My Sister's Last Weekend in Taiwan

Saturday (August 29, 2009)

We woke up late last Saturday and just went to visit National Palace Museum. We took our time during the morning so when we reached Shilin station, it was already lunch time. We decided then to eat first at a small pasta place near the station. I just have to say that Taiwan really gives BIG servings! Everything is so filling!

Anyway, the museum is still as gorgeous as I had remembered it (Sorry, the photo below doesn't include the main museum building). I think we must have spent 4 hours just looking at all the exhibit and visiting the nearby park.

A funny blooper that happened was when my sister almost fell onto the lap of a disabled person. The person was on a wheelchair, and my sister wasn't aware that there was someone behind her. When she stepped back a bit to view some museum exhibit, she lost her balance and grabbed hold of me. There was a long (really long) awkward struggle to get her towards me and away from the wheelchair. Hahaha! Good thing the person on the wheelchair was a good sport and just laughed it off. :D

There are two parks inside the museum grounds and we decided to roam around the nearer one. It has a pond with lots of gigantic carps that you can feed with fish food (NT$10 value for a big bag). We even saw two kids who fell into the pond because they were so intent on feeding the fish! Hahaha! (It wasn't so funny at that time, but it is now since I know they are safe. :-D)

After the museum, we went to the "Chinese Movie Culture City" which was apparently a theme park with sets for old movies. Looks like we've been looking through some outdated guides because this one looks like it has been closed for a long time already. >_< Sunday (August 30, 2009)

Jen decided to join us play tourist in Taipei for Sunday. We met at Yuanshan station and ate some spaghetti. Then we went ahead and visited the Confucius Temple and Bao'an Temple which were awesome placed to visit because there were few people there. :-D (Pictures to follow.)

We ran out of things to do so my sister suggested to visit Shin-Kong Mitsukoshi malls. The clothes there were nice and expensive so we just window-shopped a bit. We then discovered a foodcourt on the basement floor where we ate a very hearty early dinner. There was also a small grocery where my sister bought her pasalubongs. :-)

After that, we went back to the station and discovered that an underground (as in under the ground not illegal) bookstore street ran from one station to another. We spent our remaining time there until it was time to go home. :-)

There's no more time last Monday (August 31, 2009) for my sister to tour because her flight back to the Philippines was at 11:00 in the morning. She's now back to the Philippines, and I have moved into my room near Shida. :-)

My Home for the Next Six Months

Yeah, so my phone is crappy. I still have no plans on investing on a good digicam though. :D

I'll be moving in tomorrow because this new one is cheaper than my current accommodations and is also nearer my university (around 10 minute walk).

Here are pictures of my bedroom. The room has two shelves. One is shown in the pictures; the other one is on the right of the door and can handle a lot of hanged clothes.

I haven't done anything to the room yet. I'll probably make it more homey when I move in. ^_^

Lazy Thursday and Friday

Lazy Thursday

We visited Longshan Temple yesterday, and I totally enjoyed it yesterday than when I visited last year. Last year (see photo below), the place was jam-packed with people.

Taiwan Banking

My sister and I decided to take it easy yesterday. Hah! As if that could really happen.

I did my first batch of Taiwan laundry yesterday morning. I'm still at the honeymoon stage, so even doing the laundry is fun. Hahaha!

Come lunch time, we walked around the hostel area and ate beef noodles. It was a bit pricey at $110 but was really really good and filling. Yum!

I then left my sister in the hostel and headed for Shida, where I met up with Jen and her cousin. We had our ying1 chang2 (chinese name stamps) created so that we could open an account in the postal bank for our scholarship. I already have two name stamps at home (Philippines), but I didn't bring them to Taiwan. (Sucks to forget things like that at home. Haha!) We created our bank account on the same day.

Went back to the hostel and fetched my sister for a little site-seeing. We went to Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall where my sister, to my irritation, insisted to visit every nook and cranny of the place.

Taipei 101 was near so we decided to go there, too. Once again, I got frustrated because it was already dark we reached the building. Last year, I was able to visit Taipei 101 at night time, so I was hoping to visit this time during day time. Anyhoo, it was still enjoyable except for the cakes that we had at 88th floor which were so-so but very pricey!

After visiting the top of Taipei 101, we went to its mall on the lower floors. We spent a lot of time in the bookstore and I was even able to buy myself a new camera for $1000! It's a newer version of Vivitar UWS (Ultra Wide and Slim) camera which I have been hankering for a long time now.


We were not yet hungry when we headed home, but we decided to eat a late dinner anyway. My sister was craving for rice because we have been eating noodles for the past few days. Since all the nearby eating places were closed, we headed for 7-11 to eat microwaveable rice meals. :D

Today, we're planning to go to Jay Chou's Secret-themed restaurant and to do more site-seeing. I'm so excited to use my new cam. Hahahaha!

PS. I want to put in Chinese Characters already but my laptop OS needs to be updated for Chinese support. Pfft!

The Boy @ Taipei Main Station

You probably saw the previous post where I listed all the things that my sister and I did in our first 3 days in Taiwan. Last night, we decided to "loiter" a bit in Taipei Main Station (MRT) to rest our legs from all the walking done yesterday.

We were seated on a stone bench where a couple of people were also seated. Very noticeable was the impatient-looking boy seated behind us because he's been sitting on the bench for a long time. I'd say he's 6-10 years old. (No, I don't know how to approximate the ages.)

After around 5-10 minutes, he asked to borrow my mobile phone to call someone. I got a bit iffy about the idea. In the Philippines, this doesn't usually happen; and some kid would probably take off with my mobile if I lent my phone to him.

After a long pause, we finally decided to let him use my phone. I taught him the basic mechanics of my English display phone, and then he was off to call 2-3 people from my phone!

I'd normally make side comments to let the kid know how annoyed I was with all the calls he's been making, but I'm in a foreign country and can't really think of many Chinese snide things to say. (Hahaha!) Anyway, he finally returned my phone back to me after making a lot of calls.

After a few minutes, he borrowed my phone again. By then, I was sure that the kid wasn't going to run off with my phone; but he will probably use up all the money I have credited inside it.

He borrowed my phone a few more times until we finally decided to go home. (because it's starting to get a bit late and his borrowing is getting a bit annoying.) I un-eloquently told the kid that we were going home and that he should probably do the same. He gave us a weak smile, and we were off.

A few minutes after we got home, my phone started ringing. The parents of the boy called up and asked to talk to him. I told them that we were already home and that we left the kid on Taipei Main. We then found out that the boy didn't know how to go home! Apparently, he lost his phone; and his parents are trying to find him!

I told them all the details that I can think of. (I'm sure they were more confused than helped by my bad Chinese.) Finally, the mom begged us to help her; my sister and I decided to hurry back to the station where we last saw the kid.

When we got there, the kid wasn't sitting on the bench anymore! I'd say that was 30-45 minutes since we left him to go home. We called up his mom to tell her that we didn't see the boy, and the mom said that she was also headed for Taipei Main.

We ran around the station and even asked a staff on post if he noticed the seated boy earlier - he didn't. We called the mom a few times to check if she had found her kid. After about 30 minutes of looking for the kid, we called again and the kid is now safely with the mom.

Whew! With a big sigh of relief, we headed back home.

There is a lesson to be learned here somewhere, but I'm not sure what it is yet. :D

So Far, So Good

Here's a breakdown of the things I have done in my 3 days in Taipei, mainly so I won't forget.

Day 1: Arrival (August 23, 2009)
- checked in Taipei Hostel (met Leslie, the very very hospitable Filipina helper of the hostel owner.)
- ate dinner (yummy noodles!) and snooped a bit in 7-11

Day 2: Getting a feel of things (August 24, 2009)
- brunch at McDonald's
- Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall
- checked out MTC@Shida
- called up prospect apartments
- immigration center to apply for Alien ID
- explored a Carrefour and bought laundry supplies
- roast duck and bihon dinner at XsiMenTing
- XsiMenTing shopping happiness (where I got my Taiwan Mobile sim card)

Day 3: Enrollment (August 25, 2009)
- met up landlady and made reservations for more permanent place to stay (walking distance to Shida)
- 7-11 breakfast at a small park near Shida (yummy rice and peanut drink!)
- went to Shida for enrollment
>> met up with Jen Ang (another TECO scholar)
>> met new people (Hi Turner and Alexa from the States!)
>> ate at the dorm canteen and was finally able to drink some free tea! :D
>> placement exam where I got 27/100 on the advance test. (sucky sucky sucky!)
>> got my MTC ID with a built in Easy Card. Cool!
- Shilin Night Market (yummy Kiampong and shark's fin-like soup for dinner!)
- lost kid at Taipei Main Station (which I'm going to go into next time because I'm too lazy to do it now.)

We're planning to take a break tomorrow to rest our aching legs from all the walking that we have been doing. :-)

Waiting for Boarding

Bye, Manila! Hello, Taipei!
And thus, the adventure begins!

How Much Money Can You Bring Out of Philippines?

Currency Export Regulations:

Residents and Non-residents: local currency (Philippine Peso-PHP): up to PHP 10,000.-. Exceeding amounts require authorisation from the Central Bank of the Philippines. foreign currencies : up to USD 10,000.-, or its equivalent. Amounts exceeding USD 10,000.-, or its equivalent must be declared.

Information must be furnished on the source and purpose of the transport of such amount. Violation will be subject to sanctions under Philippine customs law and regulations.

from: http://www.iatatravelcentre.com/PH-Philippines-customs-currency-airport-tax-regulations-details.htm

Panic!

Just a quick post to tell everyone that I'm starting to panic! Hahaha! My flight is this Sunday, and I've started packing some of the stuff that I will be bringing. :-)

I'm told that the weather will range from 30-12 degrees Celsius; so I'm packing for cold weather. :-D Woot!

Visa and Office Despedida

Last Friday (August 14, 2008) was a very eventful time for me. It was officially my last day at work, (Freedom!!) and it was also the day I finally got my 180-day Visa for Taiwan. Yaay! I'll try to take a picture of my passport (soon) to show everyone how happy I am.

So what else happened last Friday? Well, I've been a huge pain in the butt to my officemates because I've been bugging them for more than a year now to do a photo exhibit just for the heck of it. It finally pushed through because of two awesome and very hardworking peeps, Cip and Carol. You really made it happen!!

Dinner and Newspaper Happiness

Dinner at Mey-Lin's

Last Thursday, (August 6, 2009) the TECO scholars were invited by Director Wei to get together at Mey-Lin's Restaurant in Jupiter Street. We were treated to a yummy Chinese dinner; the patatim was S-U-P-E-R among the other great dishes! Director Wei even ordered bao fan (泡飯) when I told him how much I loved it from when I visited Taipei last year. (Thank you, Director Wei! It was very good!)

Standing from left to right: Diet, Shar, Ms. Happy, JP, Joel.
Seated from left to right: Me, Heidi, Riza, Director Wei, Paolo, Rinka.

The venue was also used to collect the contact information from everyone (Thanks for initiating this, Heidi!) so that we'll be able to keep in touch with each other. We plan to have regular meet-ups with each other so we can get updates on each other's Taiwan lives.

PS. We missed you, Jen!


Newspaper Happiness

While partaking on the delicious dinner, Ms. Happy mentioned that the scholarship awarding was announced in a couple of news publications! So cool, right?

Here's a news-clipping sent to us by Ms. Happy from Malaya on August 7, 2009:


There was another newspaper that featured the awarding prior to Malaya but I can't seem to remember the name of the newspaper. (If anyone knows, please tell me. hehe!)

We also got a space in Manila Bulletin yesterday (August 9, 2009); but I don't have a scan of it yet. I'll update this entry as soon as I can to include the Manila Bulletin clipping. Thanks for sending this to us, Ms. Happy!


13 more days before I leave for my Taiwan adventure. I can feel the panic and the excitement escalating as the day draws nearer and nearer to my departure. Woot!

Visa Application

WARNING: This is a long read. Sorry! :D


I'm now in the process of applying for a Student Visa for Taiwan. Last Friday, after the scholarship awarding ceremony, my visa application was not accepted because I was missing some documents. (The DFA certified ToR and Diploma, to be exact.) I'm sure that a lot of the grantees also had slight problems during their application so here's me trying to help consolidate the requirements (even though I'm still not finished with mine, yet. Hahaha!). :-)

Scholarship Awarding

The scholarship awarding happened two days ago, last Friday July 31, 2009 at TECO; and I finally have a face to go with Ms. Happy's name. I also met fellow scholarship grantees and the scholarship grantees from last year. Food was also over-flowing; where can you go wrong with that, I say? Yum!

Found out that two of the six Huayu Scholarship grantees are taking their Mandarin Education in 師大, as well! That means I'd have some homies to talk to when I feel lost or homesick.

Another awesome thing is that one of last year's grantees also came from 師大 (Hi Trixie!). She was able give some tips on housing, money and, most importantly, food! I feel more prepared now because of her talk.

I don't have any pictures with me on the event because I didn't bring any camera with me. (Blegh! Need to remedy that soon.)

Here's the group picture of all the grantees. Ambassador Lee (in the black suit) and Director Wei (in gray suit) gave awesome speeches that made me more excited with the 6-month trip. I'm the one with the red shirt; and the two girls on my right, Jen and Heidi, are also going to study in 師大. Thanks for sending me the pictures, Ms. Happy!