Saturday, 30 July 2016

Come down and waste away with me

Someone just asked me what's my purpose in life, probably as a joke, and usually I'll laugh it off and respond with a satirical comment but this time around, I was dazed.

Honestly? The first thing that popped up were my obligations. My obligations to others.

To be a good daughter? To be a good sister? To be a good granddaughter? To be a good Christian? To be a good friend? To be a good student?

But how many of these have I really achieved?

I quarrel with my parents, I rarely see my second sister because she's living with her boyfriend, I try my best to visit my parents' parents as often as I can but somehow once every two weeks doesn't feel justified especially when they live so near me, I try to keep awake during sermons but sometimes drowsiness just kicks in, I've lost contact with some of my friends, especially those who meant so much to me in my youth, it's not as if I don't want to reconcile the relationships but each time I see their posts on IG, I'll be thinking, "wow XXX is having so much fun now", and the yellow streak in me just decides to abandon all thoughts of starting a conversation with them, and I have messed up so much in my first year of university.

Maybe each of us really do have purposes to serve in life, but it looks as if I have fulfilled nada.

Wednesday, 20 July 2016

Face towards the halocline

Before I begin, I just want to thank this lovely human so much, thanks Yiting, you're really one of my most spontaneous friend ever. Since I've met you in JC as my beloved table partner, you've never failed to make lessons feel a little less drier, the bus rides a little less mundane, and life a little less routine.



Day 1



Had a flight to catch at 8.45am so we decided to meet up at the airport 7am to check-in early and have a quick breakfast at Macs. Anyway, we booked our flight 2 days prior to flying and each ticket costed $278.37, which was quite cheap already but I think if you book like 2 or more weeks before, you can enjoy cheaper rates of merely $230? (YES, it's quite a steal).


The flight time was around 5 hours and since we travelled on budget, there was really nothing to do when we were cruising above the clouds, so thankfully I brought a book :') Re-read Norwegian Wood, if there's one book that can cause someone to be depressed, I think it's this one. The first time I read it, I was just...paralysed with misery??? But nonetheless, it's a good read.


The first thing we did after touching down was to purchase a SIM card with data cause...typical Singaporeans can't live without the internet. Since we were staying for 6D5N, I bought the 7 days unlimited data plan which was priced at NT$450(around SGD$19). It was super worth it, especially if you don't have a fixed itinerary, so you can make use of Google Maps on the go. And it also helps if you're a Snapchat whore. I ended up using 4.29GB of data in those 6 days, which was really a bang for the buck.

Taiwan's Taoyuan Airport isn't really located in Taipei, so to get to the city, you still have to travel around 1.5 hours on the road.


Paid NT$145(~SGD$6) for our bus ticket to Taipei.


Our first glimpse of the city



We made our way to our Airbnb apartment where our host was there to welcome us when we checked in. He's this Taiwanese-Japanese guy that was really nice to us during our entire trip, cause he was constantly asking us how are we, where are our whereabouts to make sure we don't get lost and giving us advice on having a good time in Taiwan aww :)


After checking in, we had our first meal which was this simple plate of noodles omg they tasted really, really good. Not sure what they're called but the handmade noodles were really chewy and soft and the sauce was just great.


Next stop: Shilin Night Market




Fried milk was surprisingly pleasant




They call it "Frog Eggs" but it really is just wintermelon tea with aiyu jelly & pearls












Nothing like hanging out at the temple stairs, slurping down a bowl of piping hot mee sua :-)

fin.

Friday, 1 July 2016

So is everyone changing?

I thought we were closer than this, but I guess I was wrong.
I suppose I could say that you never fail at failing me.