Dear blog,

YAY! I am back safe and sound, in one piece from a 4D trip to Taiwan! Man, have I got loads to tell! Gear up, this one is going to be really, really long! This is going to be some serious comprehensive coverage of those 4 fantastic days (and nights) of me (and everyone else involved) in Taiwan. Here goes, right from the top.

“Prolouge”
23/9/09

As I needed to be at the airport at 8.30AM the following day, I needed to wake up really early. Given where I live, even if I woke up early, there wouldn’t be a bus that would arrive early enough which would allow me to reach the airport by 8.00am. The only way was for my dad to drop me off at the airport or so. But, my dad has to drop my sister and brother to their school first, if he was going to drive me to the airport. If he did that, we wouldn’t be able to reach the airport on time either.

There were other options; I wanted to go and sleepover at Jing Wen’s place that night. I remember how early the first 242 bus was back there in Jurong: 5.30AM. It would be perfect. But, my parents didn’t allow me to go over to JW’s place.

Tiffany had SMSed me earlier that day, but I couldn’t reply to her message. My prepaid’s balance had expired (prepaid is never there when you need it most, seriously.). I called her back at night, when literally my entire family was making a fuss out how I was going to reach the airport at 8:00am.

After quite alot fuss, the final decision was to meet Tiffany at 6.50am at Jurong East MRT station. That way, my dad could drop me off in time to reach the airport on time, and drop my brother off to his school on time too. However, my worry was still present. I really wondered if or not my entire family could wake up at 5.00am.

Day 1
24/9/09

I woke up early enough. I was the first to wake up. I guess I was just exited. The rest of my family woke up half an hour later, at 5.30am. We left promptly after that.

On the drive to Jurong East station, my dad stopped by a nearby 7-eleven, so that I could top my phone up. I called Tiffany up soon after. Nearing Jurong East, she was at Bukit Panjang.

I didn’t have to wait a long time at the station though. I stood by the escalator for a while, and went up shortly after. As soon as I went up, Tiffany was there, and the train arrived. We got on, and talked the entire journey to Tanah Merah interchange away. She had a bigger luggage than me, but that’s probably because she’s a girl.

On the way there, Tiffany asked me if I brought along the costume that we were supposed to wear for the Hindi dance we were putting up for the exchange student. Crap, I knew I was forgetting something when I packing my luggage. Crap, I forgot to along the present I was supposed to give the exchange students too. Actually, I think I forgot completely about the exchange students altogether.

We reached Tanah Merah interchange sooner than I thought. We were rushing for time, really. 8.00am was approaching quick, and we hadn’t had our breakfast yet.

At the Airport, we brisk-walked all the way. Took the skytrain to Terminal 1, and walked to our row, where we joined Willi, Vincent, and many others in preparation for checking in our luggage. Looks like we would have to skip breakfast for now.

We took our first picture right there, at the luggage check-in. It was accompanied by a banner, which read something like “ITE College West Clementi Entrepreneur club Taiwan trip 2009”.

We had some time before reporting to the gate for our flight, and so we had our breakfast. We ate at subway, where I finally tried the Teriyaki Chicken. I’d still take Tuna over it, but Subway is still awesome in every way.

Willi and Vincent played pool in the meantime, which got pretty funny at times.

Some people got…stuff at the Duty-free shopping (DFS) at the airport. I think Kellie really likes those GUCCI handbags. Nothing of interest to me, but I was blown away when I saw a 20-pack cigarette box (or something) at SGD$18!

At the gate, while we were waiting for the gates to the plane to be opened, we (literally everyone) talked about what to do about me. I needed to borrow a costume for the dance.

Ms Cynthia was sitting beside me at the waiting area, and this was where I would get to know that Ms. Cynthia was sitting beside me on the place, too.

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We were getting ready to board, so I took my handphone out to switch it off...which was when I got an SMS from Ancherle whishing me well. I thought that was really sweet of her.

I was pretty nervous about the flight because it was my first time on one, but it was pretty normal. Zephyre told me on the day before that the taking off and landing was the best part about a flight. I totally agree. I loved the way the airplane picked up speed while taxi-ing on the runway to takeoff. It was epic.

The flight wasn’t bad at all, and the food was alright too. I don’t get what’s up with people saying that airline food sucked. I thought it was alright. Ms. Cynthia told me that a bigger plane would be better, because you would feel less turbulence.

The chat Ms. Cynthia and I had eventually died off, and we moved on to watching the shows available to us on board. We both ended up watching The Proposal, which was a pretty unique movie. It was really funny at some points too. I liked it, but like Ms. Cynthia said, that writing for that movie isn’t anything exceptional.

After that movie, I continued watching other stuff. Watched a little bit of 30 Rock, Spongebob Squarepants (lololol), and listened to a couple of music albums, which included Eminem’s Relapse album, and the E.N.D by the Black Eyed Peas, and Kelly Clarkson’s “All I Ever..”

Good stuff, I wasn’t expecting all these, given that were were flying on Economy Class on a Chinese Airline, China Airlines.

As we were about to land, the plane began decreasing altitude, and Taiwan came into view. We could see mountains! What really flattered me, however, was the sea. The sea was gorgeous. We were blessed with clear skies that day, and the sea had a gorgeous reflection of the sun on it. If only I had a camera.

As the plane landed, Ms. Cynthia commented that it was a smooth landing. I wouldn’t know, because I have never flown before. But I would agree, it was a pretty damn smooth flight.

Right from the start, it was pretty evident that Taiwan was a pretty well-developed city. Right from checking out of the airport, we got unto our tour bus, which was surprisingly spacious and really comfy.

Our tour guide was a young man, who claimed he was 18 years of age. He couldn’t speak English too fluently though, but at least, he tried. Majority of the people in Taiwan only know Chinese. Ms. Cynthia told me that Chinese is all they need to know, because Taiwan’s economy was better than Singapore’s, and the better economies in Asia all belonged to the Chinese countries. Along with this, I learnt that India had the most number of languages ever in a single country.

…to be continued. =P