Day 83 -- International cultural fair / Training in the rain

For 3 consecutive days starting today, there is the international cultural fair happening in school. I went to have a look after lessons today and it really seemed like a huge carnival happening right in the heart of the main campus! There were performances as well as stalls selling food from different countries. So I had Russian puffs, Kaya toasts (yes, I know, again!), Creme Brulee and Slovakian Potato salad and mustard chicken. Ok, i know that's a lot to consume at one go, but I just couldn't resist! But I will not go there again because I think I am done with the stalls and performances. 

On the side note, I got The Great Gatsby for only NTD 80! Although it's a second-hand book, but I think the previous owner was super gentle with the book it didn't looked used at all! So happy with my buy today!

And today's pool training was done in the rain. Yes, it started pouring the moment our training commenced and it didn't stop until I was making my way back from dinner. Even though it rained, but it did not dampened the spirit of those who went for the training! In fact, I thought we are improving, although there are still a lot of absentees :( 

Day 82 -- 膝盖不争气

Skipped training today because my knees were hurting so bad I could not even do the warm ups properly. Ended up coming back to dorm and watch The Great Gatsby.

It was really a good show, apart from the superficial romance plot, but more of the underlying theme of the show. I love how subtly the original author had made it and how the director actually filmed it. So near, yet so far; perhaps these are the 5 words most appropriate to describe the theme.

But now, I'm going to sleep early and hope the pain will subside by tomorrow morning. This sucks big time!

Day 81 -- A taste of home!

Went to Black dog oden with Miyuki and Min Yu for dinner because we were craving for Singaporean food! Miyuki's buddy brought her to this place a few weeks ago and today it's our turn!

We had kaya toast, char kway teow and milo dinosaurs! Other than the char kway teow that tasted like black pepper seafood phad thai (quoting Miyuki), which is not Singaporean at all, the other 2 were so good!! Especially the kaya toast! I had such a huge craving for it for such a long time and the only place I knew have it was the Yakun at Taipei! But now, I can have it within Kaohsiung :D

No words can describe the ecstasy within me!! Furthermore, it's situated along the love river, which means it's really near nsysu! Now, that's really awesome news!! I can go literally anytime I crave for it!

And now, finally pictures of the food!

Day 80 -- A memorable learning experience

So, it's day 2 of the PILOT Gloal conference and I am thankful that I am yet again given this wonderful opportunity of being a facilitator for the event, although I really hate about having to assemble at 7am -.-

There were more learning because of the really useful workshops I attended. Those concepts taught during the workshops can be really useful especially when I step out to the working world in the future! Due to the nature of my major, there isn't much exposure to such leadership concepts and because I joined the conference, I learnt something new and applicable! Nothing can describe how blessed I felt being able to participate in this event.

Other than the content, I also got to know so many locals through this event, and more importantly, got to interact with them. Not that I lack such opportunities from attending classes, but it was in this conference I got to meet locals who come from different parts of Taiwan. What a rare opportunity!

Well, I K.O. after returning from the event, a sleep more than 12 hours! This explains this overdue post.

Day 79 -- PILOT 1

It seemed only yesterday when we were first told about the PILOT Global conference, and tonight, we just ended our first session. Although this first session was more of a talk cum sharing session by the speaker, but I'd learnt so much from his sharing!

To lead, is to serve. The central message of tonight's talk. How true is this statement! Many times we want to lead because we don't want to follow instructions or we feel that we can offer better ideas or perhaps even lead better. But tonight's talk gave me a paradigm shift. You can lead only when you know how to serve with values. With a strongly rooted value system, no matter what your position is, you will always be a leader.

I am really thankful for having such an opportunity to be part of the event as a facilitator. I was able to meet different people, from different universities. In my group alone, other than the NSYSU students, there are other students from Ping Tung and Hua Lien. This was truly an amazing learning opportunity for me!

Well, I got to end here because I have another day of conference to attend, and I got to wake up at 6am! I hope I will not oversleep!! >.< Good night!

Day 78 -- Dragonboat dedication

Why do I make such a title?

Went to collect the dragonboat tees with Adeline in the afternoon and spent the night for training. So I practically spent the bulk of my waking hours doing something related to dragonboat today! Alright, I confess. I slept in today and by the time I woke up it's already midday.

Well, the size I got was so fitting that it meant I cannot gain anymore weight during this exchange. But I am loving the material because it's Nike Dri-fit. Ok, I am biased. I am a huge fan of their Dri-fit technology and I can't really find another brand that is comparable to it.

The training was tough as usual and I was so tired after the training but I could not rest because I still had my assignment to rush out. Thank God, I managed to complete it right before posting here :)

And I'm so sorry for the lack of pictures for such a long time because I hadn't got time to filter and post them here! I'll try but now it's time for me to sleep because I'm having another long day ahead :(

Day 77 -- Virgin K session in Taiwan!

Went for my very first K session with the gang and my buddy last night! Huge thanks to Alice who helped us booked the room going with us! But sadly we didn't get to have a group picture capture.

I guess the biggest cultural shock (?) we have here should be the fact they allow the patrons to smoke in the rooms. So, when we first entered the room, we were greeted by the overwhelming smell of cigarettes. But the good thing was that our room had a personal washroom, and it is CLEAN! How many times do we need to worry about unclean washrooms here but I'm so surprised about it! Another happy moment is when I saw the room. For the 5 of us, we were given a room that could easily fit 8-9 people. Large room checked! And every hour, we were given warm wet towels and the crew will check if we needed to adjust the temperature of the room. Good service checked!

Well, I guess other than the pungent smell of cigarettes, I'm quite loving my experience with the karaoke service here. Oh, did I mention? I went to 享温馨 at 新倔江 :)