Yesterday, I coincidentally met my dear SS Camp Faci Felicia, who thinks Simmy & I are singing in SMU Choir. Lol. And when I asked her why, she told me she saw Facebook pictures of us singing on stage together. That sparked off inspiration to do up this entry.

We were singing for the NJC Alumni Choir – NJChorale.
Also known as the love of my boyfriend’s life. LOL.

These are some A Cappella (for Dear Jess: Ah-Car-Pear-Lah) we did during our concert, Love Notes (一夜•情）last July. There were many more songs we sang, but these are some of my favourites. I’ve watched them more than 10 times I think. Just to remind myself of the whole experience. The music, the company, the friends, the laughter, the stupid things in between, and above all, the love. For some, I’ve only posted up snippets of the clips cause they were of a higher quality. Full-length videos can be found on Youtube! Enjoy!

Oh No John by Thomas & Priscilla.
The oddest couple, ever. Hilarious. Pay attention to the lyrics. Haa.

In the Still of the Night by Chee Jun, Linus, Zhirui, Thomas & Gabriel.
This, is for friends who didn’t know my Tech Support could sing. HAHA. The actions were totally, classic man. Luckily Mr Cheong sang solo, so no need to do. HAHAHA. The full-length clip on Youtube has more hilarious actions lah, so go search it if you want. This 20-second clip is merely to show off Mr Cheong’s vocal prowess. LOL.

My all-time favourite song, Fire, solo-ed by Cheryl Sim & accompanied by Zhirui, Xiang, Jia Yun, Linus and Jiahao the Vocal Percussionist.

Last but NOT least, ME ME ME!! HAHA.
Lollipop by Xiang, Priscilla, Jia Yun, Ann & Si Xuan.
LOVE THE PROPS TO BITS. Watch the full-length on Youtube okayyyyy. XD

Ahhh. I want to sing again.
((:

it’s the end of Week 4. How scary. Time doesn’t have wings but flies faster than anything else.

There’s so much I want to do, other than pia-ing my readings. I can’t wait for April to come and go, though I really want to celebrate 0504 properly. I want more time to do nonsense, read my Jodi Picoult & Mitch Albom, decorate my room with photo frames, make scrapbooks for my friends and… searching for opportunities to intern at BC/HH. LOL. I really really want to do that & learn something I’d love to do, but it’s quite embarrassing. Can you imagine packing parcels and pasting stamps and ploughing through thousands and thousands of emails? I actually think I might like that. Above all, I’ll get to see all the launches before everyone else does!!! =X Oh, and I wanna bake a cake, that is edible. -.-

Collected my HH Suede Flats in brown & pink Stitches last night, together with Luan’s khaki nude heels and Jess’s navy blue heels. Loving it to bits. The colour combination is just soooooo nice, and it fits me perfectly!! *drools* everyone should join the backorder for the flats. As for the heels, it’s a tad high for me at 3.5″, but it’s not considered very high in the market I think. I cannot imagine Jess wearing it. She’ll be the TOWER. And tongxue, let me remind you that you’re not allowed to wear that pair of shoes when u hang out with me. I’ll throw it in the drain. Oh nono, I’ll sell it on Cozycot. HAHAHAHA.

Luan & CK came over last night. What supposed to be a 1 minute collection of HH loots at my place turned out to be 4 hour chit-chat HTHT session. I cannot imagine HTHT with CK. LOL. But it was nice to discuss about issues openly and realise how screwed certain situations are. I say they are screwed because I’m not affected by them until I’m reminded of them and they come back to haunt me every now and then. Above all, they do not have any feasible solutions. Screwed. Oh well. I showed them my baby pictures also. So funny. Shall digitise all of them someday and post them up. By the way, CK, digitise and digitalise are the same lah! I checked Apple dictionary. Don’t laugh at Luan liao, haha. (:

I should study.

Stupid readings. Stupid stupid readings.

Stupid deadlines. Stupid stupid deadlines.

Sigh. When will school ever be fun?!

I’m like a single jigsaw piece, standing alone on a flat table with 1 million other jigsaw pieces of the same colour, but of different shapes.

I can’t fit in anywhere, as much as I try to.
I can’t understand why nobody has the same shape as I do.
I can’t see the big picture that we jigsaw pieces supposedly form,
And I guess that’s why they call us jigsaw puzzles.

**

It’s Week 4, and I’m still alive. I don’t know if my SMU friends are still alive or not. At least I’m pretty sure some of them aren’t anymore. I don’t see them in school, and I don’t even see them in the library. I only see them physically present in classes. It’s a very scary feeling. Those are humans, not friends. It’s just damn damn sad. Cause the skeptic in me often tells myself that nobody really gives a damn about other people, be it friends or best friends.

I hope I’m not offending anyone by saying this out loud on my blog, but it really feels this way. Earlier, I remember mentioning to Dear, Jess and Tweety about this – I lose all my SMU friends when Week 3 or 4 comes. They change. Overnight, my friends disappear, disintegrate, transform into this physical mass sitting next to me. I’m not saying that it’s wrong to be this way, nor am I putting any blame on any particular individual. It’s just very very demoralising to not have friends stand next to you, fighting with you, and experiencing the same shit you’re going through. Or so I think. Maybe it’s just me and my sensitive glands.

Perhaps it’s the system, like how George Kuah describes it to be. I don’t know, and I can’t say for sure. But yeah, I do understand that everyone has their own commitments outside classrooms, like CCAs, church and what not. It’s just awkwardly stifling, and I don’t know what else to do except to act like it doesn’t bother me, but in actual fact, it does.

Every night I press on, with readings, projects, assignments, emails and all the rubbish, telling myself to look ahead. And all I think of is my crazy mother telling me about how important it is to study hard and get a decent paying job and feed her and my dad. I think about it and feel even worse. What happened to studying because you’re interested in the subjects? I look at Dear and I wish I was the one learning all the Adobe, meddling with tablets, trying out the visual thingamajings, and hearing all about perfumes & cosmetics. Any one of these is a million times better than learning about political regimes and ideologies and nationalism. Then the stupid question hits me again: Should I have gone to FASS instead? You moron, isn’t it a little too late?

It’s been 19 long years, approaching 20, and I still don’t know what direction I’m heading towards. Am I going to be a psychologist? Am I going to be a sociologist? Oh, I know I’m definitely not venturing into the political science arena. But am I going to be getting that decent-paying job in order to feed my parents?

Sigh.

I wish I’m not afraid of fighting a tough battle alone.

Where is the Love?

Oh. My. God.

This is a pair of lucky earrings. I’ve lost it in my toilet for more than 10 times over 4 years. But every time I’ll manage to find it in less than 24 hrs. This is the first time it has been away from me for more than 1 week. I lost it last Monday. Mum dug the sink again this morning and FOUND it.

Super lucky! How can it be still there after 1 week?!?!

Mum went to SK yesterday to enquire about remaking the other earring. Was told that it’d cost her $200+ just for ONE side. Mad expensive lah. I shall ATTEMPT to remove my earrings before I shower in future. Nevertheless, I love my diamonds. They are my best friends, no matter how small they are. HEH.

Shall post a picture of both earrings soon. Blogging from school library now cause I’m desperate to share my joy HAHA.

*EDIT: PICTURES UP!

The reunion of the left & the right.

Happy. (:

I lost one side of my favourite earring.

My mum gave it to me on my 16th birthday.

Little Diamond. From SK.

And I really think I lost it in the shower, cause I realised that it was gone before leaving the house yesterday morning. It was still there when I showered, and I know cause I always touch them when I wash my ears. Mum and I have been flipping the toilet upside down. Even wore gloves to dig the shower and sink drainage. Crawled around my toilet and room hunting for it. No sign.

Heartache.

At least if you’d lost all your music in your harddisk, you can re-download the exact same songs. Even if SK still sells it, this earring will never be the same piece again.

I really really hate losing my things. Especially precious little things like these.

STUNNED.

Mr Cheong still thinks outoffaith.wordpress is a private blog. Makes me wonder if I told others wrongly or something.

Anyway, this is a PUBLIC blog. I’ll lock up entries I want to protect, though it shouldn’t happen very often. So do go ahead and link me at your sites. Meanwhile, I’ve been including my blog on my MSN/Adium nickname what. It’s even on facebook. -.-

Contemplating Nuffnang for extra income. Heh. But I’d either have to move back to blogger.com, or host this wordpress blog on a domain and pay $15/year. hRmm.

If blog statistics are high enough, I’ll make the move. Just to tread on unknown ground and see what happens.

So, LINK UP. heh.

It’s been awhile since I last found time for wordpress. But here I am, after 6 hours of munching up my Psychology textbook, with the end far from sight. Sigh.

Do you know that studying psychology involves studying the brain? As in, parts of the brain. You get to see words like, synapses, cortex, lobes, limbics, peripheral nervous system, axon, dendrites, soma, and many many more. Like, HUH?! Okay maybe it might not be so tough for Bio students, but it’s definitely screwing up my mind. I use my brain to study the human brain and end up getting brain fried. Kthxbye. -.-

Meanwhile, political science is killing me. Literally. Welsh is trouble. Big trouble, like what Elizabeth aka Tweety said. Can I just get the damn B+ and move on please? I’ll totally treat it like a learning journey if I’m guaranteed a B+ for my overall grade for political science. Damn the mutiny-know-it-alls who are likely to screw things up for us all. Wednesdays are horror days. Political science is sitting rigidly at the top of the WTFBBQGGXX module list.

Econs is no better. I hardly understand why the Prof is talking about ’cause her style is so difficult to adapt to. She throws things from reality and attack them with Econs concepts before even mentioning about those concepts. In other words, she’s just assuming that everyone’s proficient in Econs. What’s the point of making us do the pre-course survey to gauge our background in Econs and the questionnaire about individual learning styles when you had already decided your teaching style?! Sigh. No one who’s pre-assigned to this course wants to take Econs again. There’s a reason why we need to do this in uni yo. So don’t be so hard on us lah. Also, the organisation of her lessons aren’t very good and it messes up the pathetically-few concepts that I have from JC. Like elasticity and market failure, I still can handle yo. Don’t anyhow draw graphs can. No axis minus marks okay. -.-

Oh and have I mentioned that Management Communication is kinda stressful too?! We need to present individually in front of the class of 50 and an angmoh prof, with a video camera in front of us. Graded. Oh, and throw in a few GP essays and grammar/punctuation quizzes will you? MC turns out to be the least stressful as of now though. At least I can understand and follow.

**

Okay no more about studies. Onto my life.

Life’s fine. Period’s here again to mess up my life and have I mentioned that I hate cramps? If only babies could come out of our palms or feet or something. I’d totally remove the things in me that cause the big red mess.

Oh, and it was Erge’s birthday 2 days ago. I bought a cake. Tried to organise the whole family. Wasn’t very appreciated. Prolly cause he was sick. Well done, Ann. You should just stick to organising your own birthday. And you should have gone for Megan’s birthday instead. Stop looking at the FB photos and feeling like an idiot who thinks that family’s supposed to come first. Doesn’t work that way all the time under this roof yo.

Shit, school life’s screwed, personal life’s also screwed. Okay I should talk about something positive.

Well, I’m almost always happy to go to school for classes, until the profs come in to mess things up. =X Seeing my friends, talking to them, laughing at Susu-with-7-kids jokes – all those are really enjoyable. Food perks me up too. Totally missed my Peanut Butter Toast from Simply Toast and my Tang Yuan from Mr Bean! Have yet to queue for Subway yet. Will do that when I’m really desperate or just sick from being a cheapo eater at Koufu/Kopitiam. =X

Oh and cause Dear started school a week late and still need not attend tutorials, I have more time with him! So he’s been coming to town pretty often though we only had a few hours with each other. Bought each other Vday presents in advance cause we both figured we need our bagpacks for school. Huge LOL created at the shop cause I insisted of laying out the terms and conditions before agreeing on the purchases. Well, this is how I ensure I get a bouquet for Vday’10 what. HAHA. XD

OH BIG ANNOUNCEMENT.

After a haircut at Far East Plaza on Tuesday, Mr Cheong started styling his hair. He does it even when he goes to school. Oh my god. He even went to buy Gatsby yesterday. Oh my god. And today, he told me he needed to go offline early cause he wanted time to style his hair. Oh my god. I finally knocked some dress sense into him! YAYNESS TO THE MAX. Next up, DIET. *nodnod*

Okay I’m starving. Time to eat dinner and chiong more saikology!

1 more day to TGIF!! YAY!

Today, I had my first class this semester.

It went pretty okay. At least I didn’t fall asleep. And I didn’t zonk out for more than 5mins out of 3hrs 15mins although it was ECONOMICS. HAHA. But when I came home, I was totally drained. Couldn’t think, couldn’t eat, couldn’t quite understand things people were saying. Concussed and/or stoned on my bed the entire afternoon. It wasn’t really heavy snoozing; prolly light ones cause I kept waking up every 30mins or so. Only got up from the bed at 5 plus to shower and eat a little before doing a bit of my Econs review assignments.

Now, I’m supposed to be halfway through my CSP Report for the completed Red Cross MAGC event last year. But, I have no idea how to approach it at all. Waiting for dear old Harry to send me his as a reference heh. (Thank you HARRY. YOU THE MAN!) No Year 1s I know has completed their 80hrs or has done their CSP Reports! Meanwhile, I’ll attempt to do some Econs MCQs while waiting.

**

Shucks. 2 hrs passed so fast?!
Okay, supper time. -.-

Sigh. I need better time management skills. First step would be to end off this entry. TATAs.

Awww. He’s my darling nephew, Yu Chen. (:

A kiss from my favourite baby. (:

This is him imitating what we say. ‘Gahna’ means olive in Teochew. The new word tickled him so much lah. And we also devised a method to get him to call us. Watch to find out!
Some translations:
‘Yi Yi” = Aunt
‘Gu Gu’ = Uncle
‘Lao Khim’ = Grand Aunt

What a way to end off my short holidays!
Can’t wait to have him over again! (:

Meanwhile, I haven quite started on my readings for Week 1. And my first class is tomorrow at 8.30am. I hope I have time. =X

*

Lastly, here’s my timetable for Semester 2.

Monday: 8.30am – 11.45am: Introductory Economics
Tuesday: 12noon – 3.15pm: Management Communication
Wednesday: 12noon – 3.15pm: Introduction to Political and Policy Studies
Friday: 12noon – 3.15pm: Introduction to Psychology

FINALLY.

Omg lah. I think I took 3 years to upload everything on Photobucket. Had to leave my laptop, Maggie awake throughout the nights. Poor her. Do OT non-stop. -.- Anyway, all the photos I wanna show everyone are up here on my blog. Facebook uploading is so screwed that I’ve decided to only upload the tag-worthies, since my cousin is also on Facebook. I hope this works. Oh and I just realised that out of 1,797 photos, I’ve uploaded 591 of them onto Photobucket. O.o

I wanted to organise the photos neatly, photoshop them, put them into collages with nice borders and whatnot. But siao lah, damn tedious can. Besides, the upload process is already killing me.

DISCLAIMER: This entry has close to 600 photos. Please wait for everything to load before reading. Oh, and do not try to load this entry on your iPhones or iPods. If crash not my fault ah. Thank you very much. (:

**

Day 1: 051209

Took an early morning flight from Singapore Changi Airport to Hong Kong Airport, for a transit flight to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport.

Took Cathay Pacific, though I’d much rather be in the plane next to us.

HAAA. The pilots so cute. Especially the old angmoh. Don’t know real or not. Scurly they are just modeling. -.-

Me in my Bonitochico Nautical Throwover & Jeans, with matching airplane blanket somemore lol. All belted up for flight. (:

My cousin became my subject. No one else wanted to take photos mah. x(

This shot was candid though.

EHH. LOOK LIKE OUR SBS BUS HOR!

WELCOME 2 TAIWAN! XD

TAIPEI 101. taken in the bus. lol.

My cute tour guide. He’s quite funny.

Couldn’t take a good shot of the TAIPEI 101 sign. Too many tourists lah. TSK.

KFC. Took us awhile to recognise it.

MacDonald’s! Turns out that Iced Lemon Tea isn’t 柠檬茶，it’s 红茶！=X

Caused some complication at the counter.

So nice..? How nice?

WELCOME 2 TAIWAN! (:

My cousin sucks at taking photos. Photos of him were taken by me so they look a lot better lah! =X I uploaded his photos together with mine to show the comparisons. HAA. XP

I wanted to buy this Lego set for Dear. Got remote control & railway tracks, so cool! But.. Close to SGD$200. … =X

This is my cousin reliving his childhood with this dog that responses to people’s touch. SENSORS FTW.

SPONGEBOB GAME!

Check out the game controller mans. O.o

Interior of Taipei 101.

They put their fire extinguisher on the floor!

TIFFANY & CO.

*heart stops*

HEH. I wasn’t drooling laaa.

This is the nicest photo I have of Edgar Tan. (:

Xmas tree with STARS by Omega. Niceeee.

I’M FROM SINGAPORE.

AND I’M IN TAIPEI. (:

Outside Taipei 101..

A Christmas tree on a classic Tiffany & Co. Blue Box.

Mum & I. (:

We changed hotels every single night in Taiwan. So this is the 1st and one of the few I actually took photos of with its name.

Before we checked into the hotel, we actually had free&easy dinner at the famous Shih-lin Night Market (士林夜市). It was really chaotic, tour group members went missing due to the congestion & serious lack of time. They only gave us an hour to settle dinner & look around! In fact, it was like that for the entire trip. Machiam refugees sia. Must wake up early. Rush rush rush. Sit in the coach for HOURS. Late fall-in will feel paiseh/kena black faces. Rush somemore. In the end, I complained and insisted that they give us at least 2hrs at Taipei’s Xi Men Ding on the last day HAHA. Mission accomplished. Shall continue with Day 2 first.

Day 2: 061209

When I woke up the next day (morning call was at 5.30am WTF), I looked out of the window. AND I SAW PEOPLE PLAYING GOLF WTF. Well, it looks like 8am right, but actually the sun rises damn early in Taoyuan, so that’s really 5.30am yo. Nothing can make me wake up at 5.30am just to play golf. Seriously. Out of their minds lah those people.

Scenery outside the hotel was pretty good. Nice flowers, greenery and a fountain too!

There’s a map of Taiwan inside our coach.

A SHOP SELLING MILK. So cute lah the deco. It’s like Ben & Jerry’s.

Right behind the shop, there were REAL COWS! Huge ones! And they have black & white patches just like their deco. So cartoonish lah. Anyway, the picture is blurred cause the stupid driver thought he was driving a Ferrari. -.-

This is the reason why our morning call was at 5.30am.

Had to catch the 8.16am BULLET TRAIN. hohoho.

SELF-SERVICE!

Cousin pretending to use the machine. Looks like our ez-link topup machine.

We were sooooo early that…

是贵的lor! Divide by 20. Go figure.

If taking MRT was so expensive, I think I’d stay at home to be a 宅女！

7－Eleven!

Look at how they pack bananas! Lol. Bento looks good too.

Their open-concept drinks compartment. I think we should adopt this as well. Makes the selection process a lot less painful. I bought 奶茶 here! BAGUS. (:

I obviously haven’t woken up yet. Darn early.

The door slides open when you press a button at the side. Reminds me of primary school staff room doors. HAA.

Tried to take a reflection of myself. Whoooosh.

Aunt, Cousin & I on the escalator!

Post office within a railway station! Cool.

7-Eleven is everywhere!

Reminds me of the Hokkien song Nini taught me how to sing at KBOX – Qia Zam aka 车站！Pronunciation not accurate, but this is how I remember it as:

~Huey qia yi qim kueh qia zam, nang ye xim tao jiam jiam ang. Kua nang hua hee lai jiap qing nang, buey oon xim lai xio sang. Bo qing ey la pa xia yim, xia xia ahm. Gueh tai bi xin bi xia lai xin soh ai ye lang.~

They look alike cause of their grey outfits.

This is how a car plate in Taipei city looks like!

The zebra stripes are actually pedestrian crossings, not zebra crossings. Got traffic lights one, cannot suga-suga walk lor.

Taipei 101 again!

An animal hospital! So cute lah the dog on top.

Everywhere we go, we see mountains, rocks, seas and greenery. It sounds fabulous to be away from city life, but after 8 days of it, I think I’m more suited to be a city girl after all. =X

Sony Cybershots in action!

We’ve finally arrived at Yeliu Geopark! Natural rocks that have formed due to plate collision. Said to have floated up from the sea after centuries of underwater plate movements. I heart Geography. Loves Mdm Neo to bits lol. Anyway, I’m supposed to see the rocks in different shapes like Chessboard Rocks, Elephant, Mushroom, Queen’s Head as named below, but I think I only saw 3? =X

We were walking on these! Damn easy to fall into the potholes lah!

A bay. Waves just rush in and out like nobody’s business. Tour guide said that people who fell in have died before because the waves were madly fast and strong. I noticed the algae too. Loads of them man. This is a really cool place for geography students. Bring me here when I was Sec 4 and I might just take A level Geog and major in Geog in FASS. LOL. =X

People were fishing. Got fish so stupid will want to swim to this kinda place and get swallowed by monster waves meh?

BIRD.

Cousin, Mum & I. Mum was so paranoid about falling into the water. -.- It’s actually 6 feet away from the tip of the rocks lah.

I was actually having a good hair day.. TILL the wind spoilt it all. x(

BLOODY EYEBAGS. must be the 5.30am morning call. x(

Why did I even bother combing my hair on the coach? =.=

Mum looked damn happy here! That’s why I uploaded this picture, despite looking like crap here.

WOOOSAH. Cool hair yo.

Honey-combed Rocks? The split in the middle makes me think of butt crack. LOL.

Looks like bee-hive! XD

BOOBS! AHAHAHAHAHA!

Look at the waves.

Byebye rocks!

Hello PUBLIC TOILETS ZOMG.

I didn’t want to mess up 3hr drives, so I had to use one of those. Didn’t breathe even for a second, so don’t ask me about the smell. I tried not to look, but I obviously had to in order to aim, so yeah, it looked awful. But I guess I’ve had worse experiences in China. =X

People do live in mountains here. A large area of Taiwan is covered by mountains. Geographical plates are active here. Explains all the earthquakes (poor Gerry!) and hot springs.

THIS.

IS. A. PRIVATE. RESIDENCE. IN. THE. MOUNTAINS.

*choir sings a major chord*

We headed all the way up to Jiu Fen. This market thingamajing. Amazing food. Horrible crowd. Best place to transmit flu bugs and diseases, 2nd best for pickpockets.

This is the shop which sells the BEST beef noodles. Damn the queue. We couldn’t try it. x(

MAI YA TANG at SGD$1 each.

Cousin & I bought one each. And I think it’s still with him! Lol so cute lah they carved them into different cartoon characters. I think mine was a Hello Kitty! (:

This is a wonderful crepe/po piah. Basically it has ice-cream, and peanut paste. All wrapped with po piah skin. Up. Also SGD$1. (:

Oh, and they make it right in front of you. 100% fresh.

Possibility of transmission of diseases: 100%

阿信的店！Where we bought all the Mochi, puddings, and what not.

By the end of the 2nd day, this was the state of the pair of boots I borrowed from my cousin, who is also Yu Chen’s mum. Had to throw it away in the end cause the heels came off, with her permission of course.

Another train ride, this time not bullet train though. To Hualien! (:

Day 3: 071209

I started missing city life. Guess how I find out?

As the coach drives us pass these farms, I started thinking of Farmville, and whether or not Dear was taking care of my farm when I was far away from civilisation. -.- GOT MOOMOOs!

~I like the flowers..

~I like the daffodils..

~I like the mountains..

~I like the green fields!

After God-knows how many hours of bus ride, we finally arrived at Taroko Gorge. Quite breath-taking, especially for noobish Singaporeans like us who rarely see natural rocks, gorges and whatnot.

Family of 6.

Front row from right to left: Me, Mum, Aunt.

Back row from right to left: Distant Grand-aunt, Big Auntie, and Cousin.

Ridiculous biological network. Will take me 10 years to understand our relations. -.-

This was the scenery I wanted as my backdrop.

And this is the final product I got. WHOSE FINGER WAS THAT. ADMIT IT NOW. Lol just joking. I was lazy to crop off the bottom part zzz.

MORE MOUNTAINS.

Jump Shot Attempt #1.

I look damn spastic.

I still look spastic.

RIVER MEANDERS.

Thereafter, we visited a Lingzhi speciality store. Damn gross. Luckily mum didn’t buy anything. This deer, WAS alive. I didn’t even dare to touch it. So scary lah. It looked at me straight in the eye lah. I DIDN’T MURDER YOU OKAY.

This is the grossest picture of all.

From left to right:

1. A baby deer which was almost fully-formed, taken out from its mother’s womb. They claimed to have taken it out because the mother was unable to survive due to injuries. You believe? =X Anyway, it apparently CURES asthma.

2. A deer’s TAIL. Forgot what it cures.

3. A male deer’s AHEM. Quite long har. =X Obviously to boost ahem ahem lah. -.-

CHECK OUT THE PRICES YO. Madness.

We had lunch at this countryside restaurant. All the food served were farmed by themselves. And the name of the restaurant happens to be my initial chinese name. HAA. Few people know this, but oh well.

After more butt-aching hours on the bus, I woke up to this in front of me. Jumped, whipped out my Cybershot & started clicking away, while people ran to take their toilet breaks. So pretty can.

I don’t know why I look like I was mocking the farmers. I wasn’t, really. -.-

Quite obvious that I just woke up huh? Messy hair & sleepy eyes, yawns.

Another finger. LOL. Anyway, I uploaded this failed shot, together with the next successful shot, to show everyone how cute my auntie was. Her victory sign is so cute! HAHA.

More bus rides. 屁股不见了！

After these few photos, we all felt like we were on a rollercoaster. The bus ride was crazily scary in the mountainous regions. 2 hours of up and down and left and right. In darkness somemore. Any wrong turn will just send us straight to hell man. Bet all the old aunties were chanting sutras. The bus driver is the hero lah! Damn skillful. Some auntie ended up feeling so nauseous that she almost threw up. =X

Toilet break at this fruit store selling their well-acclaimed Shi Jia. Something like Guava/Jumboo? Tasted alright I guess. Didn’t feel like eating much after the rollercoaster ride. =X

Temperatures were a lot higher here in Kaoshiung!

Day 4: 081209

It’s my BC Nautical Throwover again, this time in Pink/Grey!

This is how my mum looks every morning before breakfast. The same sian diao face. I don’t know why.

Fo Guang Shan! (:

This is the ENTRANCE,

AND THIS IS THE EXIT!

Lol, hilarious, it’s like you’re making a HUGE mistake by leaving the place. I guess it’s for the monks/nuns who leave recklessly? I don’t know.

A lot of steps. x(

Feel enlightened?

The Buddha whom we couldn’t pray to, due to closed-door rituals I think. Bad timing for us.

We had lunch nearby, very very awful food. =X

This monument caught my attention.

Zoom in. And you’ll see one digging the other’s ear. Haha so cute. =X

THEME PARK #1: Jian Fu Shan.

The place is actually quite deserted despite the holiday season. Guess people rather go to Disneyland, which is like, DUH, 1 million times better. HAA.

The crazy ride my cousin took alone. I took a video! Lazy to upload heh.

I could only take kiddy rides like this:

As you can see, I took the kids in my tour group with me. Gosh, I feel old. They are all under 14 years of age. x(

Oh and there’s a mobile phone charging station. All u need to do is to insert the moolah, find your own mobile phone charger (there’s Samsung, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, LG, but no Apple!) and plug it in. Cool huh? Hmm, my spare Sony Ericsson phone was fully-charged, so I guess no point lah huh.

The theme park also had a hotel, which we lived in. Brilliant facilities. Beautiful deco which I couldn’t take much of, due to the lack of time again! RAH. Just for 1 night. Tmd. -.-

THIS IS MY ROOM!

Mum kopping coffee from the drawers.

Quoted her: “Coffee from Alishan leh, we never go so must try! Free one hor?”

Oh yah, our tour package actually included Alishan, but we couldn’t go there cause of the 88 水灾, also known by Wiki as Typhoon Morakot, which hit Taiwan on August 8, 2009. Anson ah, your birthday. -.- Anyway, roads are still under construction, so people who intend to visit Taiwan’s Alishan should go at the end of 2010 or even 2011 ba. The damages were really quite jialat, go google. We actually drove pass a village (小林村) which was wiped out by landslides caused by the flood. 400 families were gone. The tour guide told us that the village was given orders to evacuate at 6 in the evening. But the villagers all wanted to have dinner together before leaving. And it was too late. The landslides happened halfway through dinner. All we saw was debris, rocks, gravel. Couldn’t even see a rooftop or something tangible that belonged to the families. Bridges dangling off cliffs and valleys, roads leading to nowhere, muddy swamps in the middle of the roads, etc. Extremely heart-breaking. I was so stunned by the scene that I forgot to take pictures. We are so freaking lucky to be in Singapore. Let’s all hope that natural disasters continue to avoid us okay.

CONTINUE.

Oh and while mum was kopping coffee, I asked her for the multi-purpose plug to charge my camera for more shots at night. So she went to open her luggage to get it, and when she got back to her coffee, she couldn’t find the cup. Moments later, I FOUND IT SITTING IN MY LUGGAGE. LOL.

My luggage is the one in RED. (x Pweeeety right? Luggages should continue being black, then it’d be easier for me to identify mine HOHOHO.

After dinner, we went to watch a transvestite show & an acrobatic performance. Pretty lights everywhere!

Erm. My mum was obviously charmed.

“Oh my goodness, look at their hands. So smooth and soft. Prettier than girls can! Quick, help me take pictures!”

I tell you. The left-most he-she hugged me. And I tio stunned. Cause he-she was really really pretty. I actually thought of Angelina Jolie cause she was tan & her lips were full & poutish. Goodness. I stared at he-she for very very long, but couldn’t find anything that questioned HER sex. I could still tell that the rest were males lah.

My cousin has never seen an Ah-Kua before. Ahem. So, yeah. He looked disturbingly excited. Shall explain more later. =X

BUTT ATTACK!

One of the hottest he-shes. Really really hot.

Okay so here’s the highlight of the night. There was this segment in the show that required audience participation. I think my cousin raised his hand voluntarily, do correct me if I’m wrong. But anyway he went up lah. So it’s like a game of scissors, paper & stone. Each round you lose, you got to take something off your body. Cousin went up, lost for 3 sets straight. His jacket came off first, then his t-shirt, then.. he ran off the stage. -.- I got a video of the last few moments (not the first few cause ALL of us were shocked beyond words.), whereby the he-she took his belt off. Kill me. I don’t know you, Mr Edgar Tan. Don’t tell anyone you’re my cousin okay. LOL.

LOOK AT THEIR BUTTS. Wahlao.

Okay here’s a video to prove my point.
Their hand gestures are damn, imbar. =X

After the show, we went to watch an acrobatic performance! Quite boring compared to the transvestites LOL. More pweeety lights.

Day 5: 091209

Once again, I’m taking toilet pics! (:

The room was big, but the toilet was pathetically small. I had trouble in the shower. Kept elbowing the boards and walls. Dear, you can forget about showering with the shower door closed. Sure can’t fit one. =X

Me after a good night’s sleep! (:

Oh, most beds in Taiwan are super hard. The tour guide says it’s better for their spines or something. But this particularly hotel has soft and cushiony pillows and mattresses. So I finally slept through the night. HAAA.

We went to see peacocks the first thing in the morning. How boring. =X

This place stinks, like seriously. And it was bugs-infested. Could see whole swarms of them under the sunlight. Couldn’t take a clear snapshot though. =X

Then we went to this place called Princess Mao Aboriginal Shop. The story is complex enough. But they sold royal jelly lah. None of us bought any. Super duper expensive.

Apparently Lee Kuan Yew’s mother (below, left) visited years ago.

Oh and they rear bees too. To make their royal jelly I guess.

Then, we visited the Sun Moon Lake. There used to be 2 lakes next to each other, 1 which takes the shape of a sun and the other which takes the shape of a moon. Some major historical event happened, think it was the Japs/war or something like that; they tore the barrier down and formed 1 huge lake instead. You can no longer see the sun and moon lah.

Wen Wu Temple.

To pray to Confucius and some other deities. I always think that his name is very confusing. Like Confusing Confucius. =X

If these marble chairs were much lighter, I swear my mum would have brought them home. -.-

Theme Park #2: Formosan Aboriginal Cultural Village.

As you scroll down, you’d prolly realise that I didn’t take any theme-parkish shots at all. Well, I didn’t enjoy the rides. Was basically homesick more than half the time there. Texted Dear in all hopes that he’d fly a plane here to fetch me home. LOL. Siao.

We took a cable car up!

Farmville. =X

Tiny hand. =X

AI TONG!

We had a koi pond (with a red wooden bridge) back in primary school with these 4 words carved onto a huge rock. Gnia, remember remember remember? XD

These 2 jokers brightened up my holiday! (:

1 at Sec 2, 1 at Primary 2. Camwhores lah. *shakes head*

RAHHHHH. LET ME OUTTTTTT.

hee. just joking.

Love my new boots! Got heels somemore. Heh.

Bet their asses were frozen by the end of the show. So cold leh. Siao. They eventually monkey-swinged into the water. Mad mad.

Oh, the only ride I enjoyed. Carousel. But the one at Disneyland was prettier. Heh.

At night, we went to another night market.

And I bought ANOTHER PAIR OF BOOTS. This pair turned out to be prettier. SGD$17 only. *drools* You’ll see them in my Disneyland snapshots. (:

Day 6: 101209

First stop: Fruit Farm.

Mum bought pickles and what not. But I was more interested in photographing the fresh tomatos and flowers etc. Pretty! (:

Cactus!

Creative huh?

Candy Floss DIY Machine!

Damn cool lah. But 2 attempts by my tour group mates failed. =X

I am not a pedophile.

My mum might be one. LOL.

We went to look at some Chrysanthemum Exhibition at the Chiang Kai-shek Shilin Residence. A really pretty place. Too bad the main residence was under renovation. Couldn’t get a better glimpse of the place where the President used to live in. x(

BC Jumper! Couldn’t wear my white tank top due to the chilly weather. The long-sleeved top made it look ultra weird. x(

Lol. They dressed the dog up too.

Did someone paint this? Brilliant work.

Then, we went to the Pixiu shop. Did some fortune-telling with our names. People got a bit emo here & there. I felt affected too & was homesick more than ever. Missed the boy so much. x(

Lunch at this really cool restaurant made up for the emo shit! The interior deco is ZAI.

BOOBS!

Was extremely afraid when climbing up these stairs. Traps everywhere man!

The ceiling’s all made of cement. You never know what’s inside your fooooood.

Love the cutlery! (:

Luo han guo = YUMMY!

MOCHI = VERY VERY YUMMY!

Bought a box of 6 back to the hotel, HAAA.

OOOOH. Sagging boobs. -.-

MORE sagging boobs haaaa.

The boss of this restaurant must be crazy about boobs. They are everywhere! =X

This is an automatic sliding door. How cool is it?

Say hi to Edgar Minnie Mouse Tan, the new ambassador for Disney Mascara. LOL.

The super expensive hotel. Looked super elaborate too. I’d never want to stay there though. Terribly afraid of red chinese lanterns. They have LOADS of it. =X

HOTEL’S ENTRANCE LAH WTH LOOK LIKE MUSEUM’S ENTRANCE!

Meet Covey.

Meet Cody.

The 2 brothers that cheered me up whenever I felt sick of theme parks. I totally felt like a kid trapped in an adult’s body lah. Kns. Anyway, these 2 boys like to camwhore ALOT. These 2 pictures were taken because they ran right in front of my camera and posed for me, 1 after the other. Had no choice but to take the photos. Lol.

More jump shots! (:

It’s 自由广场 after all!

When I say jump, you say, HOW HIGH?!?!?!

JUMP FOR FREEDOM! (:

Finally, the highlight of the entire trip. TAIPEI XI MEN DING!

Shopped like crazy because we only had slightly more than an hour after swallowing dinner. Rush & rush lah zzz. Got 2 pairs of jeans at SGD$19 each. Cheap or what? XD

Oh, and this is Ah Zong Mian Xian. Best. Love it to bits. Everyone should try it out!

Saw this on one of the automatic sliding glass doors in one of the noodle shops. So cute. XD

Day 7: 111209

After breakfast, we headed to the airport for our flight to HONG KONG. Shopping, here I come! No more mountains, rocks, trees and green-greens. XD I wore my BC Miu-miu inspired dress. Super happy. Cause the temperatures in Hong Kong were a lot higher than in Taiwan, I could wear dresses with stockings! (:

Anyway, we headed straight for the hotel upon arrival – Royal Park Hotel @ Sha Tin.

My jaw dropped when I first opened the door. THIS IS 6* HOTEL OR WHAT?!?!?! Happy like mad. That was prolly 1 of the 2 great hotels we stayed at for the entire trip lah.

Since it’s free and easy for the segment of the tour in Hong Kong, we took their train to..

This place is quite sleazy. A lot of cheapo low-grade warehouse products, and TOYS and nonsense. But I think mostly MIC ones lah. =X Not really worth going unless you’re out to find those mentioned above.

However, I found a really cheap & good bakery!

The egg tarts were fantastic.

Divide the HKD by 5 to get SGD.

Then, we headed to Mongkok – the shopping paradise. A lot to buy. BUT, not cheap at all. I managed to get 5 pairs of socks for the boy at SGD$1.35 per pair.

HELLO KITTY, erm, disfigured. =X

Day 8: 111209

IT’S DISNEYLAND DAY!

Wore my favourite white G-market eyelet dress, together with my favourite pair of boots from Taiwan. Eh, just realised that half of the clothes I brought for this trip were bought online. All the BC ones, and this G-market one. LOL.

Took the train there early in the morning. Excited & kiasu Singaporeans. Stupid HK tour guide scammed us about Disneyland tickets being sold out entirely for the month of December. Lucky we didn’t sign up for his city tour. -.-

TADAH! MY BOOTS. x)))

Looks a bit huge from the top, but it’s actually super fitting at the base. Behind got ribbon somemore. YAY!

Interior of the HK train.

Was fascinated by these. The spring-liked part is actually twistable. I tried to pull it up to form a U-shape. Succeeded, BUT forgot to take a picture. -.-

I scammed this girl in my tour group to pose for me. Was actually taking the sign. New name for you, Mr Cheong! NAM NAM! HAHAHHAHAHA. =X

We had to transfer to another Disney Train to Disneyland. And inside the train..

Creative not? XD

REACHED! (:

Damn expensive. But seriously, worth it.

4 tickets form Disney characters with Hong Kong night life backdrop.

\

My ticket! Loves Mickey more than the rest. (:

This is an example of what they display at the windows outside the shops. Pweeety huh.

MAIN STREET! XD

CHIP & DALE! XD

MICKEY, MINNIE, AND MEEEEE! XD

Helium balloons is LOVE.

But, I didn’t buy them all lah siao. Wrong, I didn’t even buy 1. Damn ex. The nice vendor allowed us to hold the bunch of balloons & take pictures with it. You can see her hand in the picture lol. Oh by the way, those balloons on top light up at night. Super pweeety lah. No wonder so ex. =X

Told you those 2 kids love to camwhore. So do I. HAAA.

Adore this little guy so much! He’s so cute lah. Chose me over my cousin to drive him in the bumper cars. Cause both brothers were under-height, so we had to accompany them lol.

Machiam driving Auto Car lor. But cannot go fast one.

Love the tees. Got the one at the bottom right. (:

BUZZ LIGHTYEAR!

He kissed my hand when I first walked to him for a photo. Then he started dancing waltz with me out of the blue! So funny lah. After all the drama, he finally posed! (:

The walking dustbin which contained a speaker. Someone who could see us was obviously controlling it from somewhere near. It just zoomed across from the other side of the road and asked to take a picture with me. HAHA SO CUTE. XD

WOODY!

So sweet! He was looking at me for both pictures! (:

It’s a small world.

My favourite childhood song.

We took this boat ride which featured little figurines dressed in different types of costumes & props, from different regions around the world. Pretty lights and all. Couldn’t stop taking pictures at all. And while all the cute lil figurines were moving about, they played ‘It’s a small world’ on loop in different languages. Been totally in love with this song since I was a baby lah.

YAYNESS! (:

Another ride with Winnie the Pooh & Friends! (:

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

We sat in honey-pots like these. 4 pax per pot. SWEET!

Me on the carousel once again. (:

Us queuing up for the Flying Elephant ride, which Cody insisted on taking.

There’s a joystick in front of each Elephant, which allows you to control how high you want your Elephant to fly. Here comes Cody the pilot! (:

This was where we had our lunch. It’s like food-court concept. But.. how the hell did they deco the place until it looks like a ballroom?!?! Goodness.

After lunch, we went to catch the Lion King show. They can really sing yo. Darn good voices. The floats were huge and pretty too! (:

They have a screen with subtitles! HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!?

After queuing like mad Singaporeans, we finally got to watch the PARADE!

The stilt-walkers!

Apparently, I have something against tall people.

So I zoomed in to find out what makes these people so tall and how the hell do they walk. The secret lies within these:

PURPLE LIGHT! XDXDXD

Since we still had a couple of hours before the highly-anticipated fireworks display, Mum, Cousin & I went to explore other parts of Hong Kong! SHOPPING SHOPPING SHOPPING!

When we went back, it was ALOT darker, AND prettier.

Old-fashioned camera!

Front row seats for the fireworks display. All thanks to our kindest fellow tour group members who sat there 1.5hrs before the scheduled fireworks timing. Kiasu Singaporeans indeed!

Before we see the fireworks, let me introduce you to the Hologram Viewer, which makes each spark/light look like 2 HEARTS. Let the pictures give you a better idea.

I didn’t take pictures with the Hologram Viewer on, so this is how the fireworks look like without the special lens.

BUT, I took a video which included moments whereby I put the Hologram Viewer in front of my camera lens! Please pardon the few moments of darkness here & there cause I was trying to switch the Hologram Viewer from the camera lens to my eyes. Like, in case my video failed, I could still enjoy the show. The last minute of the video is the best! Hearts flying all around = SUPER CHIO! XD Watching it live is like 1 million times better lah!

My camera died right after the fireworks ended. Heng daooooo… Cannot imagine if I couldn’t take this video. Watched it more than 10 times since I got back. HAHA.

Day 9: 121209

Since our home-bound flight was in the afternoon, we had spare time in the morning to check out the shopping centre connected to my hotel. I’ll definitely choose this hotel if I were to visit HK again. It’s damn convenient to be closely linked to a decent (ION-liked) shopping centre with an MRT station attached to it.

HELLO KITTY APPAREL SHOP!

SANRIO! XD

Once again, it says, ‘NO PHOTOGRAPHY’.

There was also a Snoopy World connected to the shopping centre. Damn awesome.

Hygiene!

CUTE BOY! XD

We were both reliving our childhood. LOL.

I LOVE $$$$$$$$$$!

IS THIS A SIGN?!?!?!

I was wearing my PURE MILK shirt! LOL.

A last glimpse of the shopping centre before we headed to the airport!

Found Luan’s favourite at HK Airport. XD

BYE BYE HONG KONG. I’ll be back! (:

On the whole, this trip was okay lah. Good chance to unwind after the horrible exams. 1 day of Disneyland made up for the 7 days of dull mountains, rocks, trees and seas. Would have enjoyed it even more if we were given more time to roam about at each destination. Conclusion: Don’t follow tour groups lah. Free & easy FTW. If anyone needs info on tourist attractions & maps etc, ask me. (:

**

YAY.

I can’t believe I’m done. It took me 4 days to upload everything & do up this whole entry. Damn damn shag. Okay I’m off to bed. BYE BYE.