My First 4 Days in Taiwan
The 300-seater A330 was only filled with 158 passengers as it soars over the skies of Tai-Chung before landing in Taoyuan International Airport. 6.47pm, and it’s already as dark as the Malaysian 8pm. I met my 3rd Mum (first Mum being Mum, second Mum being my babysitter) Aunt Qiu Xia less than an hour later at downtown Taipei before we haul up all 40kgs of baggage into her car. And I was home again.
The next day I weave my way through the elite districts of Taipei looking for the Malaysia Airlines Ticketing Office. The officer told me to get off at Nanking E. Road MRT station and to locate the baseball stadium, the office is just opposite the stadium. What she did not tell me is that I will still have to walk across 2 sections (as in from Midlands to Gurney) to be able to locate the stadium. Nevertheless, the ticketing process took less than 15 minutes and at a quarter to 10 I was out and breakfast-hunting. I walked into Ikea Taipei, which is just 2 units away and paid NT$39 for scrambled eggs, 2 pieces of ham, a huge bun, and bottomless coffee.
A few hours later I was juggling with my 40kgs of luggage in Hualien Train Station, aided by my senior, I managed to pull all of them up the malfunctioned elevator without breaking anything. The moment I stepped into my room I abandoned for more than 2 months, I dropped everything and switched on the computer. I Skype-d back home but nobody’s there to answer. After several attempts I hastily packed some tau sar pneah and rush out for a meeting-cum-dinner. Thanks to my patient senior, I finally came to know what the committee I’m representing the university, SCOPE, stands for. It’s actually the Standing Committee Of Professional Exchange, a subcommittee tied under IFMSA - International Federation of Medical Students’ Association. Heading the committee for this year along with my partner, we’re responsible for taking care of exchange students from all over the world, as well as organizing a selection test for outgoing students. It suddenly dawned on me that I will be insanely busy this year.
8.24, the meeting is finally over. Before this my choir members had called numerous times asking me to be back for a performance at 8.30. I exerted all the force used to cycle this summer (I did not cycle at all back home) to paddle the bike back to school. I was still panting when we went on stage. Face red like a flamingo, I sang into the absolute darkness below the stage, formulating what to say to ‘invite’ newcomers to our chorus welcoming party this coming 30th of September.
Fueled by adrenalin that evening, I only manage to shut my eye at 2am, knowing our class trip starts at 7.30 the following morning and a class trip usually means no sleeping for the next 24 hours.
The bus hover among hilly areas and empty expressways as we chatted amicably on what we did during the summer as well as mundane gossips and stupid things by our junior. We had lunch in a very touristy restaurant and subsequently took the 1.30pm boat to Green Island. The island, located 33km off the northern coast of Taiwan, is primarily known for its prisons and places of exile for political prisoners. Many current politicians now fighting for Taiwan to be enlisted in the UN had been there, as prisoners. An island smaller than Hawaii, it’s dependent on fishing as well as tourism now. The boat ride typically takes 50 minutes - the most torturing 50 minutes of your life if you, like my very bold friend, stood up all the way and jumped around like monkeys that were rubbed with belacan (bagai monyet kena belacan?). Crossing the Pacific Ocean is exactly like riding in a roller coaster ride, plus occasional sprays of seawater and spotting of flying fishes and dolphins.
Our Green Island trip started with a simple snorkeling in one of the coasts. Being a two-time snorkeler in Redang I am completely shocked by how the tour guides stepped on corals, fed the fishes (very unnatural and unhealthy for the ecosystem) and treating everything as simple as ABC. The coral reefs are vanishing faster than the tigers or pandas. Simple acts such as touching the corals, which will harm the protective layers of the creature, may exterminate the entire colony of reefs along the coast. Feeding the fishes there might as well alter the natural water pH which will in long term suffocate the reefs as well.
Later in the evening we went for a very-expensive BBQ, ate mostly free radicals, carbon particles and chemically synthesized foodstuff. The gang went back for the hotel’s karaoke system after a brief nighttime introductory to the island by our cincai tour guide. Nobody slept until 2.30am.
The next morning was free-and-easy till 1.30pm when I realized I should have put on some sunblock before venturing outside this morning. Quickly applying some in 7-11 while waiting for the boat, I battled over the decision of whether to eat a light meal of Maggie (of course it’s not called Maggie here) before departing. However, the fact that the school messed up with my school fees and now my money is still hanging in a computer system between Taiwan and Malaysia bothers me that I finally decided not to. The boat ride back was more bumpy than the one we had the day before, but all of us managed to sleep through it.
Back in my dorm at 8.30, the sight of my roommate studying his n-th repetition of Biochemistry shocked me wide awake from my happy illusion that summer is still not over. I managed to go through half a chapter before surrendering to sleep at a little after 12 midnight.
