Isabelle's

Indeed, I am blessed.

Wed, 14 May 2008 13:04:26 GMT

It was only last week that Cyclone Nargis swept through Myanmar and threw tens of thousands of people into a disarray. Death, destruction, disease were all the people in Myanmar could see around them. But when I was reading the news, I only felt a bit sad. It's as though the death toll of 100,000 is just a statistic to me. I didn't see pictures of the utter destruction and so I couldn't believe it was really happening.

Yesterday morning when I woke up and saw the headline of 8,500 people being killed in an earthquake in SiChuan, I also only felt a bit sad. It was only this morning when half of the front page was taken up by a photo of a man holding onto the hand of a dead body and grieving over it then I realised that the situation was that devastating. And the victim's face must have been badly disfigured that the people could only cover the face with random textbooks. How can I be so desensitised to only feel a bit sad for them? If only I were in China and someone I know becomes a victim of the disaster, then I would be able to feel the full impact of it.

I've learnt from this, no matter how cliched this sounds, never to take things for granted. Have you ever thought that in the midst of a lesson, an earthquake would occur and you'd feel tremors and soon, the building that you're in breaks aparts, caves inwards and bury you beneath the heavy slabs of concrete and bricks? That was what happened to many schools in affected areas. Primary schools, secondary schools and even hospitals.

It is important that we do not take our everyday comforts for granted, and we should always be reminded that we are indeed very blessed. What if I was born in China or Myanmar? Why was I born in SIngapore and to SIngaporean parents? These are out of our control, and it's because The Lord is Soverign, and that's why I'm born in Singapore where I can have everything I need, and most of what I want.

I indeed am very very blessed. So are you, if you are able to read this, because you're not one of them stuck in the rubble, not one of the many grieving parents of the earthquake victims, and not one of those homeless and without other family members in Myanmar. The Lord is gracious and mercy to you and to me.

Steel + What-not Alloy Man!

Tue, 13 May 2008 08:58:31 GMT

I went to watch Iron Man today with Melodie and it's not a bad show! I like how Stark creates and makes his machines do the work for him, and his computers are like his best friends. He talks to the computer and it responds in a rather clear human voice (or was it a person?). I couldn't really catch some of what he says because his slang is too much and I end up reading the chinese subtitles. :/ Oh well. Then me and Mel waited for all the credits to scroll up and that took a long 7 minutes and the short 15 second segment in the end was like HUH? WE WAITED SO LONG FOR THAT? WHAT WAS THAT? Samuel L. Jackson appeared at Stark's place and they exchanged a very brief conversation that started off on a non-civil note and then it ended. STUPID.

Waste our time.

And we were so happily talking before the movie because GV has so many ads they take a good 15 minutes to all appear consecutively and I think the guy in front of us could hear our entire conversation.

Oh well. Speed Racer next tuesday! And I can only go if I don't take up Mel's dad's offer :(

And I'm rather excited to see Xin Yi, Li Xin, Eunice, Jo and Ling on sat! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! :D :D :D

(My userpic, by the way, is my favourite picture of Jae Joong and I actually did him a service because if the finger weren't there, you'd see a really really unglam photo of him. (:)

Homicide Investigation Team (H.I.T)

Thu, 08 May 2008 06:07:09 GMT

First things first, I really applaud MBC for coming up with this drama. As you can see from the name of the drama itself, it's an action and investigation drama which makes me laugh out really loud at times and get so excited and scared at the same time I'd cover 3/4 of the screen and just read the subtitles!

I'm very happy I found yet another non oppa-sarang-haeyo-you-cry-I-cry-she-has-cancer-meet-at-cafe-and-cry kind of of drama. This is one other drama other than Air City which I did not fast forward at all. How could I? When the plot is so intense and fast forwarding means missing out on one clue!

This drama starrs Go Hyun Jung and Ha Jung Woo. Go Hyun Jung is a veteran actress and I think this is Ha Jung Woo's first drama in which he plays the lead. The rest of the H.I.T team is cute too, especially policeman Nam who's super muscular and wears tight-fitting pink and Mickey Mouse shirts!

They're not very good-looking (save policeman Kim) and that's why not many people watch this, because most people go for the handsome guys and pretty girls. But this show's really really exciting! And Renee advised me not to watch Episodes 16 and 17 at night if not I wouldn't be able to sleep! Aaaah I had a hard time going to sleep after Episode 10 because I kept thinking about the drama. This is what I call addictive. Gah.

But this drama's really good, so is its OST. Opening and ending songs by SuJu. And, I never really liked SuJu because I thought SM was mad coming up with a 13-man group (there's still an SNSD -_-) Won't they be underpaid? And it's so hard to recognise 13 people! I only recognise Si Won, Eun Hyuk, Shin Dong, Hee Chul, Han Kyul and one more whose name I can't remember right now. Anyhow, the songs they contributed were really good! And they can sing! I was super amazed by their voices, as with Su Ju M's chinese album and their chinese pronunciation. My sister even asked me if they were a Chinese band. Aside from that, it's the melody that enhances the song too and boy, the OST is really amazing. Even the instrumental pieces are really exciting and they get me into the mood of the drama already.

Maybe it's because I'm too free now so I'm watching many dramas but out of all that I'm currently watching, H.I.T reigns. :D

The opening song, Su Ju's 'Success'

Ending song, Su Ju's 'H.I.T'

Vivocity Is My Friend, Not.

Sun, 04 May 2008 17:17:33 GMT

Just last week alone, I went to Vivocity THREE TIMES. And, my point is that I live nowhere near Harbourfront!

Right. So, the first trip on Tuesday was intentional because I was supposed to meet Vithiya (who never fails to make me very gullible). We walked around, I bought my sandals, and we went to watch a movie!

THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM!

You know I'm seriously quite dumb. All along I thought this film was in chinese cause well, you know, the main actors are Jet Li and Jackie Chan so I really really thought it was in chinese and felt quite apologetic to Vithiya and even asked her if there would be subtitles. And it turned out to be an english film.

HOW DUMB CAN I GET. I've seen the poster umpteen times at JE MRT Station and the english title was always larger than the chinese caption! I guess some things just don't register, or refuse to.

Anyway, the movie's rather good, I like Jet Li making a replica of himself. I can't pluck a strand of hair from my head, blow it, and see another me right in front of my eyes, but he could! In the show! And it took me so long to realise that the old man was Jackie Chan and the Monkey God was Jet Li. All that white hair and the golden brown hair on their heads and faces confused me. The fighting scenes were good! And even though I think some parts of the storyline were absurd (it is a story after all anyway), the movie's still worth catching. :D

Yes so that was my first trip there.

My second trip there was on Thursday with my mum, dad and some of my relatives. That was when I realised I prefer Jurong Point to Vivocity. (:

My third trip there was on Saturday (2, 4, 6 how nice!) before some of us headed to Keith's place for a really under-sized class BBQ. 13 people showed up, though better than nothing.

And Xin Yi, I do emphatise with you for the poor Spongebob that took a swim in the ehhh... Keppel waters.

So before adjourning there we met at Vivo and did the usual walking around. And when we got to The Caribbean we waited for a good hour before there was fire and food, not that I'm complaining because...

THE CARIBBEAN IS SUCH A NICE PLACE TO LIVE IN!!!

I apologise for the lousier quality photos because they were taken with my eh 2.0 megapixel camera phone. What can you expect right? But I still love Sony Ericsson. (:

It's like some high class resort okay! Even the toilet is so pretty!

Look at the tiles! My favourite colour and its different shades!

What you see is Keppel Bay! I'm sorry but my picture doesn't do the view any justice. I'm a big fan of great views and scenery but my equipment is not very co-operative. :( The ambience there is... AAAAAAHHHHH.

The background was good but since it was pretty dark already it was hard to get a full photo with a nice background. We repeatedly experimented with night mode, flash and what not. Ling, Jo, Vit, Me :D

Oh yes let's go back to talking about The Caribbean.

When the 4 of us were taking a stroll we peeped into some houses on the ground floor. Do they live in fantasy lands or what? Their houses are themed and nice and pretty! And they have pent-house apartments which we can only look up to but not look at. And they also have roof-top terraces which are of course, out of bounds. :(

Such a nice place to live in and it's so huge! And they have like multiple pools and the clubhouse building itself is like what, 3 stories if my memory doesn't fail me? Even though the weather was humid, meeting up with ex-classmates and taking a stroll in such a nice place made up for it. (: And I'm rather glad I went for this having missed the previous one.

I realised it's quite fun to barbecue, to brush oil on the uncooked food, to flip them from back to front, and the greatest joy is, of course, doing it with your friends because that's where the fun comes in, working together to make the uncooked food edible. (:

In continuation with my previous post, I've also been offered a place in FASS, NUS, and I've decided that I'm going to pursue geography, and forsake the very political and formal business world.

One big motivation for my decision for NUS is that I can sign up for LPP and learn KOREAN and maybe get to go on an exchange programme to South Korea!

So exciting!

There's Lotte World, Teddy Bear Museum, The Coffee Prince Coffee Shop and many many other places to go to in Korea. I'd even get excited upon arriving at Seoul Incheon International Airport! Just because it's my first step to Korea, yes! And even if I don't get the chance for the SEP, I still can learn Korean. (: And that's like my dream (which I was too lazy to realise and too broke to pay for) for the past 2 years!

Other than that, of course, is that through geography I can be and will be exposed to more of God's wonderful and fascinating Creations through the physical component. And I am very sure that in everything that the Lord wants me to be taught in, He will provide both spiritual and practical lessons for me.

The good thing about NUS is that I have friends and church friends there! The battle won't be so lonely (:

SMU.

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:57:52 GMT

I got a place in SMU - LKCSB! And I've from 2nd May to 2nd June to accept it. I never thought I would get through the interview cause I talked rubbish and hardly made any eye contact with the professors and the other guys talked so much! And my essay, I ripped off King Lear and dumped what I thought on the issue of Identity into 2 pages worth of hasty essay writing.

Nevertheless, despite my half-hearted participation in joining SMU, it's through God's Grace that I'm given a place there, and I'm thankful for that because I certainly didn't put my heart and mind into preparing for entering SMU. I'm unsure of what direction to take now that He's given me a chance there. I feel I should pursue geography because that's where my primary interests lie, but after 2 days at the fair I also feel that I got a little exposure to the business world, even though I find SMU's way of teaching and learning rather intimdating.

There's still a lot of prayer to be done and this is the first time I realise what it feels like to have to make a choice that is in accordance to God's Will, and not mine. So, may I make the right choice in time to come!

Aching Feet :(

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:44:07 GMT

I have never really worked as in real work, and tuesday and wednesday gave me a taste of being a promoter! Well I didn't exactly promote but I helped in the promotion. And all along I thought ang mohs were superior and tall and when they walk past you they won't even know you are there!

My job was to hand out Lotus's Caramelised Biscuits (given in NDP pack 05/06) to passerbys at the fair. And boy, is the fair HUGE. It takes up Halls 1-6 in Singapore Expo. It's the Food & Hospitality Asia Fair 2008. At first I didn't know what I was in for, but when I got there I didn't realise how major an event that was. They have overseas and local companies involved in hospitality and F&B setting up booths in the hope of attracting business deals and potential partners, agents and buyers. I'm going there again tomorrow for a while to walk around with Vithiya and get free food samples and have a free lunch woohoohoo! Anyway I was helping Uncle Peng Cheong & Aunty Siew Choo's company, Asia-Euro Marketing Services. They are a distributor of Lotus biscuits and Malongo coffee machines, capsules and associated products. The machines are really cool, by the way, you might want to find out more if you're interested. Handy, neat and convenient. And the Lotus biscuits are good!

At first I was rather hesitant to hand out the biscuits, and I mostly target overseas visitors with friendly looking faces HAHAHA. And people from the Philippines, Malaysia etc have never seen this biscuit in their lives and would ask me general questions and I'd say they're caramelised biscuits with a tinge of cinnamon and are from Belgium! Then they'd go, "Oooh, that's interesting, thanks!" And some ang mohs whom I thought were scary actually give me a huge smile and say 'Thank you!' in such a vibrant manner it makes up for the rejections I get from some even when I stretch out my hand and offer them a FREE biscuit. IT'S FREE EH! WHY NOT??? I DON'T UNDERSTAND! And some people are really cute, I'd offer them, they'd say 'No thanks' then backtrack and say, "I'm sorry, could I have one?" then I'd go HAHAHAHAHA to myself. This nice ang moh said 'Why not?' very nicely when I handed a biscuit to him and asked if he wanted to try one. So nice! Not like some annoying people who ask me for 3 biscuits because 'I have 3 children at home you see," Excuse me you can break the biscuit into 3 parts right. And some even more annoying people go up straight to a box full of those biscuits and grab a few and throw them into their bag and pretend they are walking back and take one more from me. WAH their 心计很重. :/

Anyway if you haven't tried the Lotus Caramelised biscuits, do give them a try okay! I have some VERY enthusiastic people who tell me, 'Oh! This biscuit's REALLLLYYY GOOOD!' and keep persuading the people around them to take one. It's good, I'm not kidding you and it goes well with coffee/tea. (:

You know it's weird when distributing cause sometimes I'd be giving it out non-stop and then sometimes the flow of people gets so confusing you don't know who you've given and the place is so cramped it's hard to hand it out to people, and you never know if the person will reject your outstretched hand, cause that feeling sucks. EH IT'S FREE AND IT'S NOT SOME PAMPHLET! IT'S FREE FOOD, and GOOD FOOD! ＷＨＹ REJECT?! But the thing is once you start giving to some people, others will AUTOMATICALLY come to you and stretch out their hands for you to give them one. Haha I like it when that happens because then I won't have to take the initiative! :D

I did this job on Tuesday and Wednesday, and Vithiya's doing it on Thursday and Friday and you have to stand from 10-5.30 so the feet will ache. :( Ling's feet ache too cause she's also working at some booth in Hall 1.

The booth Vithiya and I am working/worked at. Doesn't it look classy? By Asia-Euro Marketing Services!

The Caramelised biscuits and this is the box where the annoying people grab the biscuits from. So ungracious. :/

Air City - Watch it!

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 07:12:27 GMT

Contrary to the viewers in Korea, I actually like Air City a lot. In fact, I think it's my favourite korean drama ever and it is the sort of drama that I have been waiting to watch.

It felt like Jeffrey Archer's 'Shall We Tell The President' put on screen to a different context and different characters. I say so because Air City is more of the suspense and mystery solving drama (which is really good because the scriptwriters have dang good brains and smart ways to link and solve things!) instead of a purely romance drama.

Dramas like Winter Sonata and Summer Scent pissed me off while watching because the characters are either talking over a cup of coffee about relationship problems or walking on the beach / sitting at some random place that brings back old memories and tearing or just gathering around seated down talking and crying. I love how in this drama they bring in suspense, and a little sweetness between Lee Jung Jae and Choi Ji Woo (not too much too!). Maybe it's because the koreans are not yet as open to such dramas as you can see from the history of dramas and the genres that they fall into, but I think MBC did a great job in casting the characters, and Lee Jung Jae looks really good and Choi Ji Woo complements him really well too. I think the scriptwriters were really good, as with how the production team used the Incheon International Airport and all of its relevant facilities instead of crappy cafes and tissues and teary eyed females nursing a broken heart.

I've watched many many dramas and even those that I actually do like, like the over-rated My Girl, I do fast-forward cause they really have some of those unbearable and repetitive scenes as mentioned above. My fingers are far away from the keypad when I watch Air City and I only pause or stop the video when I have something else to do so my point is that I haven't fast-forwarded any of it! And I always fast-forward my shows!

I personally think KBS and SBS have more boring and less action-packed and more family oriented dramas which cannot impress me! I like MBC the best out of the 3 more reknowned broadcasting networks in Korea. MBC came up with Goong and Coffee Prince, and you can see that they're super rich because it's not cheap to film Goong and in Coffee Prince I guess they built the cafe from scratch. And in Air City, needless to say, I think they pretty much mobilised a lot of airport stuff to help out in the filming and there's just one word to describe this drama and everything of it: IMPRESSIVE.

Even the supporting characters each have a little story to tell of their own, and I especially like Han Do Kyung (Choi Jo Woo)'s boss. HE'S SUCH A FUNNY GUY and (a little) sadly, he reminds me of Kim Dong Wan. His smile and actions and voice hahaha just watch it and maybe you'd agree with me (i.e if you know who KDW is).

I like all the characters in this drama (minus the baddies even though they are really interesting to watch), you won't hate them unlike in some dramas when one is prejudiced against the 3rd party and think he/she's universally bad (or maybe it's just me cause I watch all dramas like that cause I abhor love-triangles!). I think the $6 millon MBC invested is money well spent because I really do enjoy every minute of this drama!

So, if you're bored at home and have nothing to watch, try this. You might or might not like it, but I LOVE IT! (: (: (:

Tohoshinki - Love in the Ice Live @ Soul Power Tokyo Summit

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:31:48 GMT

My favoutite perfomance of Love In The Ice by Tohoshinki and one of my favourite songs from one of my favourite artistes! :D

I got fooled by Vithiya today yet again. She never fails to trick me every April Fool's Day. She told me it was snowing in Ang Mo Kio and I fell for it, thinking that it's sad that climate change is even manifesting itself in Singapore, where it has never happened. :/

Gah I'm so gullible. :(

FIRE!

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:24:04 GMT

I was just closing the door after coming home from tuition when my brother shouted, "Fire!" I thought there was a fire at home but when I walked into his room, he pointed to a block of flat across the street from my block, and there was a fire indeed.

It was a unit on the sixth floor and the fumes from the fire were volumous. The entire living room was burning, and one of the window frames was hanging from the side. The fumes charred the landing outside the house, and charred the walls and the window landings of several other units directly above the unit affected. This was the first time I ever witnessed a fire, and many people were gathering downstairs. I don't know if anyone is dead or injured by the fire, but I should think not because there weren't any ambulance sirens and I didn't hear any frenzy. The police came shortly after and cordoned off the area downstairs when the firemen put out the fire from the ground floor. They shot the water up straight to the 6th floor and it didn't take a long time for them to put out the flames. By the time the blaze was put out, the block looked like this:

The victimised unit looked like this:

It victimised other units too and according to my father, even if the owners of the other units bought insurance or whatsoever, the insurance company would be not obliged to pay for their losses because the fire didn't occur in their homes even though they suffered damages and would have to pay for these unfortunate and unwanted negative externalities.

If the owner of that unit didn't buy insurance for his/her flat, then everything is gone. GONE. And today was the day I learnt that my parents did buy house insurance. I didn't even know that such a thing exists in the first place. One has to insured for anything in case anything happens. We live in such a practical and money-oriented world.

Sidetrack:

I was preparing for something earlier today and my phone rang. It was a call from SMU telling me I've been shortlisted for the Business Management course and my interview is scheduled on a day next week at 7.15AM. I was in such a state of surprise to hear from them so soon that I don't know if I heard the person correctly. 7.15AM is too early! A normal person doesn't start work at that time, let alone go for an interview so I highly suspect that I heard it wrongly but then again it's the only time I heard! And I dread interviews. I happily signed up forgetting that you would have to go for interviews if you're shortlisted. With me dreading interviews, there's no way the business climate would be suitable for me in the future and the near future.

Facing a panel of adults GAHHHHHHH I don't even like to face just one on his/her own!

Pictures speak louder than words.

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 08:30:20 GMT

As I was sifting through the photos in my laptop, I realised that I did many silly and dumb things in the past. As dumb as they may sound and may look, it's actually fun doing such things.

The picture below is a photograph extracted from Vania's mini birthday book, a gift to her from me and Renee for her 18th, and we wrote on every one of the pages in the book okay! That activity alone killed my many brain cells thinking of captions and things to write under the photos and on the empty pages waiting to be filled up. Since she's such a BLING person (hahaha), we came up with this Bling Bling poem, an adaptation from the Bang Bang phenomenon.

(Vania sleeps very often, you see.) Haha.

I remember in J1 when I was thinking of what to get for Miss Viva the Undiva on her birthday, it occurred to me that Pocky was her favourite snack and that she only bought the chocolate flavoured ones. So, together with Xiu Ling, we made her a huge Pocky packet substituting the Pocky sticks with chopsticks, with a friendship quote on every chopstick! I love making such presents and I think it's better to receive something handmade than something expensive don't you think? People always say sincerity is what matters the most. I would think it's sincerity and the effort taken to make something or come up with something that's personal to the person that would truly make the person happy. I would prefer a handmade card to a bought present anyday.

To draw out the Pocky packet, I actually stood in front of the vending machine at the void deck of my block to copy out the words and the design of the Pocky Packet. Aside from that, I seriously think that vending machines are only good at extorting money and cheating people of what they've already paid when the stupid packet gets stuck. I've been fooled a few times to feed it with more money and to get 2 items stuck together. Marvellous.

This paper is 2 plus years old and it was given to me by Dawn and Grace the day when we got back our Biology prelim results. I remember I did really badly in my MCQ and I got only what 22/24 upon 40? They were sitting somewhere near me and could see that I was really quite depressed and after a few minutes, they dropped this onto my table, folded into the 16 parts.

I think everyone in class and everyone else who knew me then knew I loved Korean things and things that were essentially Korean, and Dawn happened to have this South Korea eraser which she refused to give me and I guess she used it and drew me this A4 piece. Grace didn't know how to spell Ahnyong hasaeyo and it ended up as it did. And the numerous 'Xiao'(s) around were written by Dawn to make me laugh. This piece of paper has a very simple intention, and it is one of the most precious things I've received from my friends. (:

This is Mr. Dore's work of art which had the whole of 06A03 laughing. He's such a comical teacher, straightforward and earnest, though really muddled at times. I enjoyed Literature very much under his teaching. (: AND I LOVE IT WHEN HE TRIES TO ACT OUT THE ROLE OF THE EFFEMINATE OSWALD IN KING LEAR! The picture depicts (supposedly) the scene when the blind Gloucester thought he had fallen off the cliff.

Such a pretty rainbow, a reminder of the covenant the Lord made with Noah never to flood the earth again. (:

This next picture is another one of me and Renee's proud productions, from Si Ying's present on her 18th.

This is what my cousin showed me for my birthday. He was an 8-year old boy then and even though I didn't understand the joke, I still appreciate his efforts in bringing the joke book from home just to show me that which has my name as its central theme. I still do not understand this joke, so if you do, feel free to enlighten me. (:

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 13:00:43 GMT

I used to have 3 tutees, now I'm down to two and I'm very grateful for that because I managed to drop the boy by God's grace. I don't have to teach him anymore! I don't have to :

1) Travel to his house anymore
2) Cower when I see the dog at the door
3) See his dad shirtless and smoking
4) Put up with his habitual inhygienic nature
5) Get annoyed when he doesn't do his homework
6) Hear him saying that my spectacles look ugly
7) Worry about getting my pay 2 weeks late
8) Ask if he has any homework and get the same old answer

I was really very apprehensive of calling his mum to tell her of his behaviour cause the first time I did she told me that his father would discipline him and that he was improving in his work, both of which weren't visible to me at all. I'm just very tired and sick of having to travel there and seeing his dad shirtless and smoking without a care in the world, seeing him unprepared for tuition and having homework undone, putting up with his sucking of pens and pencils, calling my name as it is without any respect and having to put up with his childishness and lack of appropriateness.

There was once during a science lesson when we were supposed to learn about how someone in front can see the person at the back without having to turn back whilst looking into the mirror. I was initially the person at the back, and he wanted a switch and he moved to the back. At first he asked me to count the number of fingers he was showing me through the mirror and so I played along with him, Then, without warning, he suddenly turned around, pulled down his pants and showed me his butt in its full (un)glorified manner.

I screamed at him and turned away immediately. Apparently he thought it was funny, and he said it's fun to play like that. I chided him for it but he didn't seem apologetic and I guess he really thought that was fun, flashing at me like that.

He's a PRIMARY FOUR boy. He's barely lived ten years and he does this to random people like me, someone he's known for barely 2 months cause he thinks it's fun. To add to that he has once told me I was his 7th tutor.

I know being put off by his messy room and standard of hygiene is not an excuse for me not to teach him well, and I admit that I haven't really placed full attention and priority on deciding what to do each time I see him and I do think he hasn't benefitted from our 2 months as tutor and tutee and neither have I.

I think after the 5th lesson, I come home after every lesson and start complaining to my family and friends on how he behaved and the naughty things he did. Yes, he's only a primary four kid, but even my cousin who's notorious in school doesn't behave like he does. He might not be naughty, but he's very mischievous, and what he perceives to be fun and exciting is what I cannot tolerate. When I told him I don't like his attitude when he's doing work, he told me that he also doesn't like my attitude and the way I teach him because I give him homework and the things I teach him are hard and I don't teach him the way his school teacher or his previous tutors do.

Sometimes I get so riled up at him I'm left with nothing to say. One thing I cannot tolerate is messiness and he's the epitome of a messy person. I get disoriented when I see him draw senselessly on his textbooks and assessment books and it ruins my mood when he writes illegibly and tells me he doesn't want to continue learning for that day and asks me to go out and go home.

Most of the days when I step out of his house I feel like screaming.

But thankfully, these days are over and I'm sharing this because I learnt something from this experience with him. Maybe many things.

I thought tuition would just be a way for me to get by these few months and at the same time get some income. I thought this job would be easy-peasy given the academic standards of the primary school syllabus. I was terribly wrong. It's not easy to explain a concept that is all clear and easy to yourself (because you're 19) to a much younger kid cause he or she doesn't have that concept in his/her head at all! It's so easy to you, but to teach it so that a younger person can understand, that's the challenge. And sometimes it's not the academic grades you need to tame and improve, it's the attitude of the kids that you have to adapt and adjust to. Also, they are not as old as we are and they do have short attention spans. I've learnt that it's rather impossible to get a kid to sit down and do his/her work for 1.5 hours straight because they simply have not gone to the stage where they learn the meaning of the word 'mug'. I used to think I can treat a kid how my mum treats me, but every kid is different and unique, and the way of teaching every kid is unique too. I am unable to discover the way to handle the boy, and I guess a more mature teacher would be better able to subdue him.

I applaud primary school teachers who are able to give their students a good foundation in the 4 subjects because it really isn't easy. It's easier to explain a hard concept to adults than an easy concept to children in some cases.

The general trend is that girls are easier to teach because at least they do your homework and even though they might treat you as an older sister, they won't be as sickeningly mischievous as boys to play stupid games with you to piss you off.

The other 2 girls I tutor are so much easier to get along with, and are so much more obedient kids. (:

University Applications

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 10:55:52 GMT

I've submitted my applications to NUS & SMU!

I doubt I'd ever go into SMU, but just to play safe, my mum had to part with $15 for my kiasu-ism's sake. Other than having to fill out personal particulars, the SMU application form even wants you to write a mini essay of less than 300 words on your best and most worthwhile experiences and opportunities. Eh so I did, and it must be one of the most uninteresting mini essays amongst all the other applicants. Oh well. $15!!! NUS's application fee is only $10! What is this!

Anyway, I heard that if you want to apply for SIM, you must be 21 years old and above. Hmmmm.

And, even after sending the online applications, you still have to photocopy this and photocopy that and send to the various universities and now for these I can't make my own envelopes can I. I have to make a trip down to Popular to buy proper A4 envelopes cause all supporting documents should be in tip-top conditions. AYE. And you must submit your O-Level results too! :/

Oh well, all the best to you who have yet to submit your applications, and may you make your choices wisely and make decisions that are of God's Will for you. I'm not 100% sure that whatever I submitted are exactly His Will for me, but I know that wherever He places me to be in the end, he places me there for a reason and a purpose. So, we must learn to be contented and to accept things that come along the way for us, even though sometimes or most of the time they do not end up the way we want them to end up.

The RESULTS.

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 15:42:24 GMT

Firstly, I received some belated birthday gifts today. Ah Nae gave me a damn cute computer mouse in the shape of a car and it's wireless! SO FUN! I love such silly gadgets. :D Received cards from both Ling and Li Xin and Li Xin made two pretty handphone straps for me. I'm her 猪朋"牛"友 hahaha. A cow always manages to resurface.

I was hoping that our principal won't hog the mike for so long and thankfully he didn't. Although they said we did better than our seniors, we still have a lot a lot a lot more room for improvement with regards to the national averages. For some of the subjects the difference was so great and our percentages were rather off the mark! Improvement is good but I think exceeding the national average should be the goal.

I'm happy with my results and even though I thought I could have done better in my Econs and Lit, I guess they were balanced off with my very satisfactory GP and Mathematics grades. I dreamt that I got a BDDE but thankfully nothing of that sort came out on my results slip. (:

I'm very grateful and happy for my GP score cause I've never really gotten a proper and satisfactory score for english all these years. Who would have thought watching advertisements and watching the teewee ng for entertaining and non-academic programmes would be beneficial for an essay! And reading 8-Days! I guess the mocca.com macho man helped me in my essay! Wheee! :D :D :D

The Water Horse - Legend Of The Deep

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:48:24 GMT

I watched The Water Horse - Legend Of The Deep with Melodie today after tuition and I think it is a movie worth catching.

The best thing is, I paid only $6 for it because the student pass does wonders to prices and I love how price discrimination works for the good of society. :D

Anyhow, if you thought the trailer wasn't exciting, I wasn't excited when I saw the trailer because it showed mostly the scenes at the beginning of the show. The scenes nearing the end were the exciting, suspenseful and touching ones. I nearly cried, I think. Crusoe is cute when it (it's both a he and a she) was young, and albeit scary when it grew bigger, it still had that very tender look about it and I thought is was very well drawn and animated.

I don't know why I do so now but in the past when I watched movies and shows I'd never think of the filming process, the budget that they took to complete the scenes but I do now when I watch EVERYTHING be it on the television or on the computer and in the cinemas. This show's production budget must have been pretty high, and I think it's not an easy feat filming it considering the many many effects and the setting and all. The Scottish mountains featured in the film are really pretty. Angus is very cute too, as with the way Crusoe waddled about when it still was small.

Go watch it. It's worth your money. Of all the films I've watched this year I think The Kite Runner, Le Grand Chef and this are the better ones. Ah Long Pte Ltd was quite a disappointment cause I never liked fighting scenes. I thought it would be very funny like last year's Just Follow Law but all the funny scenes were featured in the trailers and are not funny anymore when you watch it proper. Kungfu Dunk was pretty funny too, but the plot, the acting and the settings can't beat the 3 movies I listed above.

So, go watch THE WATER HORSE! :D

Oh, and the results are out tomorrow. Hmm.

On North Korea

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 12:10:30 GMT

I wrote this entry on my blog last year when a teacher of mine let us watch a documentary on North Korea, and whatever is written below are in my words and in my opinion.

Just in case you think that the people in North Korea are closed off and doing fine, I would like to say that I won't envy their lives and maybe my post will give you a little (albeit biased) insight into the life of North Koreans, from a small scale perspective.

We do read about North Korea's nuclear threats every now and then in the papers, and most people, like myself sometimes, have no feelings towards it AT ALL because those things concern us directly not. However, sometimes I do think that while I'm happily listening to my songs, watching my drama serials, other people in Africa and North Korea and wherever are suffering and suffering and suffering. And their sufferings never seemed real to me until I watched this documentary in class and truthfully, I detest Mr. Kim a lot a lot a lot. With such a sheltered and easy life we have here worrying about our grades and our clothes, we won't fully understand the hearts of people who look similar to us worrying about their survival, what they're going to eat, whether or not their clothes do fully cover their modesty and so on. They don't even have the basics of what sustains humans. Forget about introducing adidas to them when they can't even cover their feet properly.

Now about what the documentary portrayed.

Everything in North Korea is so propaganda the average person there knows not what the internet is, knows not what a mobile phone is, and obviously not what a playstation is. The house of a privilleged family in Pyongyang is no better than a really average 3/4 room flat in Sinagpore. And Pyongyang isn't at all grand and everything.

They have the portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il everywhere in their homes, it's not just portraits but even the calendars have his face and him riding a horse and what-not. Kim Jong Il is their saviour. Without him they would have no jobs, no money and no food.

They praise him everyday (we suspect it's because they are made to do so because if they don't, they might be sent to concentration camps which do exist until now in N. Korea) and if you ask the blinded what they want to see the most when they've regained their sight, they say, "I want to see my great leader Kim Jong Il,"

We laughed when they said that but they took it very very seriously. Heck, they even tear and touch the portrait with such tenderness.

It's really ridiculous.

This Nepalese eye doctor had a vision, and his vision was to cure the blind who went blind due to cataracts (and the N.Korean doctors can't do it cause they're so closed up they're not skilled to do so). So, he went with a National Geographic crew disguised as his helpers into N.Korea to help operate on more than 1000 blind people in a time period of ten days.

Since that country was so backward, the doctor had to bring his own equipment and all in order to go in there and accomplish his job. Heck, N.Korean minders went all the way to Nepal to get him and his crew and accompanied him all the way to N.Korea and during his entire stay there.

The medical conditions were beyond bad. Even normal clinics in Singapore had better facilities than in their hospitals. So many children are malnourished! And they filmed an operating table which was yellowed and had dried blood stains. Gah.

As promised, the Nepalese doctor really operated on more than 1000 blind patients. When the day came for them to take out their eye covering, the entire mass of patients were seated in a hall, and needless to say, three portraits of you-know-who were on the wall, as usual. They had money to hang so many not-so-nice portraits but no money to channel to improve living conditions. When the first person was removed of the sash/eye-covering/whatever-it-is-called, the first thing she did was to walk to the front of the portrait, cry out to the great leader and say, "My great leader, thank you for saving me and my sight, my family and I will serve you forever," and she really cried! Not only did she cry, she raised both her arms and shouted praises to the still, unmoving and stationary portrait without feelings, without sight, and without hearing. The entire mass of patients then stood up with her, raised their arms in the air, and shouted "Man seh!" to the pathetic portrait!

Man seh means long live and longevity or something of that sort.

And no one gave any recognition to the doctor who cured them of their vision, as with his crew. NO ONE. NOBODY. Every single one of them praised the still portrait on the wall. Did they think the portrait could respond to them? Or were they brought up this way to be inclined and to give thanks only to some dictatiorial figure who ironically deprived their lives which they thought he had been improving on all these years? Maybe because there were N.Korean minders all over the room and if one person didn't shout unheard praises to the oh so great leader, he or she would really receive punishment from the government. Oh no. There isn't really a government. He or she would receive punishment from the great man himself who indulges in fine wine and good food when many of his people are suffering from malnutrition.

Hello? Who cured you of your blindness? Yes he might have allowed the Nepalese doctor to enter the country. But so what? The doctor did it FREE OF CHARGE didn't he? Did your great leader remove your cataracts and give you new lens? NO NO NO. It was free and your great leader had nothing to lose so why won't he allow the doctor to come in? Why are you singing praises to a still portrait?

And I guess Kim Jong Il's ego must be really inflated. His fame in North Korea exceeds that of Michael Jackson (whether famous or infamously famous but that's not the point and that is if the people in N. Korea even know who M.J is but I doubt they do). His posters, his banners, his influence, his portraits are EVERYWHERE. He's not good-looking, in fact he looks quite qian bian to me after you see the squallid conditions in N. Korea in the video.

Alright and so one person goes up and cries and dramatically goes MAN SEH! Everyone else who comes out does the same thing and I think the entire mass in that hall must have stood up hundreds of times and shouted MAN SEH! more than hundreds of times.

It might not seem ridiculous but it looks really ridiculous on screen. It was a supposedly sentimental and awe-inspiring moment for the people in N. Korea but to us, or to me, at least, when I saw it, there's nothing I wanted to do more than to laugh. And we did laugh. Everyone laughed spontaneously. It is THAT ridiculous.

I don't see what good Mr. Kim has done and why they're so eager to thank him. If he didn't close off N. Korea to the world, these people could have regained their sight much much earlier because N. Korea would have allowed doctors to go in much more liberally and they didn't have to wait for such a kind of soul of the Nepalese doctor whose work was not recognised by those he served non-stop for 10 days.

The appearances of the malnourished kids in N. Korea are really bad. My baby cousin's turning 4 months old in two days and she looks healthier than them. Way way healthier than they are. Asians are supposed to have rather fair skin but they're so dark they look scary, coupled with their bony limbs. It's saddening to see the lives of children destroyed due to their physically capability. They should be playing with Barbies and Lego instead of waiting aimlessly at the run-down hospitals to be treated (or so it seems).

My heart goes out to the people there, brainwashed and compelled to abide by the greatness of their so-called leader.

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 16:24:14 GMT

After an aunt of mine was called home to be with the Lord abruptly last week, I realised that our life on earth is really but a journey in preparation for our final destination, that is, either Heaven or Hell.

A lot of thoughts ran through my head, and everytime I think of her not being with us anymore, and when I think of the pain she had to suffer prior to her death, I get afraid and sad, and I start to sing this song quietly to myself, and it managed to comfort me quite a bit. It has a very pretty tune, and even more pretty words.

O Rejoice In The Lord

God never moves without purpose or plan.
When trying His servant and molding a man.
Give thanks to the Lord
though your testing seems long;
In darkness He giveth a song.

Refrain:

O rejoice in the Lord, He makes no mistake,
He knoweth the end of each path that I take,
For when I am tried and purified,
I shall come forth as gold.

I could not see through the shadows ahead;
So I looked at the cross of my Saviour instead,
I bowed to the will of the Master that day;
Then peace came and tears fled away.

Now I can see testing comes from above,
God strengthens His children and purges in love.
My Father knows best, and I trust in His care;
Through purging more fruit I will bear.

And it was only during last sunday's sermon that this thought occurred to me: God's Grace is greater than all of our sins put together.

I've been singing this hymn for years and I've never contemplated on its words and its message, and it finally got to me on the 24th of February.

Grace Greater Than All My Sins

Marvelous grace of our loving Lord,
Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt
Yonder on Calvary's mount outpoured,
There where the blood of the Lamb was spilt.

Sin and despair, like the sea-waves cold,
Threaten the soul with infinite loss;
Grace that is greater, yes, grace untold
Points to the refuge, the mighty cross.

Dark is the stain that we cannot hide,
What can avail to wash it away?
Look! There is flowing a crimson tide;
Whiter than snow you may be today.

Marvelous, infinite, matchless grace,
Freely bestowed on all who believe
All who are longing to see His face,
Will you this moment His grace receive?

Refrain:

Grace, grace, God's grace,
Grace that will pardon and cleanse within;
Grace, grace, God's grace,
Grace that is greater than all our sins.

These hymns may make no sense to you, but I hope one day you can come to appreciate their true beauty and meaning.

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 13:45:46 GMT

Being too much of a perfectionist, I realise it isn't that easy tutoring kids who don't have the same upbringing and values and principles as you have. Often I expect the kid to obey, and he doesn't, and he behaves in a way that annoys me so much that if I were his mum, I would not hesitate to duly punish him,

I cannot comprehend how a boy can stand smudging sarsi or sprite on his study table and half-heartedly swiping the liquid off the table with his hands which he does not bother to wash afterwards. I cannot tolerate a child placing others' stationery into his or her mouth, oblivious to the fact that it does not belong to him or her and salivating all over the piece of stationery. I absolutely detest it when I raise my voice and turn stern with someone and that someone can remain nonchalant to my anger and immense irritation.

I abhor the disrespectful attitude of children who think that the world revolves around them, and that they can get whatever they want and that people will always do their bidding.

As a tutor I do not have the right to hit the child, but what gives him the right to command me to pick up a book he purposely dropped? And what gives him the right to come after me albeit playfully with a fallen branch threatening to hit me with the branch and eventually doing so and leaving me with a red mark on my leg just because I refused to pick up the book which I am not responsible for picking up?!

Why is a p4 boy so self-absorbed and self-centered and why does he think it's fun to whack me with a fallen branch and run home after doing that?

I had nowhere to run as I had to cross the road to get to the bus-stop opposite in order to get away from him but the traffic did not have enough mercy for me to cross before I got whacked by the branch.

Is his mind so screwed that he thinks physically hurting others is perfectly fine? That he has a right to bully someone 9 years his senior?

I told him once to stop sticking the pencil into his mouth and not only did he not stop doing that, he actually pressed the salivated part of the pencil onto my skin.

Talk about disrepect and blatant rudeness combined with utter disobedience.

I'm actually afraid of his disgusting habits that I really do not want to continue tutoring him. Sometimes he can be a very sweet kid, but the sweetness evaporates in less than 15 minutes and I have to spend 1.5 hours with him 3 times a week. :(

Before I started giving tuition I thought it was a piece of cake and just a time to contribute brain cells for 1.5 hours every session.

I was very wrong.

It is mentally and emotionally challenging to meet and adapt to the needs and the attitude and the behaviour of the children. The syllabus is nowhere as challenging. It's the people whom you are working with and trying to work with sometimes, and sometimes, your effort goes reciprocated.

You need a lot of patience. A lot.

I need a lot of patience.

A lot a lot more.

Taiwan Trip - Days 3 & 4

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 14:48:09 GMT

My daddy asked me to help him summarise our Taiwan trip, and I was really lazy to do it already, but since he requested, I shall oblige and not leave people with the impression that I went there only for 2 days.

Day 3 - 台北 Miramar

If I had never watched 换换爱 I would never have bothered to find out about this shopping mall or even go all the way there. I'm a drama addict, I confess, and I dragged my entire family to Miramar because that was where the drama was filmed and I wanted to see it for myself, and I did.

It's rather exciting to be there yourself especially after seeing on a drama you like so much so I was pretty much excited on the journey there, in the mall itself, and on the Ferris Wheel. The Ferris Wheel is the highest one in the world after The Singapore Flyer came along and broke its record. Oh well.

If you are planning on going to Taiwan, let me give you some instructions. Well, in order to get to this mall, you have to take the MRT to Jiantan MRT Station and from one of the exits (make sure it's the right one or you'd end up walking to the other end like I did), take the Miramar shuttle (it's free, by the way) and the bus would bring you there. There is also a pick-up point for the shuttle back to Jiantan MRT outside Miramar, opposite a carpark.

Miramar is a pretty mall and I'm actually more fascinated with their paper bags but I shall not say why lest people start spurting water on the computer screen but yes, it's a very pretty mall. We were there on a Tuesday and there weren't many people around and the crowd is usually more concentrated on weekends.

The first thing I did when I was there was to take pictures! Of the ferris wheel, the building and etc.

The face you see below the word Miramar is that of Karen Mok's.

Night view, The colours on the Ferris Wheel change.

I went up the Ferris Wheel and it was high and rather scary cause I'm not very fond of heights but it was quite an experience. You could see Taipei and you could see Taipei 101 distinctly, jutting out of the city's perpetually low skyline.

This is one of my favourite pictures out of the whole trip and this was taken on the level which the Ferris Wheel is mounted at.

This Ferris Wheel is actually mounted on the building, not on ground and I guess this is what makes it rather special.

A view of Taipei from the Ferris Wheel. I took these photos with my phone. (:

Day 4 - 花莲

My family's trip to Hualien cost us SGD$200 per person, inclusive of the domestic flight ticket, the tour in Hualien itself and the rail ticket back to Taipei Main Station.

Hualien is a place that reminds me of the wonders of God's creation and the marvels of the geography that God has created for us to admire and learn from.

We first took a domestic flight from Taipei Airport to Hualien and that flight lasted for 40 minutes. When we arrived at Hualien, this really cute old man was our tour guide and I say he's cute because he tries his best to speak in English as there were Westerners in our midst but his english, I can say, is really rather incomprehensible. I was really quite mean as I kept laughing at his weird pronounciation and usage of words but he's pretty good because he can speak better and he knows of more words than maybe the average Taiwanese teen does.

He could explain in english that Taiwan is a small island and that it is formed because of the collision of two plates at a convergent plate margin and I was really excited in the bus when he said this and busy explaining to my family which did not really bother about me cause their interest lies not in the subject of geography. He also said that the mountains in hualien contain marble and marble is really cheap in hualien due to the abundance of marble available. He brought us to the marble factory but I didn't think that was a very interesting place to be.

The tour bus then went around Taroko National Park, along a route that allows you to see gorges, river channels and waterfalls. I was very excited when I got down from the bus at one stop because when I looked under the bridge I was on, I saw this:

A BRAIDED CHANNEL!!!

During my 'A' level paper for H2 geography, they made us draw a sketch of a braided channel and I'm very happy to have been able to see a braided channel for myself. It's so pretty! And I was telling my brother about how the channel was formed and he wasn't very interested. Oh well. But it's really so pretty!

Take a look at this too, a little waterfall out of a little hole, but pretty and natural nonetheless.

My guess is that the lines on the rock are marks of previous water levels but then again I'm not very sure cause the rock looks sedimentary in nature and the lines could have been the result of the compaction and compression of the different layers of rock.

And take a look at this too!

ROCKFALLS!

Other than Taroko National Park, the tour guide brought us to a beach, and it is the nicest beach that I've been to.

The mountains look surreal don't they? It was a magnificent view. And at the beach, I picked stones and brought them back. They are free after all, so why not take some? :D

After visiting the beach my family and I took the rail back to Taipei and by the time we got to the hotel, we were pretty tred and this ends Day 4. (:

Taiwan Trip - Days 1 & 2

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 15:51:25 GMT

HELLO!

Taiwan was a nice place (quite) and during my 9-day stay there I learnt a lot, saw a lot, felt a lot and smelt a lot too. Haha. I always thought it was a very good place to be in due to my incessant watching of Taiwanese dramas but after being there and spending more than 6 days at 西门町 itself, I realised that Taiwan is not a place I would call home, but visiting it is fine and fun cause it not only has many nice and cute shops but it also has many natural sites which I enjoyed myself immensely at. Geography, geography, geography everywhere I tell you.

DAY 1

Went to airport and this is what my plane looked like:

SQ 878!

Alright first let me tell you I'm a big loser because I did not manage to watch a complete movie on the journey there because I didn't know I could rewind and watch the movies from the start and so I just surfed and watched whatever I thought was fine. What a loser alright never mind. The important thing is to first read the catalogue cause there are more than on-demand movies available. I watched 乐派队2007 and Ugly Betty on my way back. So if you're going to take SQ or any other plane that's not budget, do go explore what they have in store and don't be like me.

We arrived in Taiwan at around 5 and by 5.30pm the sky's as dark as it is in Singapore's time of 9pm. And even though there's no time difference between Singapore and Taiwan, there's more or less some difference in the time system because I think the Taiwanese knock off before 5 and go to work at like 6 cause by 6.30am the sky's already super bright. Really bright.

After that we took a bus from 桃园国际机场 to our not very nice hotel called Baguio Hotel and somehow or another I feel that it should belong in the Philippines and not in Taiwan. We went out to eat at some really weird eatery which doesn't have proper drinks that I am used to and the food that they come up with are all really rather salty. Bad experience, bad bad. When I got back to the hotel, my sister and I were anxious and when we got to channel 8, 台视, we were euphoric cause we could watch episode 4 of 斗牛，要不要. (: And after that the 100 over different channels had a lot of shows to offer me that I was so excited I slept only at 2am and had to wake up at 6,30am the same morning. :/

DAY 2 台北小巨蛋，孙中三纪念堂, 台北101， New York New York，五分埔，士林夜市

This was the day we walked like mad and my feet ached like mad.

Since 台北小巨蛋 could be seen from our hotel we decided to go there and I was quite excited to actually be there even though there weren't any concerts or anything on a Monday morning but there were many of Five Hundred Teacher's concert promotion flags along the road though. This is 台北小巨蛋. (:

From there we took the MRT to 孙中三纪念堂.

This is just a statue but it might be because of the fierce patriotism in Taiwan that 2 soldiers are on guard flanking the sides of the huge statue all the time. They guard the statue for an hour (which I personally think is a very dumb thing to do, wasting time and resources and contributing a meager amount to the employment rate) and at every 1 hour interval they have this march/procession thing to switch duty groups and the entire thing is super elaborate and also really quite funny.

Heeh heeh a solider on duty. The way they march amused my entire family.

Walking around inside there are some interesting things and this has got to be the most magnificent of all.

It's a plaque that covers one whole wall of one side of the room and it's really pretty, with nice engraved words even though I didn't bother trying to read and decipher its meaning cause I know my 9 day stay in Taiwan will be gone if I ever do that but it's really magnificent.

After Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall we walked from that place all the way to 台北101. It was quite a tiring walk but it wasn't that far and 台北101 is a very nice place. When you go into the shopping area all the shops there are the luxury shop chains so you don't have to bother to stop and shop cause you know you'll never be able to afford even just a simple ill-designed bag.

Inside 台北101 shopping mall.

We were so tired we ate some Haagen-Dazs ice cream and then went up to get the tickets to go onto the 台北101 Observatory. In order to get to the 89th floor you had to take this lift which is incidentally the World's Fastest Elevator cause it didn't even take a minute to get us up to the 89th floor from the 5th floor.

From the observatory at the 89th floor you could look down and the cars and taxis on the roads were like HOT WHEELS car models to me and every building and street looked compacted and neat and just so...urban geog. That was really all that was in my mind, urban geog, urban geog.

My brother and I decided to go up to the 91st storey outdoor observatory but when we went up the entire Taipei was blocked by some dumb things and you could only look down through the gaps and think urban geog for a while. Sadly there was no way we could have gone up to the 101th floor cause that's the whole point and we had to settle at the 91st.

I really went up to the 91st floor. Here's a picture as evidence. (:

And on the outside, Taipei 101 looks like this:

Magnificent right. It's an engineering feat, both itself and the lift in it.

Located next to this building is a shopping mall called New York New York and my dad was saying that New York New York is a restaurant in Singapore but there's also a mall in Taipei called that!

We had lunch at the food court downstairs and then proceeded to walk for a bit. There was a MUJI shop there and my sister and I were enchanted by the pens and one pack of 10 coloured pens only sold for NT$200, which means $9.303 to 3 significant figures in local currency. CHEAP CHEAP! So exciting. We walked around a bit more and then decided to leave for 五分埔.

Let me summarize 五分埔 in a few words:

Cheap, small, dirty, messy, compacted and graced with the presence of many go-for-good-deals retailers who buy the clothes from there at cheap prices and sell at their mini shops at higher prices.

Sure that's the way to do business but then I just didn't enjoy my time there at all. Furthermore there's nothing much to buy cause in Taiwan now winter is nearing and all the people there wear boots, thick coats, stockings etc. If they came to Singapore dressed in that way it would be very weird. And Taiwan's economy is not doing very well now but my dad and I wonder where all the young people, girls especially get that kind of money to dress that way. Maybe the things there are cheap but still I find it a little puzzling.

And you know, at the MRT and anywhere else, the escalator lanes are divided into 2. You stand to your right if you want to travel up slowly. You move to the left and climb up quickly if you're rushing for time so this system took me quite a while to accept and follow cause in Singapore it's very different.

And the green man in Taiwan is really cute. When it blinks the time comes out to countdown, and the green man will be walking when it has just came on. After a while, nearing the time when the red man will take over its duty, it starts to run. Really cute.

Yep so after 五分埔 we headed to 士林夜市. Let me tell you first that the food there is really quite good, but it's really big and very disorganized and almost all the stalls there sell useless and identical things. It's still one of the must-go places in Taiwan cause they really have all the local and popular favourites and the clothes and toys there are cheap but not all very desirable. I can say I enjoyed it and will enjoy it more if not for my aching feet.

After 士林夜市 we went back to the hotel and I slept really well cause I was really really tired. (: