Taipei Treasures (Part 1)
Hi, it seems that I'm mostly only going to use my LJ for holiday documenting. This post is going to be on my ALSA Taiwan trip plus the R&R extension. The memory of my BKK trip is too far for me to blog about (sorry youpinkypromise!), but the memory of Taiwan 2012 is still fresh in my memory and I really should type it out before the magic is lost.
I signed up for the Taiwan ALSA trip as a Singapore delegate a few months ago, and I was already teeming to go from the get-start. Actually had Singapore Study Trip ending 4 days before, so it was something like a back-to-back ST thing for me, which was really good, since I was still enjoying the post-ST high from the first ST and it also helped that many of the delegates who came for the first ST were acquainted with those coming on the Taiwan ST. Was a bit sad that the other nonsense SG ST people didn't come along on the trip though and therefore the LPSP was a little lacking on the trip.
Nonetheless, we started planning for the TW ST very early. Well, we actually settled accomodation and R&R plans first, then pushed actual ST planning all the way to the back, but that still worked out fine for us, except we had to meet up to practice our welcome dinner dance (dat mambo) one night before we flew off.
Met Bernice at the airport earlier because the rest were either flying on different days or different timings. Stressed a bit over the gifts to give during Farewell but decided to worry about that later. As it was an early flight and we were all ridic tired after meeting up for rehearsals the night before, we just went straight to sleep on the plane and the journey was pretty quick.
Landed at Taoyuan Airport and we were picked up by Lin Yong Zheng with an exceptionally well-made sign (they made one for every country). Made me feel very guilty for using my iPhone as a portable LED pickup sign for the recent SG ST, heh. We also got him to take an obligatory tourist airport shot for us.
#likeatourist
Later on, we met up with the Japanese delegate batches and I found out that Aya and Takashi from SG ST 2011 were also participating in this ST! Despite hearing about it on twitter from Aya a few months ago and seeing their airport shot just that morning, it had completely slipped my mind, so I was surprised to see them! However, this surprise was quickly overridden by the familiarity and joy of reunion.
Weather was insanely hot (almost like Singapore's). Chartered bus ride took us to Cosmos Hotel, which would be our home for the next 5 days or so. It was located at Taipei Main Station, which was like the City Hall station of Taipei (comparatively, Ximen Station is like the Orchard station). Bernice amusedly noted that our hotel was opposite a HSBC branch. Guess you can't escape work all the time.
Checked in etc and did all the admin stuff with the OC. Found out that I was rooming w. one of the two Indonesian delegates, Gentur. He's a pretty cool guy, we talked a bit about our lives and I found out that he was on his freshman year :o On a side note, everyone else on the trip was like 18-22ish, only Palmmie, one of the Thai delegates, and I were 23. Felt soooooo old on this trip (it did not help that in one of the orientation games, they had to arrange everyone according to age). But after that it felt that there was no age gap anyway, so it was okay.
The theme of the welcome dinner was Retro Night (yes.) and so the Singaporean delegates went in full 80's garb!
Doin' that thing we do.
The food was quite a spread, all hotel-catered food. Which pretty much explains why the fee for ALSA TW was (comparatively) more. Totally worth the money, since the hotel itself offered good accommodation and we got to do really cool stuff on our cultural tours.
Every country's video was presented and all the delegates put up a good performance!
We uh... we did some Mambo performance, given the retro theme..
Haha so ridiculously embarrassing on hindsight. Why did I even wear what I wore?!?!
We had some random orientation-like games after that when we gathered in our Table groups. I was in Table C with Grace Tay, Clarissa was in table A, Bernice and Amelia were in Table D and Dee was in Table E.
Anyway, all the Singaporeans were really tired on the first day, so we kind of left early after the icebreakers (we missed our table briefing in the process hurrhurr). Went to the convenience store to grab some necessities we forgot to bring along on our trip - because that always happens - and I had an early night after lolling to Gentur over how derp our performances. But at least we got those out of the way.
Didn't do any prep for acad discussion stuff for the next day (which I was to regret later on since I went up absolutely unprepared). Heard one of the guys stayed up overnight to do a PPT presentation or something, but aww, c'mon.
And that's the end of the first day. Probably not going to do one post per day or I'll never get around to finishing this whole trip, but I'm going to be lazy and just do one post today :P
I signed up for the Taiwan ALSA trip as a Singapore delegate a few months ago, and I was already teeming to go from the get-start. Actually had Singapore Study Trip ending 4 days before, so it was something like a back-to-back ST thing for me, which was really good, since I was still enjoying the post-ST high from the first ST and it also helped that many of the delegates who came for the first ST were acquainted with those coming on the Taiwan ST. Was a bit sad that the other nonsense SG ST people didn't come along on the trip though and therefore the LPSP was a little lacking on the trip.
Nonetheless, we started planning for the TW ST very early. Well, we actually settled accomodation and R&R plans first, then pushed actual ST planning all the way to the back, but that still worked out fine for us, except we had to meet up to practice our welcome dinner dance (dat mambo) one night before we flew off.
Met Bernice at the airport earlier because the rest were either flying on different days or different timings. Stressed a bit over the gifts to give during Farewell but decided to worry about that later. As it was an early flight and we were all ridic tired after meeting up for rehearsals the night before, we just went straight to sleep on the plane and the journey was pretty quick.
Landed at Taoyuan Airport and we were picked up by Lin Yong Zheng with an exceptionally well-made sign (they made one for every country). Made me feel very guilty for using my iPhone as a portable LED pickup sign for the recent SG ST, heh. We also got him to take an obligatory tourist airport shot for us.
#likeatourist
Later on, we met up with the Japanese delegate batches and I found out that Aya and Takashi from SG ST 2011 were also participating in this ST! Despite hearing about it on twitter from Aya a few months ago and seeing their airport shot just that morning, it had completely slipped my mind, so I was surprised to see them! However, this surprise was quickly overridden by the familiarity and joy of reunion.
Weather was insanely hot (almost like Singapore's). Chartered bus ride took us to Cosmos Hotel, which would be our home for the next 5 days or so. It was located at Taipei Main Station, which was like the City Hall station of Taipei (comparatively, Ximen Station is like the Orchard station). Bernice amusedly noted that our hotel was opposite a HSBC branch. Guess you can't escape work all the time.
Checked in etc and did all the admin stuff with the OC. Found out that I was rooming w. one of the two Indonesian delegates, Gentur. He's a pretty cool guy, we talked a bit about our lives and I found out that he was on his freshman year :o On a side note, everyone else on the trip was like 18-22ish, only Palmmie, one of the Thai delegates, and I were 23. Felt soooooo old on this trip (it did not help that in one of the orientation games, they had to arrange everyone according to age). But after that it felt that there was no age gap anyway, so it was okay.
The theme of the welcome dinner was Retro Night (yes.) and so the Singaporean delegates went in full 80's garb!
Doin' that thing we do.
The food was quite a spread, all hotel-catered food. Which pretty much explains why the fee for ALSA TW was (comparatively) more. Totally worth the money, since the hotel itself offered good accommodation and we got to do really cool stuff on our cultural tours.
Every country's video was presented and all the delegates put up a good performance!
We uh... we did some Mambo performance, given the retro theme..
Click to viewHaha so ridiculously embarrassing on hindsight. Why did I even wear what I wore?!?!
We had some random orientation-like games after that when we gathered in our Table groups. I was in Table C with Grace Tay, Clarissa was in table A, Bernice and Amelia were in Table D and Dee was in Table E.
Anyway, all the Singaporeans were really tired on the first day, so we kind of left early after the icebreakers (we missed our table briefing in the process hurrhurr). Went to the convenience store to grab some necessities we forgot to bring along on our trip - because that always happens - and I had an early night after lolling to Gentur over how derp our performances. But at least we got those out of the way.
Didn't do any prep for acad discussion stuff for the next day (which I was to regret later on since I went up absolutely unprepared). Heard one of the guys stayed up overnight to do a PPT presentation or something, but aww, c'mon.
And that's the end of the first day. Probably not going to do one post per day or I'll never get around to finishing this whole trip, but I'm going to be lazy and just do one post today :P