It's amazing how the devotion done by Vincent not too long ago was touched on in today's homily - the conversion of C.S. Lewis. It just reminds me of how Christians, regardless of denomination, are serving and talking about the same God (should be the case, really). My mum has this theory, that we may all finally realize in heaven, that Muslims, Buddhists and Christians may all well be sharing the same God, just that we've given Him different names, and worship Him in different buildings.
It's something Mystical
Saturday, August 11, 2012
withers away @ 11:15 pm
never got my ass down to recording my taiwan trip in june. going to do something a little different from the previous trips this time round. instead of going in chronological order, i'll be grouping whatever memories not captured in the photos into categories instead.
free and easy
this was my first truly free and easy trip (not 2d1n kinda thing) where we had to plan pretty extensively earlier. i was a pretty big part of that, since i was one of the ones with better command of the language. our plans changed everyday, according to the weather (v impt), our mood and how tired we were. first time the group was split into two separate rooms, so we had a lot of trouble waking the other room up. ended up forsaking them to go for breakfast on our own a couple of mornings. and i thought it would be quite a nightmare to wake me up already. when it came to shopping, we would always split up and meet up again a few hours later. since we have free wi-fi at the metro stations and our rooms and we all have our phones with us on roaming, it's not that difficult to contact each other really. the v convenient metro service made travelling easy as well. no wonder jiefu had no trouble when he came over to SG a while back, cos their metro system is just abt the same as what we have here, just that they have more lines. and of course quite a lot more variety in terms of public transport, but none too difficult to manage.
nowhere to stay...?!
grace and ky went to tw a few days earlier than us, to kending, supposedly to surf, though they didn't get to in the end due to the unfavourable weather. so the rest of us checked in our rooms first. it was then that we realized that it was actually a residential apartment. and my wifi was playing tricks with me. anyhow, we went to pick up grace and ky at abt evening at the metro station, and decided to lead them back to put their luggage down before heading out for dinner. needed to pick them up or else they might just end up walking a whole big round like what we did in the afternoon.
who knows we got a huge shock of our lives when an uncle stopped us at the lobby and prevented us from going to the lift lobby. he asked if we stayed there and insisted on the security guard on checking our identities. it became pretty apparent that this uncle was a resident and he was getting increasingly frustrated at the illegal usage of apartments as hotel rooms for tourists. he even wanted to call the police. we were obviously not the first ones. blame our luck to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. not to mention that we were all terribly hungry, and those who can be of use among us are not well-versed in the language enough to even understand the situation in full (ky's msian with malay as 2nd language, gerald threw away all his chinese after pri sch, mary threw hers away after hwa chong, or maybe before that), we might have to move out and find another place to stay. i was already asking jiefu for alternative places.
after what seemed like ages in the lobby, and some help (or diversion) from the security guards and our apartment company guy, we finally got to run off, though we were all quite afraid of meeting the uncle again. from then on, we never came back to the apartment during dinner time, and rather, go back only late at night or wee hours of the morning. cos uncle will never be there at those times hehe.
rain and typhoon
there was nothing (literally nothing) on the news for the week we were there except about the rains and impending typhoon and the damage it had cost. we were lucky as if we took our flight the next day, we would be forced to wait at changi for a few hours before departure due to the poor weather. but this also meant that we had to be armed with umbrellas every single day. we had rain everyday except for the day we went to wulai (thank God) and the last day. so i only wore my shoes on the first and last day. i was wearing slippers on the rest of the days cos i really hate the feeling of wet shoes and toes the whole day. we were kinda (?) hoping that a typhoon will strike on our day of departure (which was the case according to the weather forecast a few days before), so that we will have reason to stay in tw longer lol.
though the rains proved to be really inconvenient, especially when we had to walk through the night markets, we realized it was some sort of a blessing in disguise. we missed the famous famous danshui sunset (sigh, next time maybe?), but i can't express how much fun we had in the drizzle. in order to take nice photos with the orange sky (yup there was no sun to be seen, but it wasn't that overcast either), we just threw our bags and umbrellas on the pavillion floor and ran out to stand on the stone benches. and cos of the rain, i can finally for once take photos without random people in them! i have to say those were the best photos we took during the trip.
on the last day, the sun was finally out but we were all sweating like mad people in ximending. that was when we realized it was a good thing it rained. if it was that hot in ximending the last time we were there, i dun think we would have done as much shopping as we had.
7-11s
there are SO MANY 7-11s and quan jias in tw it's quite miraculous. you can have one on this street and another just opposite. we had one just one street away, and it was during the trip when we realized that their 7-11 is so much different and seriously, more convenient than ours.
i had to order my eye makeup remover in SG online as it wasn't sold in shops in tw. best part was that you could request for it to be sent to any 7-11 in tw. ANY. and you don't have to pay online, you just do it when you collect it at 7-11. you'll be blacklisted if you don't collect the item(s) within a certain period of time of course. i thought this was a brilliant idea, cos you don't have to reveal your address, and you aren't afraid of illegal tracking/stealing of online transactions or credit card details.
there's also a kiosk in 7-11 where you can do all sorts of services, like buying concert tickets. that's where gerald tried to buy his cello recital tix. no wonder pop concert tix can be sold on within minutes in tw. i bet there are just people in every 7-11 buying tix at the same time! we can also check our metro card value and top up there.
and we bought our tix for our HSR (high speed rail) ie 高铁 at the kiosk too. though we made such a silly mistake the 7-11 guy was almost going to laugh at us already. we thought we had to pay via the metro card, so topped it up so much, only to realize that we need to go to the counter to pay. in cash. nearly fainted there and then lol. but it's so convenient as we get the tix themselves straight away. that saved us so much time and worry for uncertainty of any queue if we were to buy the tix over at the station.
it's a convenience shop right, it should operate this way here too!
lost
shilin was one of the busiest night markets that we went to, and there were many illegal stalls set up in the middle of nowhere. so whenever the police came, the stalls will quickly pack up within about 5 to 10 seconds (i'm not exaggerating) and either run off or look like they belong. it's not a new sight anymore, as i saw the same thing in china so many times already. now, SL and i always walked about together, and we might look at different stalls at the same time but we always manage to meet up again. but there was just this once in shilin when i thought i was really separated with her and lost, just after the packing up of the illegal stalls. i just couldn't spot her in the crowds anymore, and by the time the stalls went back into business, i still couldn't find her. it didn't help that her phone didn't get through. just somehow, she appeared out of nowhere and i think we could all see the relief on each other's faces. we never knew how we lost each other really.
jiefu
just so happens that biaojie is married to taiwan not too long back, but when we were there, biaojie was back in msia waiting for her baby to be born (my nephew was born a few days back!). jiefu offered help before the trip regarding the itinerary already, and i actually didn't have any intention of troubling him anymore when we were there.
but we still had to meet up cos half my luggage was full of baby stuff that biaojie bought in msia. i thought it would just be a simple handover, but we ended up squatting by the roadside while he wrote down the places we could visit on the metro system map so that it'll be easier for us. he offered to bring us around jiufen, shifen, keelung area on sat when he is not working. i still didnt know if i should accept the offer as we had too many ppl for him to drive in his car, and it will be a full day affair and just hate to trouble others, not to mention i haven't seen my jiefu that many times for us to be that close.
after discussing with the others, we decided it was a good idea to have him as our tour guide, especially when those areas are more rural and requires us to take the train which doesnt accept the metro card. might just get messy if we do it ourselves. but we promptly rejected his offer of driving (which he was pretty insistent of), as that would mean that his brother would have to drive us too. i haven't even met his brother before, oh what, i haven't even seen his picture at that. just couldn't bring ourselves to trouble him that much.
turns out it was great having jiefu around. we wouldn't have known so much and went to so many places in a day without his help. he knew exactly where he was going such that we would almost never have to backtrack, and could see much more. if it were only us, most people would only dare to go back the same way you came, simply cos you dunno the way well. and actually i was a little afraid that it would be awkward among us, especially when i'm not that close to jiefu either, and being a lousy conversationalist, i won't be able to help the situation if everything runs cold. thank goodness he was chatty enough, and we all survived the day with meaningful conversations peppered along the way. really have jiefu to thank for for a great sat out.
jay
he's one of the reasons why i had to be one of the people working on the itinerary. i was bent on visiting the jay restaurants, and to go to eslite to hunt for books and related works of him (totally unable to resist). went totally bonkers when i was at the secret-themed restaurant. main courses were great, but the rest of the food and drinks didn't rock. but the decor just brought me back to those times... secret holds such an important place in me, i couldn't imagine missing that out when i'm already in tw. everyone was enduring all my whines and squeals throughout the time we were there, and even asked if they sold the pizza box for me lol. gerald couldn't understand my obsession, but i just had to compare that with his fishing for him to get a gist of it.
the tofu restaurant was a real disappointment though. difficult to find, poor display of my dear AE86, plain, and food that is really nothing to boast about (we had to get good food after that due to the bad aftertaste). though i missed jay by a few days there (he was at the very same shop just a few days before we were. dang!), i won't go back there again.
hmmm maybe i shld try the magic themed restaurant next time? lol.
realization
人一倔强，谁都说不动。算了吧。
the best trips consists of these things: good food, good scenery, good shopping and most of all, good company. i had everything this taiwan trip :)