JYSim for jobless-yokel Sim

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Taipei. Local time is 4.30 pm and local temperature is 28 degrees Centigrade. Weather is predicted to be overcast. Passengers please pay attention when opening the overhead cabin. Baggages may have shifted during the flight and may fall out. Please be reminded that mobile phones and electronic devices are not to be used until you’re inside the terminal building. Once again, thank you for choosing China Airlines. We hope you’ve enjoyed your flight and see you onboard again soon.
11 Days Taiwan Round Island ala-Refugee
Day 1: Chiang Kai-shek Int’l Airport to Taipei via bus carrying 3 oversized and overweight baggage (typical of Dad). Arrival at Mr. Ku’s (Dad’s prof. 22 years ago) humble abode to find that the house was no more than a CLHS classroom, which 4/5 of the space is piled with drawings (typical of artists) and dust. Dinner at a typical Taiwanese snack bar, an uneasy sleep worrying how much dust I’ll inhale and my asthma. Air conditioner groaning all night.
Day 2: Showering in Taipei. Went trotting Taipei with camera, iPod, mobile phone (service provider: ZhongHua DianXin) and a broken umbrella. Places of interest - Taipei 101 (Giordano, bakery and food court), Presidental Place, BeiYi Girls’ School, MRT stations, ZhongZheng Memorial Square, ChenXing 24-hour bookstore, Shabu-shabu (juan-loh) for dinner. Air conditioner groning still, footache.
Day 3: Taipei Main Station to Hualien via train. Trains extremely punctual, not a minute early, not a minute late. Arrival at a showering Hualien, picked up by a host mother arranged by Tzu Chi. 4-hour nap in homestay apartment, drizzle outside, good atmosphere, 23 Celcius. Dinner at homestay apartment, TV at night. Uneventful.
Day 4: Examination at Tzu Chi University. Friendly staff, helpful Malaysian alumni and seniors, splendid school grounds. Everything in traditional Chinese, dechipering language takes more time than answering, though finally the Chinese exam was relatively easy. Strolling along streets of Hualien at the evenings, purchased train tickets through Mastercard. Dinner at homestay apartment, again,
Day 5: Hualien to Tai-Dong via train. Same punctuality, Malaysians should learn. Meal on train. Picked up by Dad’s junior upon arrival, homestay apartment again. Good weather to visit the Pacific Ocean, camera ran out of battery, almost. Dinner at aborganial village, strange cuisine in dim atmosphere, so you literally can’t see what you’re eating. ‘Garfield’ at 32-inch LCD back home before bedtime.
Day 6: Visited a school Dad taught upon graduation. Huge school with tiled floors, tiled walls and fountains (imagine that in CLHS?). Name of meal for lunch too gruelsome to translate, but delicious anyhow. 4 pm Tai-Dong to Tai-Zhong via train, delayed 30 minutes (ok, Malaysians shouldn’t learn this). Longest train journey I’ve ever took, partly because my sister kept flipping the curtains, causing the sunshine to penetrate my eyelids, and I can’t sleep. Meal on train again. Arrival picked up by Dad’s student. Overnight at kiddo’s playroom with flourescent stars wallpaper, alphabets mat (I still have mine upstairs in the attic) and Johnson & Johnson Baby Bath.
Day 7: Rained like crazy. We decided to challenge fate and went to LuGang (a place where they filmed whichever film last time). Carrying an umbrella strolling through century-old streets. 3/5 dirty, 2/7 similar to the antique zones of Penang. Lost in the small dwindling ‘lorongs’, photographed like crazy. 4 pm at National Taiwan Arts Museum, saw a lot of disfigured nudes, disporportional. Bookmakr costs NT$ 20 (RM2.00+). Full course western dinner NT$480++. First grand Western gourment I’ve had. Food not necessarily tasty. Another house-transfer followed. Was dead tired by then but I did managed to get online for 50 mins before sleeping.
Day 8: Bought Dad’s painting materials, window shopping in a very crowded mall. Tired tired. Dinner at another typical Taiwan snack bar, only this is a little more high class. Tired tired. Slept without bidding hosts good night. Oh yeah, bought ‘Nicholas Again’. Mastercard.
Day 9: Tai-Dong to Taipei via express bus. Worst nightmare ever. Air-conditioning not functional, ‘express’ bus made stops at nearly every interchange. Horrifically unpunctual, dirty, seats uncomfortable and televisions (yeah, they have TVs on the bus) a mere electron gun firing radiation at passengers. Rain like crazy again. Cab back to dusty Mr. Ku’s place, shopped along ShiDa road for Dad’s painting materials. Tired tired. Dinner with Dad’s old classmates, some of whom behaved very student-like, and talking to them don’t actually made you feel isolated. Lots of ex-classmates turned up, in which later crammed into Mr. Ku’s place to see his latest paintings. Slept at 11. Not so dusty anymore, perhaps it’s because I got used to it.
Day 10: Taipei to DanShui via MRT, interesting. Btw, Taipei MRTs made announcements in Chinese, Hokkien (Tai-Yu), Hakka, and distorted, Japanised English. NT$110 return. DanShui relatively comparable to Gurney Drive, but they have at least 30 stalls selling ice cream, ranging from NT$ 1 to NT$ 10 per cone. Overcast but didn’t rain. No robbery (he’s mad, i swear Jun Yi’s mad), lots of 7-11s. Dinner with Dad’s teacher’s classmate (in that case it’s unrelated), free ice-cream. Accomodation transfer to BaLi at Dad’s classmate’s house, nearer to airport and free transport. Watched 45 minutes of ‘The Legend of 1900′. Slept, but felt like I didn’t.
Day 11: Awaken 5.30 am, breakfast by Dad’s classmate, very talkative. Freeway (highway) to airport extremely windy, broke at least 60 traffic rules. Witnessed at least 5 planes landing and take off. Check-in chaotic, overweight baggage charged NT$ 4000+, thanks to Dad’s friends, who kept gaving books. Saw 2 MAS’ planes, 1 Singapore Airlines. Boarding delay, departure on time.
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Penang. Local time is 12.56 pm and temperature is 28 degrees Centigrade. Weather is predicted to be overcast. Passengers please pay attention
when opening the overhead cabin. Baggages may have shifted during the
flight and may fall out. Please be reminded that mobile phones and
electronic devices are not to be used until you’re inside the terminal
building. The Malaysian authority would like to remind you that drug trafficking is illegal in Malaysia and carries mandatory death sentence. Once again, thank you for choosing China Airlines. We hope you’ve enjoyed your flight and see you onboard again soon.

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