| 5.8.05 |
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just two sudden realizations for today... 1. never being on a guided tour... was just thinking although i've been overseas (read: over-the-sg-seas) a few times... i've never exactly been on a guided tour with tour guides and all... closest to a tour was probably with my primary school when we went perth... but there were no little flags and quirky tour guides... just lotsa little girls having fun... truthfully... i'm pretty happy that i've never really been on those commercial tours... somehow... nuthing beats being able to see a foreign country through the eyes of a local... not that tour guides arent... but in the i-am-not-making-money-by-bringing-you-here sense... other than my trips to malaysia with my family... i've only had one week in Perth... six weeks in Thailand... 3 for training and 3 for YEP... and one week in Taiwan so far... yes... i'm not well travelled... the first 3 weeks of Thailand was two decembers ago... where the local windsurfers would bring us around for meals... drive us around in their pick-ups... give us directions in their limited english... and we, just happily bumming around... the last december was at YEP... where we had no nothing in Chiang Mai and Bangkok to help us around... just our mediocre Thai and limited cash... BanTham wasnt too bad coz we had some translators and some kids spoke a little english... Taiwan was introduced to me by him of course... with help from his relatives... though he was no longer Taiwanese... it was great to have him go, "wanna bring you *here*, i've been *there*, my favourite *this*"... 2. Taiwanese variety shows are REALLY good... wahaha... although i've had cable TV for the longest time... i never really sat down and channel surfed at all... dont even have time to devour my favourite travel shows and cooking channels... love to see pretty places... and eating, no need to explain... but hanging around at his place so often... i've been watching alot of Taiwanese variety shows... other than the usual Guess!, SuperSunday, zhongyidageda, yulebaifenbai, etc that we get here... i've been addicted so badly to kang xi lai le... our marathon yesterdae consisted of quan ming da men guo, tao se dan bai zhi, etc... all freaking funny... and entirely educational... weird for me to say that... especially since education and entertainment seems so much of opposites... but its true... marvelled at the amazing intricities of the art of roadside bargaining... gaped at the scarily crazed nature of the HKG paparazzi... puked at a short lesson on how to act cute for your boyfriend... think along the lines of pouting, putting arms outstretched, waving and go, "wo bu yao"... *faints* sadly... my mandarin doesnt seem to be improving... despite the week in Taiwan and the countless variety shows... ----Stef stopped rambling at 19:13 --Link to Post |
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