OELP Daily Reflection (Wee Lin)

Day 1 (24 May) 

Say goodbye to Singapore and Kaohsiung, here we come!

Changi Airport

Day 2 (25 May)

Places we have been today: (Many of them were museums)
1.Kaohsiung Museum of History

      2.Kaohsiung Hakka Cultural Museum

      3.Former British Consulate

      4.Meinong Hakka Cultural Museum & Meinong folk village

      5.Liuhe Night Market

Today was mostly an opportunity for us to be exposed to the Hakka culture and learn a small segment of Taiwan’s history. Look at the number of museums we have been today! Two of the museums, Kaohsiung Hakka Cultural Museum and Meinong Hakka Cultural Museum, are similar as both displays Hakka culture. Recalling back, I realised Kaohsiung Hakka Cultural Museum has more facilities with high technology as compared to the other museum. Hence, it might attract more children with the extra section just for children. Coming to museums with tour guide explaining the different sections, definitely help us understand better. I noticed that the tour guides for these two Hakka museums are at least 50 years old and above. Whereas for the Kaohsiung Museum of History which is about the 228 incident, the tour guide is younger. It seems like hakka culture is not exposed much to the young generations and I feel that we should really learn about our dialect group as we might never know when our culture will be lost in the future.

One of the displays in Kaohsiung Museum of History 高雄历史博物馆

Kaohsiung Hakka Cultural Museum 高雄客家文化博物馆

Meinong Hakka Cultural Museum 美浓客家文物

We are here to enjoy hakka food for our lunch! See the red banner below? “冰擂茶” A nice chilling drink!

Meinong Folk Village

Lei Cha 擂茶

Have you tried lei cha before? This is my first time trying. The first taste was very powdery and the tea smell is strong but it was something that we should try since it was their specialty.

Former British Consulate 打狗英国领事馆

It was very crowded inside and due to time constraint, we did not manage to look at most of the exhibits inside. We toured one round around the exhibits and left. As it was at a higher ground, we could see the sea and the beautiful sky. It would be nice to watch the sunset from there! Unfortunately, time was not on our side so we could not afford to wait till sunset.

                                                                                                                                                                    In the evening, we headed to Liuhe Night Market. A place that you must go if you come to Taiwan!

Liuhe Night Market. Many many people

Unfortunately, we could not eat too much as we are going to have dinner immediately after visiting the night market. The night market did not sell as many types of food as I thought. Most of the stalls sold seafood. There were a few stalls that sold clothes, shoes and accessories. Game stalls to earn points, redeeming stuff toys were also seen. Interestingly, the toilets near the night market as an opening time and a closing time. It only opens in the evening when the night market opens and closes at around dawn. So does it mean in the morning we cannot use the toilets?

Day 3 (26 May)

After the exposure to Hakka culture, it is time to learn more about the history of Taiwan. Hence, today we have been to many historical places.

Places we have been:

     1.Anping Fort & Old street

     2.Eternal Golden Castle

     3.Chihkan Tower

     4.Tainan Confucius temple

Before that… we took a short tour around Ten Drum Cultural Village before leaving and learnt how to play the basics of a Chinese drum! We even watched a performance too.

Following that, we continued our journey. Anping fort and Chihkan tower were actually established by the Dutch when Taiwan was colonized by them at that time. These were not their original names. Fort Provintia and Fort Zeelandia, Chihkan tower and Anping fort respectively, were the original names.

Anping fort

Chihkan Tower 赤坎楼 Eternal Golden Castle entrance 亿载金城 After visiting so many of these historical places, I have observed that many of these buildings were built by red bricks. Is this a coincidence? Yesterday, we went to the former british consulate. Today, we went to Anping fort, Chihkan tower and Eternal Golden castle. All of these places were built using red bricks! So when I recalled these places, it seems confusing to me as we visited on the same day and everything was ‘red’. Perhaps bricks are strong so they chose to use them. Touring so many places, I learnt that Taiwan was actually invaded by quite a few countries. They are Japan and Holland. These historical places were well maintained till today as memories of the past. Tainan Confucius Temple Interestingly, there is something in this temple. They had a board at the entrance which allows people to write down their wishes on a piece of yellow paper and hanged them up. Everyone wrote down their academic wishes and hanged them up on the board. Hope it comes true! As there was no guide, we were given some time to tour around the temple freely. There are some displays in the temple. At that time, outside the temple, we saw a group of graduates taking graduation photos. My first time seeing people taking graduation photos outside a temple!

Day 4 (27 May)

Our first day to Sacred Hearts High School! Finally, we could meet our buddy.

Places we went today:

1.Sacred Hearts High School 
2.饼艺文化馆

     3.Hwa Shan Public School

We were warmly welcomed by Sacred Hearts High School students and teachers when we first entered the school.The students have prepared a performance for us!After the performances, we met our buddies. Not long after, our buddies had to go back for lessons and we went to attend different subject lessons. For me, I attended the geography lesson. When I first went in, I realised the classroom is air-conditioned. Cool! We should have air-conditioner in our classroom too. The seniors were learning about New Zealand and we watched a movie. It was rather a different experience as their teaching method was film appreciation. It seems like the lesson was quite relaxing as the teacher could afford to watch the whole movie for the whole lesson, whereas back here, we do not have so much time to be able to watch one whole movie throughout the whole lesson. Though I do not really get how watching the movie is related to the subject, but it was still enjoyable!

In the afternoon, we went to 饼艺文化馆 to learn how to make pineapple tarts. It was a fun hands-on experience, a time to relax after spending the whole morning in school. We were given the filling and the dough and the person-in-charge taught us how to knead the dough to put the filling into it. It was not as easy as I thought. Making the dough smooth with no cracks requires patience and we need to be gentle and careful. After making our special-shaped pineapple tart, they baked them for us and were nicely packed for us to bring back! After the activity, we headed to the pineapple plantations. Unfortunately, we came at the wrong time as the flower bearing season was over. Nonetheless, we still saw the pineapple plantations which we don’t get to see in Singapore.

Our handmade pineapple tarts! Ready to be sent to the oven.

Next, we went to Hwa Shan Public School. We were amazed by these young talents. Although they were young, they still prepared a performance for us. Holding onto their mini violins, they played along the music to welcome us. How nice of them!

Children of Hwa Shan Public School playing violins as a form of welcoming us

After that, we were brought to a mini art gallery where they displayed the beautiful paintings and the students there explained each painting to us. They had memorised everything that they had to say and managed to speak fluently infront of us. This is something worth commendable! 

Day 5 (28 May)

Second day to Sacred Hearts High School! We went to Shing Long Towel Factory and Yunlin Puppet Theatre Museum before going to school.

First up, we headed to Shing Long Towel Factory DIY café to learn how to fold an ordinary towel into an animal-shaped towel. It was very fun and memorable! A rectangular shaped towel transforming into different forms such as animals, cakes, flowers and many more.

Dumpling-shaped towels displayed in the shop

Next, we went to Yunlin Puppet Theatre Museum. We learnt about the different types of puppet and even watched a short performance. I felt that it is worthwhile coming here as puppets is a vanishing part of the Chinese culture. In Singapore, we could hardly see any Chinese puppets. Hence, we should support them in spreading the ideas of these vanishing Chinese puppets to the future generations and preserve it.

In the afternoon, we headed back to the school. We attended balloon sculpting lessons and magic workshop. After that, we toured around to explore the different CCAs. One of the CCAs, band, performed at the field for us. I find that this CCA was tiring as they had to hold onto their heavy instruments and march in different directions. They also had to coordinate with one another to ensure the performance is nice.

 is nice.

Some of them had to hold onto big instruments and march in different directions under the hot sun (must be tiring…)

Overall, most of their CCAs seem quite relaxing compared to us and they could change their CCA every year. Their CCA takes place once a week, 1hr for each session! I wish our school will be the same too.

In Sacred Hearts High School, there are over 100 CCAs to choose from. Wow! Throughout your entire school life, you might not be able to try out all the CCAs.

Day 6 (29 May)

Family outing with buddy. At first, I feel awkward going out with my buddy’s family members. However, it was totally opposite from what I thought…

Our outing started at around 12pm so before that we attended lessons. Our first lesson was geography lesson again and the second was English lesson. For today’s geography lesson, the teacher didn’t really attend the usual proper lesson, whereas he introduced about Singapore and Taiwan, both the similarities and differences. Probably because there are visitors (which is us xD), so the teacher decides to chat with the students about Singapore and Taiwan. For English lesson, their teacher taught them Aesop’s fables and the morals of each fable. Their English teacher sometimes even taught in Chinese as the students requested for it. It was fun seeing the skit that the students put up, acting the scenes from one of the fables. 

From these lessons, we observe that Chinese was the language they used for majority subjects, even in English lessons sometimes.  I also realised that they were allowed to eat in class and had a 10 min break after each lesson. However, this makes their lesson time longer so they end school usually later than us. Compared to their school’s system, I preferred our school’s one as the school hours are relatively shorter, but it will be good if we can eat in class and take short breaks too! 

After that, we attended their home economics lesson. There were a total of 4 dishes to prepare: 葱油饼，布丁水果酥，珍珠奶茶，卤味. My group was in charge of 布丁水果酥and葱油饼.Here are some shots of the food we cooked!

Finally, it was time to go for our family outing! My buddy hosted 2 of us, Zijin and I. So there was a total of 4 people: My buddy, my buddy's mother,Zijin and I. As my buddy's mother had something on later in the evening, our family outing had to end at around 6pm, whereas others could stay till 8pm. It was a pity that we had lesser time spent but it was still very fun. We went to a few places such as Shinglong Towel factory where we could see the process of making towels. It was quite coincidence as the school brought us to a diy place to learn how to fold towels into different things. After that, we headed to Cat on the Rooftop (屋顶上的猫). It is basically a street with every wall painted different scenes featuring cats. Somehow when u take a snapshot with the scene on the wall, the backgrounds looks 3D! Amazing! I would definitely recommend those who liked to take photos to come here.

Our buddy's mother even brought us to the biggest 7-eleven store near there. It has chairs and tables and even toilets. Of course, it has many more facilities and sell more things than the one we see in Singapore. One word to describe this place: BIG. 

Our buddy was very generous and gave us lots of food and souvenirs. We also enjoyed ourselves a lot and hoped that the outing could be longer so that we could visit her house. Overall, we had lots of fun!

Day7(30May)

Last day in Taiwan. We headed to Taichung to the 921 Earthquake Museum Of Taiwan. We explored around and visited the Chelongpu Fault Gallery where there were exhibits about earthquakes. A chance to learn what causes an earthquake and some photos showing the difference of certain places before and after the earthquake.

While waiting to visit the gallery, I realised most of the people that were queuing were students from local schools. Coming to 921 Earthquake museum of taiwan seemed like a geography field trip for many of the students there. We should have similar geography field trips too!  

We even watched a short 3D show showcasing what happens during the earthquake, so that we could predict what happens when there is an earthquake. The 3D show was nice! Sitting at the first row would be extremely 'exciting' when the insects came out from the cracks of the walls, towards us, escaping. This concludes our trip as we visit the last place of interest in Taiwan. After that, we headed for lunch and went to Taoyuan airport. 

Flying back to Singapore~

This ends the whole memorable trip to Taiwan.

Wee Lin

RV Trip Advisor (Day 7)

921 Earthquake Educational Park 

Rating: 5.0 stars ★★★★★

At 01:47a.m. on September 21, 1999, a earthquake registered 7.3 on the Richter scale struck the north of Taiwan. Buildings collapsed, and fires broke out. Many people suffered and died in this disastrous earthquake. To commemorate this terrible disaster, the government preserved this school as an educational park, allowing visitors to learn more about this event. 

Inside the educational park, there were numerous earthquake displays such as the structure of the earth and images of how various parts of Taiwan looked when the earthquake occured. 

A display of the Earth's structure

Besides having photographs or miniature displays, what made us amazed was the real-life scene of the damage the earthquake brought. A section of a ground was cracked and bent upwards. Parts of the building had collapsed, leaving behind the what remained of the building. 

 A damaged building after the earthquake

A section of a damaged building after the eathquake

Other than that, there were also interactive booths such as a seat that shakes to have a feeling of how  earthquake is like and a plate that moves triggered upon when a string is pulled.

  

An interactive booth with a shaking seat

Last but not least, there was also a video screening room where one could watch a short video of a recap of the earthquake that happened on 21st September 1999 in 3D, which makes the happenings in the video more real.

With all the fasinating and interesting sights and things at the museum, we were able to:

1. understand more about earthquakes, such as how an earthquake occur, and the different types of plate movements;

2. view the physical impacts of the earthquake on Taiwan, such as the destruction of some buildings, and the slant of rows of crops in farms. This made us realise how horrifying the earthquake was.

3. learn the impact of the earthquake on the people, which made us learn to treasure our family members and friends. 

RV Trip Advisor (Day 6)

Hi! Today, we attended lessons at Sacred Hearts High School, and also went on a family outing with our buddies and their family members. Thus, we will not be commenting on any places today. However, please stay updated on our blog as we will continue to post the trip advisor for Day 7, 30-05-14. :)

RV Trip Advisor (Day 5)

Yunlin Towel Factory 云林蛋糕毛巾咖啡馆 

Rating: 4.0 stars ★★★★☆

The moment we alighted from the bus, we were greeted by a lady in something like school uniform.Following that, she explained to us how we can choose a good towel. Afterwards, we proceeded into the factory and we saw a lady folding a towel in the shape of a dumpling. Have you wondered how they could fold a towel into a triangular shape? According to the lady that was leading us, she can actually produce 300 folded towels per day! When a festival comes, they would fold towels related to the festivals so there are limited-time products. 

There are also DIY classes that teach us how to make our towels into different objects such as dogs! The instructors patiently explained to us how to fold the towel one step followed by another and helped us whenever we needed their help. Our dogs are all very cute and we were surprise at the fact that we actually folded the dogs nicely!

This the place you should come if u want to know the secret of folding a ordinary towel into beautiful masterpieces! 

Our classmates with their "dogs"! ^.^

Yunlin Puppet theatre 云林布袋戏馆 

Rating: 3.0 stars ★★★☆☆

We now arrived at Yunlin Puppet theatre which is located opposite a then fire station.One of the things that people often ignored is that the building was once a government house in the county during the Japanese colonization. 

 Entrance of the puppet theatre

The building consists of both western and eastern elements.As referred to the tour guide, the Japanese architects built this building after studying in Europe during the Meiji revolution. Many of these similar buildings were constructed during that time in Taiwan,as an experiment,to test out whether the building structure was suitable to build in Japan.

This building was originally consists a prison, but later changed into a puppet theatre.

A preserved jail cell in the puppet theatre

Inside the puppet theatre, there are a lot of puppets in different styles and were created by different famous puppet producers and actors.

Picture of puppets

We then went for a show on the top floor. It was done by only one puppeteer and his musician.The language used in puppet show is suppose to be in Hokkien,this is quite difficult for us to understand as most of us do not use Hokkien to communicate with each other.  

Puppeteer explaining the different types of puppets 

RV Trip Advisor (Day 4)

Pineapple tart factory 饼艺文化馆 

Rating: 4.0 stars ★★★★☆

Yum yum, do you like pineapple tarts? If you crave for pineapple tarts, you should come here! There are hands-on lessons for you to try out making the pineapple tarts.The guide was very friendly and patient when teaching us how to make the world-famous pineapple tart. When some of us were unsure of the steps, she came forward and patiently explained to us the step again, so as to ensure that we are doing it right. After shaping these tasty pineapple tarts, don't your hands feel oily? No worries, they have built a sink with multiple taps on both sides so that it would be convenient for us to wash our hands after the activity. We would not need to go to the toilets to wash put hands which is inconvenient. This is something commendable!

 Pineapple tart filling and dough 

On the way to the plantations, There are also a few boards displaying the culture of the pineapple tarts. They were clear and allows us to have a better understanding of the pineapple tarts in Taiwan and the ingredients used.

Pineapple plantation

Unfortunately, we are not able to witness the process of making the dough and the pineapple tart filling,which will arouse our interest and allow us to have a deeper understanding of the pineapple tart culture of Taiwan.We only tried putting the filling in the dough and shaping it into a pineapple tart. Though the activity was fun, it would be better if we could explore more things about pineapple tarts!

Day 4 ends in a blink of an eye. There's only 1 place because we went to the sacred hearts high school in the morning and after that we went to another school,'华山国小'. 

RV Trip Advisor (Day 3)

We are now in Tainan! :)

Anping Fort 安平古堡 Rating: 3 stars ★★★☆☆

The Anping Fort is first built by the Dutch in 1624, which acts as the administrative centre of the Dutch regime and the hub for trading. The name ‘Anping’ was derived from the commemoration of Cheng Cheng-Kung, the man who successfully drove the Dutch out of Taiwan.

Entrance of Anping fort 

Souvenirs sold in the shop

There was also a souvenir shop where you can buy some memorable keychains /postcards back to Singapore! It is not just a souvenir shop but it also displays historical items such as the picture shown below.

Display of weapons

Anping fort is well-equipped with many artifacts and different types of weapons used by the Dutch in the past, such as cannons and the different types of blades.

However, what we felt could be improved was the presence of a guide. As without one, it would be difficult for us to comprehend the information ourselves. The facilities there could be improved by adding more shelters as the place could be considerably hot especially during summer.

Anping Old Street 安平老街 Rating: 3 stars ★★★☆☆

The Anping Old Street has many restaurants offering delectable local dishes such as the oyster omelette and coffee toast. There were also many shops selling souvenirs and titbits that represented Taiwan. Sold at considerably reasonable prices, these goods were attractive to visitors. However, there was a rather limited number of shops present,which does not offer a variety of items. This could be improved to a better attraction by adding in a number of shops.

Our lunch

We had our lunch at a mini restaurant serving Taiwan's famous street snacks! These dishes were very unique and could only be found locally.

弹珠汽水 

The 弹珠汽水 is just an ordinary soft drink but there is something interesting about it. A marble inside a drink! As we tried to get the marble out, we realised that we have difficulties opening the bottle cap. It was after a moment of figuring that we realised that there was a special way of opening the bottle cap! You would be surprised by how we are supposed to open the bottle cap! (Thinking back, it was actually rather easy to open the bottle cap, and it would seem foolish if you don't know how to open, haha!)
Walking along the streets, realising there are no dustbins! It is so hard to find even one dustbin to throw your rubbish. Surprisingly, the street is substantially clean, with few or no litter, making it a good environment for visitors. 

Eternal Golden Castle 亿载金城 Rating: 3.0 stars ★★★☆☆

The Eternal Golden Castle is a defensive castle in Tainan. It was built in 1874 by a famous Qing official Shen BaoZhen.

Entrance of Eternal Golden Castle

There were interesting exhibits present in the Eternal golden castle, such as the different displays of cannons. These exhibits were great symbols and representations of the history of Taiwan, and we also enjoyed viewing the interesting exhibits.

Cannons 

 Of course we are not here just to see these cannons, we are also here to learn the history of Eternal Golden Castle!

Signboard explaining the arched gate (1st picture) and the entrance bridge

Although it displays different types of cannons, we felt that there is nothing much we could learn about this place. The exhibits were lesser than we thought. Nonetheless, we at least visited this historical place and knew more about Taiwan's history.

A big field that we saw once we entered Eternal Golden Castle 

Tainan Confucius temple 台南孔庙 Rating: 3.0 stars ★★★☆☆

The Tainan Confucius Temple was built in the year 1666, the first temple constructed in Taiwan. It has since become one of the most tourist attractions in 1983.

Some of our classmates holding their wishes

This temple allows visitors to jolt down their wishes on a piece of yellow paper with their names and country, with hopes that they might come through. Many of us wrote things like,'GPA 4.0',(haha) hoping that we would score well for our EOY. This is what we enjoyed the most as not all temples are equipped with this particular feature. 

Picture of the temple 

孔子

A display of a traditional handle stove

The temple also exhibits a great deal of artifacts such as the cultural articles and musical instruments, and most of us have developed a deep interest in its history through viewing these pieces.

This is a good choice for historical places but as this temple was renovated before, some of the traditional elements were lost. 

Chihkan Tower 赤坎楼 Rating: 2.0 stars  ★★☆☆☆

Established in 1653 by the Dutch, it is classified as one of Taiwan's Tier-One heritages since 1982. So how did it get its name? It wasn't called Chihkan tower in the first place. Chihkan Tower actually means " Red-topped tower", which derives from the Taiwan aboriginal word "Chakam".

Map of Chihkan Tower

Chihkan Tower

Turtle monument (9 steles)

Display of ships

It does not display much historical stuff except for a few displays and the ships shown above. Hence, we felt that it is rather boring as there were not much stuff as we expected. It will be worth a visit if you are very interested in history. However to most of us, it was not as interesting as we expected and the hot weather makes it even worse... But then if you were to climb up the stairs to the top, it will be nice to enjoy the scenery, having fresh air and slight breeze. Looking down from the top of the Chihkan Tower, it is a pleasant sight as it was well-maintained by the staff.

This wraps up Day 3! In day 4, we went to Sacred Hearts High School and in the afternoon we visited a few places. We shall reveal them in the next post,  do check out Day 4 RV Trip Advisor.