First time FISHING!

Day 44  My first try for FISHING!! ^^

I always wanted to try fishing! It is a kind of recreation activities that I never tried before xD. Many thanks to my Caligraphy teacher, who willing to bring me out to fish. 

At around 1 pm, we headed to a fishing pond in Qi Gu. The weather was just nice for fishing, and I am ready for that! Teacher helped me to set up the fishing rod, and briefly explained the fishing method for me. Well I have to admit that it was not easy to fish. The power, the strength, the techniques......You have to get the correct way by yourself so that you could catch a fish. 

We fished for 4 hours, but unfortunately I failed to catch any. However, I did not get disappointed, this is my first time after all, at least my posture and techniques improved a lot xD. I hope that I have chance to fish again. 

Apparently I am very focus on my task. xD 

Oh well, the fish is caught by my teacher, I just borrowed it to take a picture haha! 

A small crab by the pond side.

Selfie with my teacher! Both of us looked like Ninja turtles. 

A Half Day Trip to Chi Mei Museum

Day 43 A Half Day Trip to Chi Mei Museum 

Woke up at 8am, this weekend I am pretty chill and free. This is the first weekend I did not plan any trip and choose to spend my time with my host family. :) Besides, I have to take a rest before I begin my 7 days Taiwan trip xD 

We spent our morning watching a famous Indian movie: The Star in Your Heart. It was very touching. It tried to convey a message to all the parents and teachers, that every child is special and we should not limit their imagination and creativity by judging their results. 

After lunch, we went to Chi Mei Museum. It is a popular tourist spot in Tainan. Its signature building is the ivory white castle at the entrance of the park. It was fabulous! I saw a lot of art works such as ancient paintings, weapons, musical instrument and so on.  A well spent afternoon there. :)

The ticket and the museum. 

A day out with my host family. Photo taken outside the museum. 

For lunch, Luna Mama cooked the Si Chuan signature meal: 粉蒸肉. It was really tasty! I ate two bowl of porridge for that. I am glad that I could have all those delicious dinner and lunch at there.

A really tasty and special Si Chuan dish. 

Culture sharing to Year 6 Students

Day 39       Culture Sharing to Year 6 students

Today is my last day of culture sharing to the Beishi students. As the English level of the Year 6 students are slightly higher, I made some amendments on my current presentation slides. 

Culture sharing sessions are important it is a platform for the foreigners to learn more about our country's cultures. Plus, Malaysia's culture are very unique as we have multiracial environment and therefore, we have different living styles and habits as well. I am glad that I have this opportunities to introduce my culture to them. :) 

Melody tried the Malay costume: Baju Kurung. 

Introduce my university to them xD. 

Year 6 Batik Making

Day 41           Batik Making 

Today I introduce the Malaysia's special craft, Batik to the Year 6 students. Batik is a technique of wax-resist dye-ing applied to whole cloth. Batik is widely found in Malaysia, Borneo and Indonesia.

                                                         

    Example of Batik clothes. 

Process of Batik Making 

In class, I gave them some Batik pattern examples so that they could have so ideas on what to draw. Apparently they are very good in drawing and their creativity is superb! 

The children start to colour the background after finish drawing the patterns using crayon.

I am giving them instruction on how to colour the background. 

Their arts are almost done. 

                                      

Final masterpieces :) 

I am glad that they had fun during this session and they know more about the batik making. It is actually as simple as that! 

Alishan 2D1N~

7/1- 8/1/2017   ALISHAN SUNRISE TRIP

A sea of clouds in Alishan! So BEAUTIFUL!

This weekend, we went to Alishan to watch the legendary sunrise! Early in the morning, we took the earliest bus, 7:10 am, from Chia Yi to Alishan. Once we reached there, we straight away began our tour in the recreation park. 

 Shermuh Recreation Park has the oldest tree in Taiwan, aged between 1000 to 2000 ++ years old. While walking, we took a deep breath to absorb the phytoncid ( good to boost our metabolism rate xD) It was really refreshing! We took two hours to visit the park, and we seek for a best location to view the sunset. 

Beautiful sunset in Alishan. 

Sister Pond. 

香林神木 

The next day, we woke up early in the morning to watch the sunrise. Unfortunately, a thick cloud blocked the yellow sun :( Here goes my dreamed sunrise. 

The thick cloud blocked the sun :( 

The view in 小笠原山观景台

After that, we took a bus back to Chia Yi, and that's the end of our 2D1N journey. 

Let's talk about my host family :D

5/11/2017    Day 34     My Host Families 

Let me briefly introduce my host families :)

For the first and second weeks, I stayed in Trinity and Morgan's house, located in 大地庄园. Their English are actually quite good, so I can speak English with them and at the same time teach them some new terms. Every morning, I woke up at 6:30 am, and had my breakfast at around 7:00 am. I had different kind of breakfast everyday, for example 烧饼油条， 蛋饼，菜头粿... I was lucky enough to taste every Taiwanese breakfast during my stay here :D

A trip to Taiwan Salt Museum in Qi Gu with my host family. 

   For the 3rd and 4th week, I stayed in 建志老师 house. His house is very near to school, around 5 minutes driving distance. He has a lovely son and daughter, plus a 9 month old cute little baby boy! The brother is a thoughtful child, during my two weeks stay here, I can see that he has a great determination in doing his work. Besides, he loves his brother and sister very much and will help them whenever he could. Every morning, I woke up at 5:30am as they will depart earlier to school. 哥哥 was so helpful as he always prepared the breakfast for me. Toast bread with cheese, toast break with strawberry jam...:D I missed the bread so much. In Malaysia, I always had bread with Milo as my breakfast, and now I have bread and Ovaltine ( A kind of chocolate drink) as my breakfast! I feel so much at home :D 

My host sister.

My host brother. 

The cute little host baby. 

And currently, I am staying at Trista and Nick's house. I will stay here for 2 weeks plus, until my project ends. My host mum, Luna is very good in cooking! How lucky am I! Let me show you the food I ate these two days!

Day 1 breakfast.

Day 2 Breakfast xD

Day 1 Dinner. I ate two bowls of rice that day! xD

Day 2 Dinner. It is the best to serve the meat with rice! Too delicious ^^ 

So, this is the summary of my host families. Thanks a lot for hosting me :) Hope you guys can visit Malaysia soon and I will be your tour guide yeah! 

[Continue...] New Year Trip to Taichung 3 ^^

2/1/2017           庐山 --> 嘉义 --> 龙田 

From Qing Jingto Lu Shan only took us around 30 minutes. After we checked in to the hotel, we had our dinner at the restaurant there. The place we stayed today was really good and worth the price. We paid fro TWD 1500, three meals included, free vouchers to cook the hot spring eggs and we can enjoy the hot spring bath! 

庐山Bridge 

Vouchers for the desserts and eggs.

Our dinner. 

Yeah the dessert! 

The hot spring pool.

Breakfast! My favourite porridge! 

Use the hot spring to cook the eggs, to be honest, the taste is the same xD. 

We really enjoyed our time here as it was the most relaxing session so far... for a moment we did not need to worried for transportation, food, and place to stay as everything was well arranged before hand. However, it was indeed a nice experience for us to plan and learned something new. :)

At around 9 am, I reached my host family's house and can finally rest. That's the end of my 4D3N trip, and there are lots of memories to be cherished. 

[Continue...] New Year Trip to Taichung 2 ^^

1/1/2017    合欢山 + 清境 +庐山

Woke up at 4:45 am to catch the bus from 埔里 to 松雪楼. It was pretty cold up there, with a temperature of 6 degree celcius. We waited for the bus at 国民宾馆, and at around 8:30 am, the bus arrived. I was surprised that we were the only passengers to 松雪楼, I think most of the Taiwanese prefer to drive themselves. At 10:30, we arrived at the peak of 合欢山. The crowd was quite a lot as expected, they usually went there early in the morning to watch the sunrise. 

The view was indeed magnificent! Definitely worth to visit! With the clear blue sky and the luscious green mountains, the whole scenery was as perfect as a painting. I love it! 

武嶺: The highest point in the Taiwanese highway system. 

After visiting 合欢山, we went to 青青草原. Unfortunately, when we arrived there, the park was going to close. So we only have a limited time to visit the place. 青青草原is a very huge park with natural landscape, people usually spent around half day there :/ We missed the sheep show, and we did not get to walk through every path...What a waste haiz...

The view in 青青草原. 

Emm...at least I can selfie with the sheep xD 

Our next stop after 清境 was 庐山. After a long day of travelling, both of us were exhausted. It was not easy to travel with public transportation, as our greatest concern was to ensure that we had the transport to travel from one place to another. 

庐山trip.. to be continued...

New Year Trip to Taichung ^^

30/12/2016  - 2/1/2017  Taichung --> He Huan Shan -->                                            Qing Jing --> Lu Shan 

     2016 is finally comes to its end. This year will be definitely different from last year, as I am not in Malaysia but in Taiwan to celebrate the new year.

     On 30/12/2016, I straight away headed to Taichung from Chia Yi after school. It took us 1.5 hour there. Around 7pm, we arrived at Taichung train station. The moment I stepped out from the station, I can feel the comfortable cool breeze blowing. One of the best things in TaiChung is it has a well developed transportation system. Their public transport, buses are very convenient. For every 15 minutes, they will have buses to travel from one point to another. We took a bus to 逢甲 Night market. The journey took one hour to reach.

    Feng Jia Night Market is the largest Night Market in Taiwan and now I am lucky enough to witness it myself. There are many stalls selling different kind of food. And my friend and I did not stop eating from the moment we reached there xD ( The food is just too nice) My favourite street food is the glutinous rice with sausage, really like it! Around 10 pm, we went back to our hotel and rest.

     The next day, we went to our first stop, 台中秋谷道. It is a well decorated park, and it is a perfect place to spend time with your family.

秋谷道

After spending 10 minutes there, we went to 东海大学, Actually this was not our initial plan but we accidentally took the wrong bus xD But it's ok at least we went to somewhere new xD

东海大学 is the most beautiful university in Taiwan. Compared to Monash Malaysia ( My university), it is much bigger! And ya, it is indeed very pretty xD

The signature building in 东海大学. 

We planned to have our lunch at the 第二市场. There are so many popular food over there such as 颜记包子，王记糯米肠

杨妈妈立食...We get to tried all of them ( because we were very hungry xD)

This is very tasty! 

杨妈妈立食

After lunch, we headed to the 草悟道. Well, as we were tired of taking the public transport, we went there by walking instead. It took us 30 minutes to walk there, with a luggage...Therefore, by the time we reached there, we were freaking tired. However, that place is still very nice to walk around and shop. There were many stalls selling snacks and some local food, not to mention their special handmade handcrafts. My friend bought a small wallet to her mum, and I bought a cap for my brother. A very well spent evening at there.

After diner, we went straight to 埔里 and prepared for the new year!
At PULI, we went to a restaurant with good ambience,called the 春花炭烤. Due to the new year celebration, it closed at 1 am, and we were happy enough to at least had a place to sit down and relax. The food there was really good. We ate the barbeque chicken, saba fish, Japanese rice with tea and so on. That was the place we say goodbye to 2016. 2017 will definitely be a better year. 

春花炭烤

That is the end for 2016 schedule. My trip to He Huan Shan and Qing Jing, to be continued... :)