Funny but true?

This is so funny... but it's kind of sad that such people exist (I strongly believe in their existence)


On a separate note, lots happened since last Friday.. updates on Fri, Sat and Sun coming soon...

Adventures on Motorbikes in 宜蘭

Some very nice photos from the 宜蘭 trip, featuring a bunch of very yellow people just before heading home on our scooters :)

The following two photos speak for themselves (yes that is me on the left)

Weekend in 宜蘭

I had such a great time in 宜蘭 over the weekend of 7th to 8th Mar 09! The team of LC VP ICX were having their monthly Functional Meeting with the MC VP ICX there and I was lucky to be invited along :)

宜蘭 is south-east of Taipei county, so part of it lies on the east coast of the entire Taiwan island. We took a coach down and if traffic is smooth (like when we traveled there), the ride only takes about 1 hour and 10 mins so it's really quite accessible...

When I spoke with my colleagues, the most common things they would say about 宜蘭 is that you can eat cheap and fresh seafood there, there is a traditional arts museum to visit, there's the 羅東 (luo dong) night market, and there's the really cool beach where people go surfing in summer...

So naturally, I expected a lot of beaches and all... but I definitely did not expect this:
Mountains with clouds rolling along in the distance, rice fields and ponds just beside the road, huge expanse of nature... it was such a refreshing sight...

and then, there was the view when we reached the sea and port area:

These 2 shots were taken from a cliff overlooking the bay... the cliff was about 6 storeys high from the water levelSome of us couldn't resist being adventurous and climbing down to the water itself...That was one great highlight of the trip: being so close to nature, and being able to "exercise" even if it was just a bit through the cliff climbing...

Other highlights include:
A trip to the National Center for Traditional Arts, a very cool place where we also saw how the center is bringing traditional art designs and forms into modern day items such as plates, fashion, accessories and even collectible toys...
A LOT of cheap and super good foodA lot of riding on scooters, whether it was rain or shine :)
And to wrap it all up, a lot of great conversations with a great bunch of AIESECers :)

All my photos (including details of seafood restaurant and homestay hostel) available at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=227841&id=576355703&l=7018c

Part 2 album at:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=229895&id=576355703&l=f498aa3b5c

Any floorball in Taiwan?

I've been sharing with some people that I used to do sports once a week and the usual question they ask is "what sport do you play?" Unfortunately, when I answer "Floorball", I mostly receive blank looks.

So here is a post dedicated to floorball, one of the BEST sports to play ever :)

Floorball (福樂球）is easiest to imagine as indoor hockey. It is mostly popular in the Scandinavia countries, and is especially popular in Finland, where a Finnish friend tells me it's almost like a national sport.. in Asia, it is probably only more well-known in Singapore and Japan.

It is played indoor between two teams, each comprising 6 players which includes 1 goalkeeper. Here, you see a photo of the game in action, taken during one of our weekly sessions in Singapore. Our court is smaller than the usual one so we usually play 4 or 5 per side.

The game involves lots of running and controlling of the ball with the stick. It also involves team work to defend and attack. Both guys AND girls can play, and I can tell you that in some of our sessions, the girls seem almost as good or even better as some of the guys :)

The ball and sticks are made of plastic, which means that they are very much lighter than the sticks and ball in field hockey.

Because the stick is plastic and light, if you use the right techniques and right amount of force, you can make the ball move extremely fast. And of course, since the ball is light, it does move very fast, which makes the whole game all the more exciting!

It's a great game to be played with a bunch of friends, great form of exercise, and extremely easy to pick up! It's also very addictive, as can be seen from the increasing number of "regular" players at the weekly sessions in Singapore

So if anyone comes across floorball anywhere in Taiwan, maybe as a school club or a small self-playing group, let me know!! :)

More on floorball: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floorball

random

Merlion struck by lightning on Saturday

I find this piece of news quite amusing and funny hahaha..

Merlion statue at Singapore River struck by lightning; suffers slight damage By Claire Huang, 938LIVE | Posted: 28 February 2009 2219 hrs

SINGAPORE: In a rare incident, Singapore's longstanding icon, the original Merlion statue, at the mouth of the Singapore River has been struck by lightning.

One witness told MediaCorp Radio's 938LIVE that orange sparks flew when lightning struck between 4pm and 5pm at Merlion Park.

Staff in the vicinity said they heard an explosion followed by a loud thud when broken pieces fell to the ground.

About 30 people dashed into a nearby restaurant for safety.

Other onlookers continued to take photos of the 36-year-old tourism icon.

the Merlion now has a bald spot on its head :)

Great Live Band near my house!

I happened to drop by Yong Kang Park on my way home after dinner and came across a live band performing... there was a huge crowd and after a while I guess I know why :)

The band playing is called Spoon-de-Chop, they have been performing at Yong Kang Park for the past 8 years, always on Saturday nights... the band is very international, comprising Taiwanese, Japanese, an American and a Macedonian... they play a diversity of music as well, from Chinese songs to Japanese songs to Taiwanese songs, even solo performances in English and Macedonian... the lead singer is Japanese and really talented; he plays the harmonica, guitar and San Xian (a three-stringed instrument).. what's really cool about them though, is that they play for beer and not for money :) talk about combining passions for music and booze...

I sat there to watch and listen them play for almost 1.5 hours, along with quite a number of other residents...

Here's a clip of them performing the very well-known Suki Yaki (上を向いて歩こう)

and here performing Grandfather's Clock in Japanese (大きな古時), a really beautiful children's song (google the lyrics if you are interested) which I learnt in music class in primary school



More clips that I recorded can be found here:
Folky Japanese song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BwFcLNsxUM
Chinese song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5Y0M52ZDhc
Shima Uta 島唄 (yes the AIESEC dance song): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk8NNojfvqg
Sanshin no Hana 三線の花: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hwg6m7ptSs

To find out when they are next performing, check http://spoondechop.blogspot.com/

Quick and Short post

Yesterday (saturday, 28 Feb) was a pretty happening day so I took a lot of photos and videos, but since I'm still uploading and sorting them out, here is just a quick, short post about politics and quirkiness in Taiwan...

This is the main gate of the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall, taken by me on 28 Feb 2009


This, however, is the same gate taken by me on 6th May 2005 during my 1st visit to Taiwan

The words on the same gate are different!!
It's actually because the previous party in power, Democratic Progressive Party or DPP, under Chen Shui Bian decided the name was not appropriate (related to Taiwan's history and the significance of 28th Feb, or 228 incident) and changed it from “大中至正” literally translated to mean "Great Mean/Perfect Uprightness" to “自由廣場” or "Liberty Square". This was done in December 2007.

What's interesting, is that now that the Kuo Min Tang or KMT under Ma Ying Jeou is in power, the gate will soon be updated to its original name of “大中至正”

Perhaps this is a way of boosting the economy through government spending on infrastructure and construction... Let's see when the exact date of change is.. since I stay about 20 mins walk from the Memorial Hall, I just might make a trip down..

p.s. thanks to Sandy for telling me about this on Friday :)

Ingenious way of being environmentally friendly

Last week, I went to 7-11 to buy dinner and they helped me microwave heat my noodles... then, the lady at the counter used this amazing blue thing!

Here it is before it's true purpose is revealed... a harmless blue piece of something...


actually....

It's a carrier made of paper-ish kind of material!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Just cut grooves of the appropriate length at appropriate spots and you get this amazing and ingenious creation!!!!

We should have this in Singapore, anything to reduce the amount of plastic bags we use....

Rats!

As much as Chinese New Year is over and we are officially in the year of the ox, some still are living in the past...

so yes! There are rats in the office! actually the rats are in the whole building... since we're right beside the MRT station, and since there's a whole lot of underground construction work going on at the main road in preparation for a new MRT line, the rats have been activated into action inside offices... and our office has not been spared! We have found rat droppings, rat pee, stashes of food bits, chewed up paper bits as evidence on the floor and on some desks... It's almost like they're taunting us!

so we had to call in the office management people... and here's what they did: put sticky boards in the ceiling, put food on the boards and hope that it catches one if not some of them...

Here they are in action, placing the boards up in the ceiling...

And this morning, they found 1 victim! (last week they caught 3 but I didn't get a photo of that).. Here's the unfortunate rat stuck to the board... it's quite small, just like the 3 from last week... my colleague says it's because they're young and inexperienced that they got caught... the bigger, older rats are smarter and know to avoid the traps...

Now this is something you don't usually see in Singapore for sure...

One Day Trip to Ping Xi (平溪)

Finally, I took a trip outside of Taipei City!

Place visited: Ping Xi (平溪) area
How we got there: Took a bus from Muzha MRT station, journey was about 40 mins and we alighted at Ping Xi itself...I would have done a chronological commentary but that would have been super long, so I decided to just cover some highlights :)

Train, railway tracks and tiny stations
We basically traveled along the whole railway line at Ping Xi, and it was an interesting experience to be walking on and along the tracks, hopping aside when the train came, alighting and boarding at tiny train stations, seeing the old, quaint train set against the backdrop of forests and rivers...

That's us after walking on the tracks through a tunnel... we were heading from waterfalls to the next station, since the waterfalls were between stations.

Nature everywhere and Waterfalls at Shih Fen
Ping Xi is really beautiful.. it's surrounded by mountains and the Kee Lung river runs through it... everywhere you turn you see nature and green - green trees and even the water looks green... definitely a refreshing changes from life in the city itself...

These 2 are shots from Spectacles Cave Waterfall (眼鏡洞瀑布). The biggest waterfall in the area is actually Shih Fen Waterfall (十分瀑布) but it has unfortunately been closed for a while due to an ongoing legal case between the government and the villagers or something.

Coal Mine Museum at Shih Fen
While most people know Ping Xi for the sky lantern festival, it is actually also famous for coal mining... no mines are in operation anymore today, and the Coal Mine Museum in Ping Xi is the only one in the entire Taiwan set up to commemorate the efforts of the many coal miners from the past... exciting part of the tour was when we got to ride in the coal carts from the entrance area to the museum itself... felt very authentic as we rattled and shook our way along the tracks... the tour guide was very engaging by telling stories of actual Taiwanese coal miners, some of whom still live in Shih Fen... through that, I think we all learnt a lot about the hardships of coal miners, without whom the economy then would not have been built up...
www.coalmine.com.tw

Sky Lantern and Sparkler fun at Chin Tong
We headed to Chin Tong for dinner and of course, sky lantern!


Many thanks to CCLC for organizing the trip and inviting!

Full album of adventures in Ping Xi are here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=221902&id=576355703&l=ceab0

My Welcome Party

My host LC hosted a welcome party for me and all I can say is, it was great!! I had sooo much fun!

The welcome party was held in a cosy little restaurant called 上帝的後花園 and it's located at 台北市大安區羅斯福路三段, which is near the National Taiwan University.

I had a great time meeting the members and the interns from Taiwan. It was especially amusing when some of the members said they remember me from the Summer National Conference 2007 that I chaired... I told everyone that I did not understand Chinese, so as to encourage them to speak English with me. Of course I revealed the truth on the last day of conference but since then, I'm sure I left an impression as "the Chair who lied"

There was also a very entertaining cross-talk performance (相聲）by 2 of the members (GREAT JOB!), an introduction by members about the various must-see spots in Taiwan, and of course, I delivered an introduction about Singapore, myself and AIESEC Singapore... it was really enjoyable doing the presentation, everyone was very participative :)

Here are photos from all the networking :)

What surprised and touched me was that they planned a bunch of presents for me as an official welcome thing... I got 3 sky lanterns (orange, yellow and red which each signify something in life that I don't remember), an AIESEC T-shirt and 2 sets of 3 drawers!! I think they saw my previous blog post about shelves and got me some... there was also a hand-made "Welcome to Taiwan" book containing post-it greetings by members! see how nice they are!!

More pictures will come once I re-organise my desk and officially install the shelves :)

Many many thanks to TPLC for a great evening!!!

Update from past 2 weekends

Here's what I've been up to the past 2 weekends...

8th Feb 2009
Lunch was with Tom and Bing-ge, who were delegates at Singapore NLDS 2006... Tasty hotpot buffet at Xi Men Ding, complete with free flow of Haagen Daz ice creamAfter that, I went for dinner with Sandra and her family (thanks Sandra for inviting!).. Her grandma came along and it was interesting because her grandma and mom say I can speak and understand more hokkien than Sandra and her siblings... hehe...

After dinner, Sandra and I headed to to Lantern Festival held at the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall, in celebration of the 15th day of Chinese New Year... it was HUGE with lots of people and a lot of lanterns, even a stage for performances and games (including riddles)...

This came as a bit of a culture shock, because in Singapore, the same style lantern festivals happen BUT during the Mid-Autumn Festival instead... and all along I thought that chinese all around the world did the same (I seriously remember my primary school chinese textbook having a story about Mid-Autumn Festival and complete with illustrations of children playing with lanterns)...

Here's a video I took of the main display lantern lighting up...



Photos at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=220090&id=576355703&l=17587

14 Feb 2009
It's amusing that some buses actually wish people Happy Valentine's Day on their digital signboards... anyway, I had lunch with Elmo and Mino at a nice Japanese place, after which we headed to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall to visit the Andy Warhol Exhibition... Taiwan is the first stop the exhibition is making within Asia and since it was a Saturday, it was really packed... I wonder if there'll be so much attention if the exhibition is in Singapore...

I also finally met some of the other AIESEC interns, all of whom have been in Taiwan for at least 6 months already... unfortunately for me, they've already done their traveling around so I'm still on the lookout for travel buddy(ies).

this coming weekend will mainly feature my welcome party on Saturday (including an introduction of Singapore) and if the weather turns out ok, I just might make a trip to Danshui on Sunday...

After 1 week at work

So I have now officially finished 1 week of work... and since everyone is asking how is it, it's easier to post it here instead of repeating for every single person :)

in summary, I'm totally enjoying work. I like the company, the culture, the colleagues, and the opportunities presented in the tasks and assignments that I do. I do think there's a lot that I still need to learn and get used to such, things like business culture, dealing with people, finance and management terms in chinese and of course getting a better grasp of the industry and general business environment here in Taiwan... It's also interestig to see management concepts that we learnt in AIESEC being applied on a much bigger scale here, and I resolve to take some time to go through some of those concepts as I learnt it so that I can be sharper on my feet when seeing them in application at work...

Here are some photos of my office and desk area

building where my office is located, right beside Da-an MRT station

View from my desk (front view and window view)

We also had a BBQ gathering at my boss's weekend house, to celebrate the success of the 5th Anniversary event held last Friday... The house was in a villa area on a hill along the outskirts of Taipei county so it was very peaceful and nature-y... plus Sakura was in bloom so I got my first experience of Taiwan Sakura!

Here's the link to the BBQ photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=218537&id=576355703&l=7b4f8

Saving the Earth and Saving Money

I was a bit irked that my desk at home only has 1 drawer (which is quite shallow) and that there are no additional shelves provided... That meant that my desk is usually quite cluttered, since I can't put food stuffs into my cupboard...

So... I did a bit of improvisation and here's what my desk looks like:
Yes I used the box that my water boiler came in and made myself a shelf...

Here it is close-up... I didn't have any twine at home (not yet) so I used a rolled up plastic bag and threaded it through the edge for extra support...

Then I got random and decided to make something out of some extra card board left, and the cup holder I got from my drink during lunch... so... I made a handphone/stationery holder:
Also, my desktop dustbin is now stuck to the side of my fridge to free up space on the desk...

Yay for saving the earth and saving money... I just need to find a shop that sells twine and then I can do something for hanging/airing clothes...