saturday, good conversations with Jhenyu and good tea... unfortunately, thanks to the tea, I could not sleep on Saturday night!!! I think I managed to drift off fitfully for a while, though not enough to call a proper rest...
Lesson 2: don't drink too much chinese tea after 9.45pm
In any case, I was up early on Sunday to visit the Martry's Shrine.. it was 329 (29 March), Taiwan's Youth Day which commemorates the revolutionary Tenth Uprising in 1911 and there was a marching ceremony at the Shrine...
unfortunately, we arrived too late, only to find that the marching ceremony was already over... and that due to some commemoration ceremony that day, the shrine was closed to visitors that morning...
Lesson 3: when it comes to schedules, check and check again :)
so yes.. it was quite a strange weekend in that sense.. but nonetheless, I did visit some places that I have never been to before, plus I always appreciate the great conversations I can have with the people I hang out with...
more photos from that weekend (and some from the weekdays before that) can be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=239661&id=576355703&l=0a32b48fa2
p.s. also features some photos on "mini elections" hype in Taipei
you stay in a rustic house like this...
this is the view that greets you from your kitchen window...
this is part of the view just outside your home...
This is the kind of night view you can experience within a 10 mins walk from your home...
Linking Park live in Taipei on Yang Ming Shan! :)
Linking Park live in Taipei on Yang Ming Shan! :)
