#495
21st December
So today I'm gonna post another throwback, which is about the Students' Exchange Program by CLHS in Taiwan.
Well fyi if I post every single detail in the trip would take up more than 2 days to complete, in that case I had to say sorry to you guys that I only have to summarise again,just like the CLISC post.
Anyway, this post does include photos (important pics of cuz') and important details will be written too.
Day 0 (07/12/2016)
Wefie 1
- Most of the students here are Form 6, two of us is Form 5 and one of us is Form 4, accompanied by Ms. Teh and Mr. Soo.
- Delayed flight, departed from Penang to Kuala Lumpur (KLIA).
- Tiring conditions: Waiting for luggage, long queue in immigration, at least managed to board on the airplane to Taipei.
- Afternoon, departed from Kuala Lumpur to Taipei, Taiwan (Taipei Taoyuan International Airport).
- Reached Taipei at night, welcomed by teachers and students, sent to Hsuan Chuang University (玄奘大学) in Hsinchu (新竹).
- Night outing for supper: 阿呆卤味, 7-Eleven and FamilyMart 全家.
- Stayed in the hostel.
Day 1 (08/12/2016)
- Breakfast at the canteen, had a selection of choices of different flavours of 葱抓饼, and I chose 黑胡椒鲔鱼葱抓饼 and 豆浆.
- Welcomed by the university's administrators at the auditorium, introduction to the university, souvenirs exchanging, tour around the university.
- Introducing 云来会馆, a real hotel built as a fieldwork for the students who are taking hospitality courses.
The students are preparing the food in professional kitchen.
- Introducing the broadcasting room, experienced the live show and know how news workers work on reporting the news.
- Visiting the studio, group photo taken.
- Afternoon, coffee making session with Mr. Happy, every single step is so detailed and have to be precised.
- Interesting experience, everyone get to try to make their own coffee following Mr. Happy's steps, yet different tastes for everyone.
- Dinner at 城隍庙夜市, had 蛤仔煎, 贡丸米粉汤, 贡丸板条汤, 芒果冰, 芦苇冰 and juicy 鸡排!!!
- The end of Day 1.
Day 2 (09/12/2016)
- Today is the day to visit Nan Shan High School (台北市南山中學).
- Welcomed by the teacher, taken for a school tour and attractions around the school, accompanied with 高一 students.
The school compound.
The school library with free computers for students to use.
南山艺廊.
- Offered lunch by the school so we don't need to pay lol XD
- Had 臭臭锅 at 喜锅屋.
It is actually something like steamboat but all ingredients are already inserted into the wok.
- Afternoon, learning session with Nan Shan students, my class is quite high omaigosh I think my intro is quite good and funny XD
- Lots of photos are taken, great memories with them.
谢谢南山!!!
- Leave Nan Shan High School in the evening and head on to 台北教师会馆 to check-in.
- Ride on MRT to 西门町! Seriously riding on MRT is so easy to be learned with just a map and 悠游卡.
- Reached 西门町 and had dinner and have fun with some Nan Shan friends.
Since that day is Friday so the streets are sipek crowded X(
Grilled mochi with different flavours!
Baked potato with lots of cheese.
蛤仔面线 from 阿宗面线, a must try at 西门町!
可丽饼.
- Back to the hotel and that's the end of Day 2.
Day 3 (10/12/2016)
- Since this day is Saturday so there's no reason to visit any school lol, so as following the plan we are going to Yehliu geopark (野柳地质公园), 九份 and 十分.
- Weather: Windy, chill and somehow drizzling.
- Well I'm actually quite amazed by the power of nature, which created such a magnificent wonderland that leave a lot of treasure for the world.
From what they called this looks like an ice cream lol.
Judged from the eye this looks like a 鲤鱼.
Candles 烛台石
And the infamous Queen's head 女皇头.
Unfortunately this is not the actual position to take this photo but on the opposite side.
As you can see ppl are queuing and wait until they take the photo.
Ya I'm lazy to wait so I chose another fast-forward way to take haha XD
Cinderella's show 仙女鞋
Fossil 化石.
Look, how high is the wave...
- After visiting the park we walked through a market with a row of stalls selling dried food like dried fish, dried cuttlefish, keropok and so on.
- Heading to 九份, touring bus is not allowed to drive up the hill but have to park at the midway and tourists have to board on public bus to reach there.
- Since it is Saturday, the place is very crowded, the atmosphere is not what I expected T.T
You see how crowded is that...
Mmm... This is actually very nice.
All of these are fishballs and 贡丸, consider 老字号 dy, you can find this easily by asking people around there.
What we have here is 小笼包, not bad but forgot to take pics lol...
- The next stop is 十分, which is about 1-hour journey from 九份.
- We planned to visit 黄金博物馆 but then unfortunately it is temporarily closed for some reasons.
- So 十分 is just a slightly small street with selling foods and souvenirs too, but one special thing is 放天灯, is a must when coming Taiwan.
At here I had 大肠包小肠.
静安吊桥.
Look at those 孔明灯 flying up the sky.
- So since we had reached why not we also put up a lamp flying up the sky also? Unfortunately I forgotten to take pics again lol.
- Driving back to Taipei would take a very long time, so we have to take a train easier to 菁桐and take a van ride back to Taipei.
Here we are at Shifen Station.
Inside the train, it's already evening and we are quite tired already.
- Back to the hotel and rest for a while, then we ride MRT to 公馆 to have our dinner, guess what? At a rainy weather, a warm steamboat would make our mind fresher.
- That's why, we are here! 马辣顶级鸳鸯火锅!
- Here you can have imported high quality beef, pork and lamb for you to refill unlimited! And the price is around NTD 600 per pax, so if you could eat much for sure it is worthy!
- And also, you can have Haagen-Dazs and Movenpick ice cream too, this is what we came for!
开动咯!!! =D
- Such a nice and warm steamboat, so I do recommend you come here for a try, but booking have to be done first though.
- And so that's the end of Day 3.
Day 4 (11/12/2016)
- This day is Sunday so it is another touring day for sure.
- After breakfast, we ride MRT again to 士林区 and ride on public bus to 故宫博物院, which is also another attraction that must to be visited in Taiwan.
- Yupe, so the entering fee is NTD 250, and you'll get to explore different kinds of artistic antique at this place, as well as their history.
- One of the most famous is 翠玉白菜, this antique had made the history up on a whole new level on their arts.
Tada~~~ 翠玉白菜!!!
Group photo weee~~
As you can see some of Nan Shan friends accompanied with us too.
- There are actually much more antique to be explored and you can take hours there but since we are rushing on time we have to leave to Tamsui (淡水) by MRT.
- Yupe taking MRT can reach Tamsui, so here I suggested you all not to take any public bus to reach there as MRT costs cheaper.
- Although is Sunday but luckily this place is not as crowded as I thought.
- We had lunch here and the price here is really reasonable.
- I also bought two packets of 铁蛋, which is actually something like 卤蛋, just that they use quail's eggs 鹌鹑蛋.
This is 卤肉饭.
卤肉炒米粉, well honestly I'm still prefer Malaysian version haha XD
炸花枝.
And... this is 巨无霸冰淇淋, and it only costs NTD 30!!!
Again, 鸡排 haha never get tired to eat this.
淡水虾饼, quite different from Malaysia the cracker is red in colour.
- After that, we took a boat ride to 渔人码头 and 情人桥, since walking would take up an hour from 淡水老街.
Boat to Fisherman's Wharf Terminal 渔人码头
情人桥 is here!
And you can see sunset at here too!
- Back to the MRT station at Tamsui old street by public bus, and we headed to 宁夏夜市 for our dinner.
- Here, we had 宁夏牛排铁板面, 官财板 and other food which I had forgotten lol.
Since I can't eat beef so I ordered pork.
Yummy~~ ^_^
- And so, that's the end of Day 4.
Day 5 (12/12/2016)
- This day is the day to visit Taipei Municipal Li Shan Senior High School 台北市麗山高中.
- fyi they have a special organisation called Flowinds 星岚大使团, and their aims are mainly about welcoming foreign students and students' exchanging program
- Yupe, most of them had came ISC before and pretty sure I really do know all of them, no worries in communication at all =D
- Lunch is offered by them, and guess what we have? Yupe! It is 铁路便当! Inside the lunch box has vegetables, rice, 虾卷, 卤蛋 and fish/鸡排. Well the portion is really big that I nearly couldn't finish it lol.
- School tour, and then learning session with Li Shan students in the afternoon, I was arranged to English class and... well, a bit boring lol.
- Take MRT back to hotel to rest for a while, and then MRT again to 饶河夜市 for dinner, accompanied with Flowinds friends too ^_^
These are 蛤仔面线, 肉羹 and 油饭. This stall is considered a 老字号 too, not easy to find as it is at a narrow lane.
牛奶红豆冰, look at those extreme amount of red beans they put.
珍珠豆浆豆花, I really like this one haha.
- The end of Day 5, pretty program-less lol.
Day 6 (13/12/2016)
- Another day at Lishan High School, learning session in the morning.
- This time I'm glad to attend Science classes, one period of Chemistry and two periods of Maths.
- Their language are in Chinese so pretty sure I'm not really know what are they talking about since I only know the names and terms in English. Some of them just agak agak translate only lol.
- Lunching at school, 铁路便当 again hahaha my stomach is god damn full lol.
- In the afternoon we traveled to Taipei zoo to ride on gondola to Maokong (猫空缆车).
- Comparatively this ride is not as steep as the one In Langkawi so I'm not really scare at all haha.
- Well anyway the floor of the gondola is crystal glass so you can look through what's underneath you (however not all gondolas do have).
Up we go!
Ya the floor is crystal glass.
Well, actually there are two stops in between before reaching Maokong Station, the final stop of the gondolas.
It is somehow like Cameron Highlands actually.
天恩宫
- As we reached the hilltop there seems nothing special but tea plantation is the one they're proud of, so that's why I said this place is really same as Cameron Highlands.
- Took a rest and had our teatime at 山水客, this small restaurant provides a peaceful and quiet place for you to have their tea.
- Mainly provide tea and some snacks, and of cuz' coming here you have to drink 铁观音茶 and 包种茶.
- We stayed at 山水客 until evening to enjoy the night scenery of Taipei, quite magnificent of the view from here.
- On the way back down I had took some photos, but somehow a little bit tough to take at night, at least I got one.
Tada~ You can barely see Taipei 101 at the far right side.
- At the foothill, we took MRT to 台北车站, as planned to shop at their famous 地下街.
- However since we are running out of time and we're completely couldn't visit Taipei 101, so we directly take public bus back to hotel and had our dinner nearby.
Mmm... Yummy 锅贴
水饺面线汤.
- Flowinds friends brought us to 建国高中 for 团康游戏 (except teachers lol).
- It's time to say goodbye to everyone there, and thank you for the days they took us to have fun around Taipei.
- Packing luggage and sleep early for tomorrow's flight back to Malaysia.
Day 6 (14/12/2016)
- Woke up at around 4 am (sipek early) and prepared to fly.
- Reached KLIA in the afternoon and have lunch at Burger King (seriously the price is quite expensive).
- Reached Penang in the evening, wow home sweet home.
At last, we ended this trip with a wefie again!
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Well, I couldn't go anywhere during the trip since we have to move along as a group.
Still, quite a little unfortunate that I couldn't go to Taipei 101 due to lack of time.
However, I'd know how to take MRT, how to take public bus and how to spend money during this trip and for sure, one day I will come to Taiwan again to discover more, like Taichung, Tainan, Penghu and several islands around.
Of cuz', I also have to thank my parents for allowing me to go overseas for the ever first time, and I'd proven that I can deal everything on my own when I'm not at my comfort zone.
Also, I also want to thank every friend in Taiwan who accompanied me along the trip and having fun with us, you guys sure had missed some lessons though hope you all could recover back as quick as possible.
So, that's the end of the second throwback, stay tune for the third throwback this month.
Ohya, did I told you all that I will get a job soon?
Guess what? I back to the initial place where I'd become the teacher, again!
Starting January 2017, I'm back, and Mr. Leong is upgraded for the education.
