Day 6 (28/5/2011): 五分埔＋宁夏夜市！

  Coffee!!! Finally got my caffeince shot after 5 days without it. I'm desperately in need of my C.O.F.F.E.E!!! Haha.. I'm doing just great without coffee actually, but I seriously miss the aroma of the freshly-brewed bitter-tasted hot coffee. Don't laugh! That's me, coffee-addict.

  I went to the this cafe, Ikari Coffee, which is located somewhere near XiMenDing for my caffeine boost and also to sink my teeth into the much-missed American breakfast. Lol.. Let's see... Chocolate blueberry cake, Hokkaido Vanilla-flavoured cake, waffle with cream, PEANUT-BUTTER toast (MY FAV), and latte. Haha... Shocked? I didnt't finish all these up by myself for sure. I just had a taste of everything.

  The weather? Yea, still drizzling.. chilly, windy day.. I kind of get used to this breezy weather, and secretly hoped that the weather will stay like this for the rest of summer. Will my wish be granted?? *finger-crossed*

  Guess what's for tea time?? B.I.N.G.O! Pearl Milk Tea, or better known as Bubble Milk Tea in my beloved Malaysia. Haha.. I opted for the smaller size pearl, which is kinda rare back at home. Hmm.. How do i describe the taste of BMT? Well.. not much difference from our BMT, other than the you get to choose the size of "pearl".

 

   五分埔Night~!!!

  Feel so grateful to my host family for taking me to this place, which I secretly vowed that I must set foot on - 五分埔. The consequences of being addicted to 女人我最大, I've been imagining myself coming out of this place with bags and bags of clothes, shoes, bags, accessories etc.. Haha.. Hmm.. I can't say that I really like this place after I've been there. It's true that there are a lot of shops, but then, almost every shop sells the same thing. Its like a maze. A very narrow and crowded maze. I've problem trying to figure north south east west, entrance and exit, as well as which lane I've visited and which lane I haven't. I miss my sis now!! So.. ya, I actually got tired after a while. But how could I exit this place without something?? I must at least get something. Haha.. bad habit. Ya.. so in the end, managed to get some nice and cheap clothes..

*See for yourself how crowded this place is.

  Had this nice dessert, TauFuFa with FenYuan (粉圆）, something like glutinous-rice-ball, with peanut fillings in it. Not bad~!!

  Next stop, NingXia Night Market 宁夏夜市。This night market is famous among the locals, selling mainly food and drinks. No clothes, no bags, no other things.

  Had my first taste of LuRou Rice 鲁肉饭 here, in a Hakka Restaurant. Haha.. Its a bowl of white rice, with a spoonfull of nice, aromatic pork gravy on it. You can eat it just like that, without any other dishes. I also tried their famous 贡丸汤, meatball soup should be more known to us Malaysians. Haha.. Oh my gosh.. the meatball is so springy! I LOVE IT.



  That's all for Saturday. Got to have a good night's sleep. Going To HsinChu tomorrow!!!

  Till then.. <3

韵丽　笔

 

Day 5 (27/5/2011): Plain Old Fri~

  Nothing interesting happened to today. Or, maybe I was too tired?

  The only thing that I think that could be counted as interesting was that students from 602 flocked the office and communicated with me in kinda poor english, with lots of hand gesture.... just to get to know me more, my idol etc... Haha... They are really fond of Korean band. Totally into K-Pop. They are really good in dancing and even showed me some of their dances! They asked me about SJ, SNSD, Shinee, F(x) and a lot more K-Pop singer. At that very moment, I secretly feel thankful that my sis, Lynn, is a K-Pop fan. Without her talking non-stop to me about these singer, everyday, I wouldnt be able to even name 1 of these singers! Fuu...

韵丽 笔

Day 4 (26/5/2011): Night Tour in Taipei City.

  The sky continued to be gloomy and the weather got even colder. Brr~~ summer huh? Haha.. but I like this kind of weather. No sweat at all!!! How nice if the weather stay like this for the coming 2 months.. Hehe.. Greedy me!!

  I don't wanna talk about lessons today. I just wanna share a very special and heart-warming little gesture by one of my student.

  The story begins with this:

  I showed my students a power point presentation the day before and mentioned that I like chocolate. And the very next day (means today), she brought me a bag of German Chocolate with a letter (a short note actually) attached to it. Aww... I felt so surprised when I received it, and felt very very touched when I read her letter. T.T Tears of joy!!!

  Dear Fanny (ya, her name is fanny), you definitely wouldnt be able to imagine how my feeling was when I received your small little gift. Your gesture really warmed my heart and made me feel that I was in the right place. I know that your (and your friends) may not be very good, of course, I'm not really good in English either, but I'm so glad that you made this effort to write to me and try to speak to me in English. I will (I promise)try my best to help you and your friends to overcome your fear and speak english fluently.

  Let's all work together, shall we?? <3

 

  Headed over to Taipei City with my host family at night. Throughout the whole journey, my host family filled me with Taiwanese history and also their culture. All I can say is AMAZING! I agree 100% that it is better to hear from someone who has been there, saw it and lived it then to read a thousand book and studied a thousand map by yourself. I'm soooooooo lucky to have them as my host family!! Their close-knitted family bond really ease my homesick feeling and make me feel so welcomed! <3

  The drizzling continued. We went to this restaurant "吉星" for dinner. So, here it is..

*This is our very first "family photo" <3

*Peter and Alen (the sons) were so funny when they danced "Waka-waka"..

韵丽 笔

Day 3 (25/5/2011): First Lesson!

  "Attention! One Two, good morning Teacher Vivian!" I was taken aback by the loud greetings of the students when I stepped inside the class. Ok.. So my very first lesson was with class 403, the 3rd class in 4th grade (四年三班). Did a very brief introduction of myself and started to interact with the students. Students are to communicate with me in english, that's the main purpose. Guess what? My new identity in GLPS is "the foreign teacher who doesnt understand mandarin". Cool huh... XD

Class 403

  My very first lesson was with this class. Had a nice time with them. There's this awesome feeling in you, when the kids who normally feel uncomfortable with speaking english started to take the initiative to try speak with you in english. Although their english werent excellent, but the effort they put in really amazed me. The special moment with them was when they showed me their dance movement "包庇" that they performed during last week's musical. Haha.. They were so cute and funny.

Class 402

  Class 402 was scheduled at 1.30pm. I was kinda tired and sleepy after lunch. But still, I had to force  myself to shake away the sleepiness and stay awake, at least, until the lesson ends Right? Ya.. so, we played a small little colour game. Instead of dancing, 3 students sang a song for the class. There's this nice girl, Fanny, and her 2 other friends ( I can't remember their names) sang us a song, which sadly, I've forgotten the song name.

Class 502

  This is the group photo of Class502. The 1st one on the left is their English teacher. Can you see where am I? The teacher said that I'm just like the kids. Woohoo~!! Means I'm young! Thank you!! XD

  Every Wednesday at 3.30pm, they'll all leave the classroom and head to the outdoor to stretch and play some little games. I personally think this is really great, as the kids will have the opportunity to be in the sun instead of just sitting whole day in class and study study study! Malaysia should implement this. Haha.. Students get to play whatever they want, they are even allowed to explore the ecological park at the back of the school. Cool right? Totally... And you know what? It's Hokkien Wednesday!!! The school used Hokkien in their broadcasting today. Haha.. English Tuesday and Hokkien Wednesday (Tai-Yu Wednesday is more appropriate). 

  After school, host-mama brought us to the street market. Wow~ I was awestruck by the traffic there. The narrow street was really crowded with the bikes zooming here and there and with the people forcing their way to the stall they wanted to go. Curiosity strucked me and I couldnt help but to take photos non-stop. Even 7-11 looked so new to me.  

*Century Egg

*PIG HEAD!!!

*Law-Ak

韵丽 笔

Day 2 (24/5/2011): A Brand New Day!

  Ok.. So here comes day 2. HELLO!! GOOD MORNING!!

  Hmm.. how do I start? Ya.. right.. I had this really nice butter cream flavour cake with a nice crust as breakfast. Sorry, I was too sleepy to take the photo of this nice cake. Haha.. It was really special as the butter is so nice and creamy and the cake is so moist and soft. Btw, the weather was slightly chilly and breezy today. Symptom of typhoon.

  Ya. so, host-mama sent us (me and her 2 sons) off to school by 7.30am. Hmm... surprisingly, I can hear "Hello teacher vivian" "Hi teacher vivian" as I walked from the front gate to the office. I havent seen the students yet, have I?? Haha.. however, it was really glad that I'm welcomed warmly by them. Good start, at least. My first stop was the principal's office. I cant describe how glad he were when he found out that I understand and speak mandarin. We had a short talk, something like a brief introduction and grt-to-know-each-other session, together with my host mama v(she's a volunteer in Geng Liao Elementary School) and the president of Teacher Parents Association.

  THIS!!! I like this!! Why dont we have this back in out school???



  As you can see in this photo, although it is summer in Taiwan, but as the typhoon is predicted to hit the coast in a few days time, the sky is constantly in grey colour and is really cloudy. It was really chilly out there. I almost freezed as I didnt bring my jacket out with me. Summer??? Haha..

  There's this teacher's meeting every tuesday morning, so i just sat in the office and looked around. I still havent got my schedule yet, so... its kind of like a get-to-know-the-school day for me. Haha.. I wandered around the school with my camera in hand. I was amazed at how they manage the school. They had only about 300-400 students, but the compound of the school is HUGE!! They have basketball court, running track, field, a big playground, hall etc... They even have an ecological park! How nice is that?? It is really SPACIOUS. There's no way you'll suffocate here, its totally awesome. Why isn't Wen Hua like this??

   Haha.. guess what?? I've a gift from the kids!! Here's the stories. I wasn't schedule to start teaching todays, instead, I was scheduled to be at the "snack bar" during recess. It's sort of an informal way to introduce me to the kids. Ya, so.. the kids flocked the Snack Bar to see their new teacher! =) They were to speak english if they intend to buy anything. There's this little girl, I cant remeber which grade she's in, asked me, what is my favourite colour? She bought a purple glitter-glue and drew this heart-shape with my initial in it. Oh dear.. what a darling!

  Its English Day every tuesday. And they have a very nice game. The teacher will give a short sentence in mandarin, and the kids are to translate it into english, and drop their answer sheets in this box. It's one of the many ways to encourage them to learn english. As the clock approached 3.30pm, there'll be an announcement to tell the kids that it's time to clean the classrooms and surrounding. Good right? And the kids are really responsible. Bravo!

  Friends from Fu Jen University invited me over for a small dinner gathering. I feel very grateful as Sam purposely drove from his Uni to Wu Gu to pick me up. THANKS!!! So, here's my dinner, its called 八锅。Can you guess how much does this cost?? Only 110NTD, with unlimited rice, drinks and ice-cream. No wonder it is packed with uni students! After dinner, we headed to a cafe called LaTTea!! I had this really delicious drink called 绿盖。Its a green tea drink actually, with a thick layer of cheesy mousse on top of the drink. Straws are not provided. So you can imagine my white creamy moustache after I sipped it. I really enjoyed this drink!! Can I have more of this?

  My host-papa bought this pineapple tarts for me to try! How nice of him. Ya.. So, that night, we had this small local specialties party. They tried coconut candy, dodol and cookies from Malacca, while I enjoyed their pineapple tarts! They are really nice and friendly. Good people!! Haha... I think I'm so lucky to have them as my host family.

 

韵丽 笔

26/5/2011

Day 1 (23/5/2011): Arrival

  Weeks after weeks of application process and days after days of packing, the much anticipated day has finally arrive.

  

  Woke up extremely early (at least I think it's EARLY) after only 3 hours of sleep! Gosh! I must be one of panda's close relative. Eye cream and BB cream werent good enough for covering my "can" look. Shivered throughout the whole shower, but not even the icy-cold water can diminish my anticipation to set foot in Taiwan.

Fast forward to LCCT...

  The LONG QUEUE! I was there before the check-in counter opened, but alas, too late as well. There are more of other early birds! I'm the slightly-late bird. Lolz..
 
  Oh well, this will be my FIRST time travlling to overseas alone. Not "Home Alone" but "Overseas Alone". Pray hard that everything will turn out fine.

  "We're soaring, flying..." HSM addiction. Haha.. Travelling alone is kinda boring even when I have my book with me. I can't say that I dislike AirAsia, nor I like it. It's just...plain. And the meal, err....no comment. OH ya, air turbulence happened quite a number of time. Throwin the plane left and right and worsen my headache!!! The 4 hours and 40 minutes on board is really a torture! How could time crawls at such slow pace?

  Eventually! The plane touched down at the wet and slightly-misty TaoYuan Airport. It must have rained heavily earlier. The drizzling continues for the whole of yesterday, cooling the night and I had a good night's sleep on my comfy fluffy princess bed.

  A whole-heartedly thanks to Maggie, Jia-Lin and Sam for picking me up at the airport and helping me around the busy Taipei city to my destination.How could we miss the opportunity to have this photo taken? We walked under the drizzle on a slippery floor, with vehicles speeding beside us and took 2 buses before we finally arrived.

Fast forward again... to my host family this time.

  The Cheng family is really nice. They are so soft-spoken, warm and kind-hearted. Their 2 sons, 1st and 6th grade respectively, are cute and active. Haha... Look at the room they prepared for me, so princessy!! And they also took the trouble to prepare toiletries for me and spent hours to set up internet connection for me. I really appreciate it!! Thank you!!!!

 After settling and arranging everything, it's almost 1am. So, what's more other than the bed??? 

韵丽 笔
24/5/2011

Spell S.U.M.M.E.R

Here we (me and my load-full of stuffs) come, Taiwan!!

Packed, re-packed...
Loaded, unloaded...
Alas, managed to stuff everything into my luggage and still stick to the restricted luggage weight.
*sheepishly* with an additional handcarry + backpack...
Guess I will never learn to pack light, despite of my travelling experiences.

Eager and anticipation is what I'm all about now.. <3

Spell S.U.M.M.E.R!!!

韵丽 笔