Lifestyle Activities – Page 4 – Sybreon Ones Nought

Jiu Fen Street

Food, glorious food.

Well, that’s been the theme so far. After leaving the farm, we visited the famous Jiu Fen old street on our way to the hot-springs hotel. It is basically a narrow street filled with lots of random shopping and random food.

Our tour-guide introduced us to a quaint little restaurant that sold meat/fish balls, venison rice and drunken chicken. He also encouraged us to try a special ice-cream stuffed in a poh-piah wrap with sweet ground up peanuts.

After that, we just walked along the entire street from end to end, savouring all the random foods along the way and shopping for souvenirs.

When a funeral procession came through, everyone disappeared into the stores with their backs turned onto the procession. This reminded me of the traditional practice that we used to practice when I was a child, but no longer. I actually wondered what kind of person would have their funeral procession through such a busy street filled with tourists. It must’ve been the funeral of someone who lives in the area.

Anyway, we ended up at the Pause Landis – a posh feeling hot-spring hotel – in Wulai. I enjoyed a nice long dip in the hot water. It was nice to be able to just dip in the water, close my eyes, and listen to nothing. Dinner was exquisite too.

I’m looking forward to a good tomorrow.

TouCheng Farm

Bliss – one word to describe my experience at the TouCheng Farm, Yilin, Taiwan.

This was our first destination, upon landing at the airport. We would end up spending two nights here, partaking in the simple life on a farm filled with butterflies, birds, fishes and even boars. This is a school farm, that targets school students, yet is suitable for everyone from infants to old-folk.

I decided to skip many of the activities, which my niece and nephew joined, and just lazed around in the open, enjoying the cool autumn breeze. T’was nice to be able to just do nothing but stare at all the greenery for a whole day.

There were just the few families around, mostly Taiwanese ones. So, we were quite sure that this was not a typical tourist trap, since it was somewhere that locals went to and not just dumb foreign tourists.

The little pond was filled with fishes of various colour and size. An elderly gentleman showed his grandson how to fish with a simple reed pole and line, nothing fancy. The grandpa would catch the fish, show it to his grandson, and throw it back in.

A couple of kids chased after football sized bubbles, blown by their mother. The bubbles would fly a short distance, on the breeze, and then pop, sending shrill laughter down the hallway.

A little girl, rocked her mother who was enjoying a lazy nap in a hammock under a shaded tree. Something seemed odd with that picture but nobody complained.

A couple of three year-olds, barely capable of walking, ran around the gravel yard, chasing the few ducks lying around basking in the sun, and being chased around by their parents in return.

Food. Glorious food. There was a continuous stream of food, available at all hours, for free.

Though our meals were simple farm-house style cooked food, they tasted absolutely amazing. I had a difficult time trying to control my diet for this was only my first day and I had to keep something in reserve for the rest of the week.

I had a feeling that my Taiwan holiday was off to a great start!

Political Dinner

OK. I’ll have to admit that I’ve never attended a single political fund-raising dinner in my life. In fact, I’ve avoided them like the plague. However, I was invited to attend one tonite, by a friend, and I thought that I should just go to experience it. Boy, was it an interesting experience.

The venue was huge – a Chinese restaurant capable of catering to probably 150 tables at least. The food was your standard Chinese eight course dinner fare. Being a standard Chinese dinner, it started late, well past the agreed upon hour. Then, the food came out slowly as well. Each dish was accompanied by a half hour political speech from current and would-be politicos.

While the food wasn’t great, the speeches were certainly entertaining. And the way that they arranged the speakers – it ended with a climax. I learned so much about Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary tonight that it has put a damper on my plans to buy a Honda CR-Z hybrid. So, I guess that I’ll need to shop around for something else to buy then. Damn!

Now, this was a fund-raising dinner organised by the DAP, with participation from both PAS and PKR representatives. What first surprised me was the fact that this was held in a non-Halal Chinese restaurant with pork dishes served during dinner. While the Muslims had their own table with separate food, it was interesting that the PAS leaders would even grace the event with their presence. I have many Muslim friends who would not blink an eye when consuming pork but this was certainly atypical PAS.

Another thing that I found interesting was the racial rhetoric. Some of the speakers could openly say that they do not see race, and then proceed to classify the races, all within the same sentence. I found that thoroughly ironic. However, at least they are clear on their different position vis-a-vis that of the incumbent coalition.

However, the most amazing thing that I found was that the people were there to listen. Almost everyone stayed through to the end of the dinner, which ended just before midnight. Some of us jokingly said that we should have just had some McD downstairs instead. However, the restaurant was packed right up to the end.

And the most interesting thing that I got to see was the Ubah video. Man, it had much better production quality than the Janji Ditepati music video. It was also far more meaningful and heart-felt. I honestly think that they should buy a national spot and air the damn thing. It’d win them the elections.

PS: Besides the interesting speeches, I got to meet some friends – new and old ones. I had an enjoyable time sitting at my table.

K-Pop: 2NE1

I found out that it’s actually pronounced like “21” instead. In my opinion, they don’t fit the typical k-pop singer mold. That said, they’ve got some songs that I like.

BigBang Blue

For some reason, I’m hooked onto this simple tune. It’s so monotonous that it should actually put one to sleep, but it doesn’t do that to me.

K-Pop isn’t all about the girls. I’ve got an FT Island album sitting in my car.

Event: World Robotics Olympiad 2012

I’ll be one of the head judges of the World Robotics Olympiad 2012. The event is hosted by Malaysia this year and will be held from 9-11 November 2012 at Sunway Convention Centre.

I’m quite excited about doing it. The only other international level design competition for school children that I’ve ever judged before this was the F1 in Schools 2011 finals. Avid readers of my blog will know that I have always been involved in other national level competitions.

These out-reach programmes appeal to me, especially if they relate to science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. I particularly like seeing more girls participating as we all know that our professions are woefully deprived of female insight, input and instinct.

There are several categories of competition and the challenges are quite interesting too. I was also involved in the planning stage last year, to select the final theme and challenges that we see today.

Just watching the random Youtube videos of teams from around the world has been very exciting for me. There are some very interesting ideas in some of these robots, particularly when they try to work around the constraints/rules of each competition.

I’m definitely looking forward to judging the world finals in a few weeks time.

Good luck to all the 300+ participating teams!

Primary Level