Daily reflections

-Day 6- 29/5/14 

I attended the Chinese and Home Econs lesson. The Chinese standard there is obviously higher than ours and something different between the Home Econs lesson between Taiwan and Singapore is that we will make our our food while the Taiwanese there split into different groups and after doing all the cooking they were assigned, they will share food in the end. Thus, there will be more food that is made as compares to our school but something bad about this is that they will only learn how to cook what they were assigned.

Next, our buddies brought us out and my buddy brought me to her uncle's farm. It is mainly a chicken farm but he also breed turtles so that he could earn more money. I am glad that I was brought to a place like this as I was able to understand more about the Taiwanese way of life. Also, farms are rare in Singapore and it would be quite difficult to visit one as you would not know how to get there. The Taiwanese are really hospitable and I feel that parents and children can communicate very well with each other. They have strong relationships and I feel that this is something we should learn from the Taiwanese. 

🐓🐓🐓🐓

-Jiaen

Daily reflections

-Day 5- 28/5/14

From the 蛋糕毛巾咖啡馆 where we made our DIY towels, I leant to choose a good towel according to their colour, smell, ability to absorb water, and the presence of tag. Also, we had a fun hands-on experience on shaping our towels. Before the trip, I did not know that one could actually shape towels into cute shapes to make it more attractive.

-examples of the towels-

 That day, we got a good glimpse of how,CCA was like in Taiwan. I feel that CCAs in our school are more hectic as we attend CCAs at least three hours, two days a week while the Taiwanese just had one hour of CCA in a week. However, they had more unique and choices of CCAs as compared to ours. They had CCAs like flag spinning and their band instruments are much more complicated than ours.

-Jiaen

Daily reflections

-Day 4- 27/5/14

Finally, we were able to visit Sacred Hearts High School and was warmly welcomed by the students. I noticed that the school is split into half, one part for boys and the other for girls and the school garden has free roaming animals that amazed me. I feel that Taiwanese have less stress when it comes to academics as their lesson was more of presentation skill learning as compared to topics-based lesson. Unlike our school, we focus more on exams based questions and have little skill-based lessons.However, it is no doubt that the Taiwanese are indeed very hospitable.

In Hua Shan Guo Xiao, we were warmly welcomed by the little kids there. I was impressed by the children's performance as they were able to play the violin well even though they were still young. In conclusion, I enjoyed the day as I was able to meet my buddy.

-Jiaen

Daily reflections

-Day 4- 27/5/14

Finally, we were able to visit Sacred Hearts High School and was warmly welcomed by the students. I noticed that the school is split into half, one part for boys and the other for girls and the school garden has free roaming animals that amazed me. I feel that Taiwanese have less stress when it comes to academics as their lesson was more of presentation skill learning as compared to topics-based lesson. Unlike our school, we focus more on exams based questions and have little skill-based lessons.However, it is no doubt that the Taiwanese are indeed very hospitable.

In Hua Shan Guo Xiao, we were warmly welcomed by the little kids there. I was impressed by the children's performance as they were able to play the violin well even though they were still young. In conclusion, I enjoyed the day as I was able to meet my buddy.

-Jiaen

Daily reflection

-Day 3- 26/5/14

At the ten drums hotel, we had a very enjoyable time as we attended a drum lesson. The guide made everything easier to learn by replacing the actions we were supposed to do with easy words like “跑步” whereby we are supposed to hit at a faster beat. From the smiles that was on our faces, it is clear that we had a great time. This makes me more appreciative of the cultures there and Singapore should learn to preserve its culture just like Taiwan.

:D

Among the places that we all went,I like the Anping Old Street most. The lunch we had there are delicacies in Tainan like the oyster omelette and the coffin toast. We had a very special drink that is called 弹珠汽水. As the name suggest,there is a marble in the drink and I find it taste like normal sweet drinks. 

Yumm~ <3

Group photo:)

-Jiaen

Daily reflections

-Day 2 - 25/5/14

We went to several museums and understood more about Hakka cultural and Taiwan's history. The first stop was Meinong Hakka Cultural Museum. We were introduced to the Hakka culture there in Taiwan and the significant craftsmanships are Oil Paper Umbrellas which are significant to the Hakkas. It symbolises fulfillment, harmony and having money descendants.

Next, we went to the Meinong Folk Village. We get hands on experience there, tasting the traditional pounded tea(擂茶) and seeing traditional toys. As we went to other museums we were able to understand more about the Taiwanese culture. 

Weird powdery taste 

The highlight of the trip is the Liuhe Night Market. I can see from the unique delicacies that there is strong Japanese influence in the country. Japanese food like Dorayaki could be found there and the large variety of food is caused by the different cultures in Taiwan. Lastly, I learnt a very interesting fact that farmer earn two times at much as office workers.

Dorayaki : Japanese influence

Night market!!

Seafood is very popular there

-Jiaen

Daily reflections

-Day 1- 24/5/14

Finally reached Taiwan! We were really excited for the trip and were warmly welcomed by the  teachers of Scared Hearts High School when we reached the airport at Kaohsiung even though it was already midnight.

The wood furnished hotel is amazing. The bed was cozy and the room was quite big. Also, we had a chance to taste the most famous bread in Taiwan. It is very hard and it is quite tasteless. Most of us did not finish the bread as we were shocked by the taste and it is something that we could definitely not find in Singapore.

The weird tasting bread:)

Our hotels~

-Jiaen