JYSim for jobless-yokel Sim

The amount of international students in a certain country is a symbol of the nation’s success in education as well as a solid representation of how young world citizens love to live there. Hence, each nation with quite a number of international students will always have their version of International Student ID - a card or tag of any kind that seemingly will make your days in your host country more enjoyable, convenient and cost-saving.
I am a holder of the ISIC (International Student Identity Card) which I believe many of us have. I’m not suppose to include any commercial elements in my blogs but I just couldn’t resist boasting I’d always get a 20% discount on train rides, and I can get student-priced tickets for summer and winter (though summer is always considered a high season and even student priced tickets are a little more expensive than wither tickets). I get at least 10% discount on Apple products (though I haven’t really enjoyed this convenience yet), and I as a holder of the card, I get priority as well as discounts in  budget hotels and hostels over 66 countries (though I doubt I’d ever visit one quarter of them in my entire life).
You’re well-pampered and given lots of privileges as an international student. For me, the 20% discount offer is sufficient because for stingy people like me I’d always be happy for the rest of my day when I see my tickets are only NT$333 when others’ are NT$431. Nevertheless, what I like about my ISIC and Taiwan Youth Travel Pass is the freedom it gave - freedom of imagining what you possibly could do but probably couldn’t do without the knowledge beforehand. My Taiwan Youth Travel Pass entitles me to purchasing 10, 20 and 30 days train tickets at approx. RM 300 (maximum). With that, I can travel on some classes of trains to wherever I like. So, this is the plan - buy a 20-day ticket (RM200) and circle Taiwan Island - making stops wherever I like. And since all my 52 classmates are quite equally spread over the entire Taiwan Island, I can probably get free accommodation and perhaps also food. Even when I’m stranded on a town where I knew nobody, my Taiwan Youth Travel Pass can get me into several hostels with special rates. So, how does that sound? 20 days around Taiwan with probably RM500? Man, that’s almost my one month’s expenditure, minus all the entertainment expenses.
There are plenty of options for us international students - so much you sometimes became dazzled by all the choices to be made.
Anyway, back to the same old story, I always have the wild idea to do a round-the-world trip before I graduate. Imagine telling that to Mum and Dad, ‘What? round the world? I won’t be able to afford you even if I’m the CEO of Singapore Airlines.’
Perhaps not anymore now. I was dreamily surfing STA Travel’s (the agency responsible for ISIC) net and I bump into this page that offers you several round-the-world packages. The lowest starts from USD 2500 - maybe it’s still rather expensive, but if you were to book tickets individually from the airlines itself, it’ll definitely cost more than that. LA-Fiji-Sydney-Paris-LA - comprehensive round-the world trip you can join during an idle summer or gap year.
Nevertheless, back to planet earth now, it’s just a blessing being a student (and more being an international student) and we should definitely enjoy our short-lived schooling days when we still get the chance.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 15th, 2007 at 9:08 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.