Monday, June 30, 2008
The day after the story on a man selling his organ for money broke out, the Ministry of Health sent me a letter regarding organ donation.Talk about the timing!In the letter, it said that I will be 21 soon, and will be under the Human Organ Transplant Act, which includes all Singaporeans from 21 to 60 with sound minds, unless I choose to opt out.I've never given much thought to this issue before, considering the grim prospects of my well-being should this Act be fufilled.But then again, there's not much to think about anyway. When you gotta go, you gotta go. At least one still gets to contribute to society for the last time. I'd like to think of it as a last hurray. A chance to give back whatever you've took during your time on earth. A last gasp attempt to be good.Just so that "if I die before I wake, at least in Heaven I can skate."
12:16 AM
Friday, June 27, 2008
What's far worse than having a stomachache?Having to drive yourself home while having that stomachache.It was bad enough that the stomach was being twisted in knots, like rusty gears rubbing off one another, and the arse was screaming like a loose cannon.But, to will oneself to concentrate on the road, hands gripped like claws on the steering wheel and eyes checking all mirrors as protocol, while suffering in absolute agony was a horrible, horrible experience.There I was, in the red Toyota Rush, driving home after dinner when the stomachache hit. Boy oh boy, talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time!Somehow, I managed to to drive myself home without causing any accidents. Which was no mean feat, considering the fact that my whole body stiffens everytime it got really painful. Parking the car was a killer. And walking home after parking was, by far, the most awkward experience. It was a "ticking time bomb" moment.But all the while, I had no choice but to endure the pain, which felt like someone holding up your stomach like laundry and wringing it as much as she can.I found it rather amazing that I survived all the way to the toilet bowl. Thus, in conclusion,I have reached new heights for my pain threshold.
10:35 PM
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
I do not think my life these days should be defined by the number of times I go out. But the fact is, once you stay 12 hours in the same spot doing the same damn things, you tend to find that tiny lil' breath of fresh air super luxurious when you're far far away from the computer. That's when you know the saying is true. It's really the little things in life that count.
12:07 AM
Saturday, June 21, 2008
My fears came true.STARS cut me out during registration time. I sent a bloody long email to Jacqueline Sim, but she replied she was on childcare leave.So I sent another bloody long email to the person she directed us to. The person was also on leave.Then I finally sent one more bloody long email to this other person. And they finally allowed me to register at 1.30pm to 4.30pm. I saw the reply at 4.10pm.Bloody hell. I was left clicking helplessly at a 0 vacancy slot. Joyce and Estelle were also stuck like me.Why were our personalised timing different from the rest? And why were there a personalised timing which we never knew about in the first place?We should never assume. Ceteris Paribus do not exist in real life. Now what?I hope STARS get sucked into some black hole.
1:38 PM
Friday, June 20, 2008
NTU loves to scare people.At first, I thought the course registration was at 1.30pm on Friday afternoon.Then, I decided that it wasn't safe to assume, so I sms-ed Felicia. She told me it was at 9.30am. Whew.At night, I went to studentlink to check again. There, on the screen, it stated "Course Registration for Deanna Tan is on 19 June 1.30pm to 4.30pm".19th June happens to be today, and it's 12 midnight. AHHHHHHH!!!A very very large panic attack later, I called Felicia again, who told me it was confirm-plus-guarantee-plus-chop registration is on Friday 9.30am.In the end, I found out that NTU has us registered as Year 4s, when we were technically Year 3s only, and 19th June was Year 4 registration day, hence the boo boo.Cross my fingers, but if I don't get to register for anything tomorrow, someone's email will be bombarded.BOMBARDED!
12:41 AM
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
I do not excel at Excel.You know that program, Microsoft Excel? The very one where all you arrange every single, minute, useless detail into cells. The one where every white-collar worker use to record all the data that comes in everyday, and save them into files and file that seem to go on forever, just to save their ass when the time comes.Recently, I have been spending every single day staring into this little program.Cells, numbers, digits, letters that form a certain equation. It won't make sense to anyone except for me and my collegue. One day, I stared at it so hard, hoping that I can see some sort of imaginary world, ala the Matrix. Sometimes, when the phone rings, I pray hard that it's Trinity or Neo telling me that I have been unplugged-- So at least I can skiveoff work while trying to save the world.Anyway, working an office job from 9 to 9 made me appreciate my course even more. Shooting people, in a less murderous meaning, is much more tedious, requires much more hard work, pays much less money, but damn it feels good to smack your lips together and say "That's my film, right there."Pointing at a Microsoft Excel document and saying "That's my work, right there" doesn't quite cut it. Nobody oohs and ahhs.But I'll survive. I'll plough through the endless road of paperwork with a shredder in my right hand and a hole puncher in my left. And I'll be keeping a ESC keyboard button nearby, just in case.
10:26 PM
Monday, June 16, 2008
NTU surprised me with a new look for its website. and I finally think it's time, for I am weak but He is strong.
12:58 AM
Thursday, June 12, 2008
The Taiwan Diaries Part 9- “Thnks fr e mmrs”
Goodness, I’ve been rattling over and over for a month over this trip, and I’ve finally come to the last day.
Flora said I was very long-winded….
…but added that it was cool that I documented everything. So I take it that it’s cool.
You know, the end of something is usually marked by a feeling of intense relief or sadness. If nothing is felt, then you’ve wasted your time.
I remember the moment the wheels of the plane touched Singapore. A feeling of intense relief rushed over me because the plane didn’t crash. (Always a reason to be happy) Shortly after, say a few milliseconds, I felt sad because I’m back in the same ol’ ground.
Maybe it’s the company that was with me for the past 8 days. Maybe there were too much fun. Maybe I was dreading the office environment I’d have to face for the next two and a half months.
But I was totally sad.
I think there’s a lot of sane people out there who wants to shake me and say “Why the hell are you clinging on to a stupid 8 day trip? We get that you had fun. Now move on.”
You see, if I really do move on, I’d be left thinking of the container office I’m stuck in, the twelve card-punching hours I put in per day, and this particular storeman’s weird, kinda salty odour.
Which would make my life a whole lot more sadder and pathetic.
Hmm, yeap. I think I made my point.
(Ohmygod! Flora was right! I AM longwinded)
I shall dutifully talk about what I was supposed to talk about.
So we woke up, this time ON TIME, and we checked out of the hotel, plonked our heavy bags at the reception and went to Ding Tai Feng to enjoy a hearty breakfast.
As well as what every Singaporean like to do- compare the standards of this Ding Tai Feng with the one back home. But I can honestly say, with my non-connoisseur tongue, it didn’t feel much different. The most prominent difference was the restrooms in Ding Tai Feng, which came complete with a lady attendant, heated toilet seats and music to drown out your calls of nature.
It’s super cool to hear music instead of water gushing into the urinals. This way, nobody will turn to you and say “Wah, can tell you drank a lot of water just now.”
After the breakfast, we popped into a quaint bookstore and bought plenty of pretty notebooks. Okay, plenty is an understatement. Out of the 4 of us, one person lugged home about 10 notebooks. AND the notebooks had hard covers.
Then, it was time to explore the streets of Ximending. In due time too, because even though our hotel was in the heart of Ximending, we never got a chance to walk around as we always left the place too early and came back too late. I detoured to eat a bowl of Mee Sua (and just after breakfast too, which explains why my double chin is at its full glory now), to none of my other 3 companions’ surprise. They have finally gotten used to this bottomless pit.
After some time, Joyce needed to look for Sun Biscuits, a traditional product of Taiwan which is made in Tai Zhong So we searched around for them in Ximending. To our horror, the only place that sold the product charged so high they might as well go rob a bank. So Joyce suggested to go back to Shilin once again to look for them.
Asking passer-bys didn’t help much. There was this tour guide who was standing there in Shilin, and when asked if there were any Sun Biscuits, he laughed and said “Here? Don’t have.” Another person, a bimbotic shopkeeper, said “Er, you have to go to Tai Zhong to get them.”
That’s like saying Laksa can only be found in Penang. Or Roti Prata can only be found in Jalan Kayu. Or Osama can only be found in Afghanistan.
Their retarded answers made us roll our eyes. It took us about 5 seconds, okay maybe 1 minute because we needed to cross the road, to hit the jackpot. The 4th or 5th shop down the street sold Sun Biscuits and other foodstuff. After buying all the good stuff, we contemplated waving the Sun Biscuits in the tour guide’s face, but decided not to because we were too lazy.
We rested at a small café in Ximending (Yes, they all laughed when I suggested a café..) where we taught Colleen how to play bridge but became bored and gave up. Finally, we decided that it was time to bid adieu to this tiny little island.
So we took our belongings, which seemed to have ballooned in size, and left for the airport via bus. A quick check-in later, we were on our way home.
One $10 chicken rice, a snapshot of us and a (slightly embarrassing) group hug in front of our parents at Changi Airport later, I said bye to my post-exam madness, and welcomed my all-new misery-of-working life.
Well, now that I've finally come to the end of The Taiwan Diaries and somehow hope to attain a form of closure for this and another form of acceptance for my newly minted "social hermit" status, I'd just like to say to these 3 girls... "Thanks for the memories!"
12:42 AM
Saturday, June 07, 2008
The Taiwan Diaries Part 8- A Gathering by the Toilet Bowl
I woke up in a daze that day, checked my alarm clock and found that it was 8am. Then, I crawled out and brushed my teeth. Joyce, who was also half asleep, told me that it was too early because we agreed to wake up at 8.30am. So I did the most rational thing- went back into bed and slept.
Joyce was nudging me the next time I regained consciousness.
"Deanna! It's 9 plus!"
My eyes opened. I wondered if the two girls next door woke up on time, or they were sleeping like pigs too. While Joyce jumped out of bed to brush her teeth, I went to knock on their door.
Greeting me was Cathy Chia, whose fluffy hair gave the sign that she'd just gotten out of bed. Even better, Colleen was wrapped in her blanket, fast asleep.
In lightning speed, all of us prepared for the day. Our itinery for today wasn't very packed, so we didn't panic much over our pig-like behavior. But the three of them came to a conclusion that I was a very important alarm clock. If I didn't wake up, nobody woke up. And it's so true, because for the past 6 days, except for day 2 where Cathy woke up first in the middle of the night and couldn't go back to sleep for some reason not CAUSED by my sleeping habit, I was the one who woke up first and woke up the whole lot of them.
My mummy should be very proud.
We took the train all the way to Dan Shui station and made our way down to Jay Chou's alma mater. Yeap, it's the same place he shot the film "Secret".
It was pretty weird walking into a school that you don't belong to. And even more weird to see students being punished while you're happily taking pictures of the surroundings.
After trying to make sense of the fact that we are on the grounds where Jay Chou had his puberty on, we walked out to the streets of Dan Shui, or Dan Shui Lao Jie as they call it. The entire street was a very long stretch, and we went ahead with our favourite activity- shopping.
We stopped by Birkenstock, because Colleen wanted to buy Birks for her mama, and in the end came out with one pair of Birks each. That's 4 pairs of Birks in one fell swoop.
Hehe. Taiwan's good for frivolous spending.
After all that shopping, it was time for lunch at idunnowhat time. We had simple fare at a dingy stall. Dingy, by the way, was our favourite word to describe all things Taiwan. Made popular by Colleen, it was nevertheless a more apt word to describe a certain thing than say, Cathy's "groins" to describe creatures that lived in dungeons.
No, Cathy, I'm never gonna let this go. For making us guess all the possible words starting with the letter "g" when we were tired and going down many many many steps when you were looking for the word "troll". (We had a super good laugh though. Haha. And in my personal opinion, "giraffe" is a much better guess than "groins".)
Now where was I?
Yes, after the meal, we took the bus down to Fishermen's Wharf, where there was a huge bridge, probably a state-of-the-art architectural feat. The wind over there was very strong, so much so that Cathy decided to have an MTV-like shot by holding up her scarf for the wind to blow while she striked a suggestive pose. Meanwhile, Joyce was busy holding down her skirt, for fear of being the next Marilyn Monroe. Colleen, on the other hand, was getting better at jumping for the camera. She managed to jump high enough for one shoe to fly off her feet into the bushes nearby.
After much posing for the camera, we sat down at the pier to watch the sunset. At 6pm, the sky was already a glowing red. We watched the sun fall slowly into the horizon.
When evening came, we left Dan Shui and went to Shilin for a nice gathering with Shu Hui. She is a student from our school, and was on exchange in Taiwan, so we decided to meet up.
Of course, no any other place will do. So, we gathered at this "Toilet-themed" restaurant. We sat on toilet bowls and ate food put in mini urinals, but we stopped short of discussing about our bowel movements and habits.
A lot of experiences about Taiwan was shared during the dinner. Like how we may try our best to dress like a Taiwanese but our Singaporean accent will always give us away. For Colleen though, it's her ching-chiong cheena-fied chiang. And how the Taiwanese slogan "Touch your heart" is really so simple yet it works. And the taxi drivers, and so much so many.
But then again, the topics will always revert back to SCI and its Y2 student population. Hehe.
After the gathering, we resumed our favourite activity at Shilin Night Market, which at 10pm, was a bustling place. Seeing that it was a far cry from the empty place at 12am yesterday night, Cathy pointed excitedly at a blender which jiggled and exclaimed, "OHMYGOD!" As soon as those words came out, the shopkeeper and the customer in that fateful shop looked up. Cathy continued to be very fascinated, lost in the world of the jiggly blender. Nevertheless, almost immediately, Joyce came to the rescue with a "Bu Hao Yi Si!" as the rest of us pushed Cathy to walk away from the shop as soon as possible.
As Joyce went to look at cute wallets, the rest of us started browsing for badges that were placed on an open umbrella. Suddenly, the makeshift stall operator closed the umbrella, giving the three of us a jump. She held a worried face as she glanced from left to right, and vice versa. Other makeshift stalls too packed up their goods. However, a quick reassurance from someone prompted them to start their businesses again. The person opened her umbrella and told us, still slightly startled, to continue browsing.
After some time, while walking along the streets of Shilin Night Market, we saw carts and trolleys being pulled by lightning speed into dark alleys that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. All of a sudden, one whole stretch of makeshift stalls that dominated the Night Market was gone.
A quick listen to the buzz around this perculiar situation revealed that policemen were around the area. After about fifteen minutes though, the makeshift stalls were all being pushed back one by one and they were ready for business.
After some bone-breaking (okay I'm exaggerating) shopping, we went back to our hotel via a taxi. Tomorrow would be the day we return to Singapore, and we were all dreading it.
So we decided to go to the 24hour Carrefour in Ximending to do some shopping for products to bring back home. At 2am in the morning.
The cold wind howled wildly, leaving me (almost) freezing to death on the way there and back. At the supermarket, I could safely say I was already half-asleep. While Joyce stocked up on her nai chas to bring back to Singapore, I was wondering aimlessly along the aisles.
We returned to our hotel soon after. It was our last night in Taiwan. It was a sad feeling that was nudging away. After 7 crazy nights, we'd be back to reality in Singapore. I'd have to pay off this trip by working for my dad, while the other three will go back to their lives as well. But that's life isn't it? Nothing can last forever. The self-delusional me shall slowly write out the last part of the Taiwan Diaries, just to be able to live in it once again. End of Part 8.
4:24 PM
The Taiwan Diaries Part 7- Hello, Jacky Wu, Cockroaches and Kitty.
On the second day of the Taipei leg, we woke up bright and early, thanks to my superior body clock (Hehe). The plan was to go to this town at the top of a hill, then to a Hello Kitty Theme restaurant, and then to watch variety show Guess Guess Guess as a live studio audience.
In the morning, we found breakfast at a small stall that made use of a closed hairdressing salon to do their business. It was a brilliant idea, I thought, to utilize the space since the salon doesn’t open so early.
With breakfast on the go, we set off to take a bus up to the town of Jiu Fen. Joyce said it used to be a place where the Japanese made Taiwanese soldiers mine for gold in the past. And true enough, there was a gold mining museum atop the hill. Alas, it didn’t open that day because it was a Monday. Colleen was sad because she planned to mine for gold to recoup her traveling losses.
So we entertained ourselves aplenty by taking pictures of everything, and attempted to be like Fei Yu Qing in his MTVs by singing all the oldies of our era. (S Club 7, anyone?)
After that, we went downhill to Jiu Fen. It was an area with narrow and winding streets. Food stalls line up along the streets. The shopkeepers smiled at everyone that walked past, hoping that the visitors will at least glance at their products. A lot of tourists were there, some from Hong Kong, some Koreans and I swear I heard some Singlish being uttered somewhere. It could have been my subconscious, or Cathy Chia talking about some irrelevant stuff.(she said magical creatures who lived under bridges are called groins. She didn’t know she was subjecting a body part to a great misunderstanding.)
We went in this fishball noodle shop owned by a narcissistic lady when I became hungry. The entire shop was filled with repeated potshots of herself with celebrities and flowers and waterfall backdrops. At one point though, Colleen became disturbed with a cockroach that flipped over and died on the floor where the pots and pans were. She decided that she has the responsibility to tell the lady boss, no longer posing with flowerbeds but now dutifully cooking fishballs, about the cockroach.
Soon, Joyce and Cathy became disturbed as well. The lady boss told Colleen that insecticide has just been sprayed, thus explaining the appearance of that roach, and she went on, saying that we’ll see a lot of roaches today.
For the rest of our time in Jiu Fen, at least in the winding streets, Joyce, Cathy and Colleen would jump up at different times, scream at different pitches whenever they spot struggling roaches on the ground. And I kid you not, there were a lot of dying cockroaches on the street, so much that I had to kick a few out of our paths if not the 3 girls will just keep screaming.
My cockroach services were exchanged with them protecting me from the huge, stray dogs in the streets of Taiwan. We all have our weaknesses, it seemed. A fear of rabies to balance out 3 fears of scampering roaches.
We got a little lost after finishing the stretch of winding streets. And a little murderous. I can’t really remember it, but the girls wanted to roll me down a really long stretch of stairs to stop the bus which was on its way. We became really loony and said so many weird things that we were very afraid we’d really roll down the stairs.
After much kan jeong-ing (by me, mostly), we sat the bus down back to Taipei, and went off to find the elusive Hello Kitty theme restaurant.
A few misses later, we found the famous Kitty who has no mouth to even say Hello staring at us a few blocks down. To cut things short, in the words of Shu Hui’s anonymous friend, “it was overpriced and the food not nice at all!”.
But we gladly spent our S$16 each on a teeny morsel of a cake just to admire the Kitty- face on our lattes, jelly, and the toilet seats.
A short visit to Cheng Pu bookstore where we read up on things that KC Yeoh would feel proud of later, we headed down the TV studio to catch Guess Guess Guess.
There was a queue for the recording outside the studio, and we lined up eagerly at 7. By 7.30pm, we were seated on the cold, hard ground, just in front of the guests’ tables. As expected, the set was small. Props, like the sphinx, looked old. The floor manager briefed us on what to do, and said there’ll be cues as to when we have to sway our hands, or clap along. After a really long wait, the guests got seated. Among them were Fiona Sit, a newbie singer from Hong Kong, Milk the has-been-desperately-trying-not-to-be, as well as a whole bunch of actors from a new Taiwanese TV series, which provided a lot of much-enjoyed eye candy.
At 8.30pm, when our butts were beginning to harden, out popped Jacky Wu, Ah Ya and a lame duck. It wasn’t hard to see why he is the top host in Taiwan. He kept the show moving along and prevented it from becoming really stagnant. Ah Ya cut in at the right moments, providing hilarious comments that kept us laughing. As for the duck, well, let’s just say she blended in with the entire décor of the place.
Our hunger got the better of us, and we left after the first two segments, which was 11pm, but not after I managed to see Ye Wei Ting from Chao Ji Xing Guang Da Dao Season 2 setting up for the third segment.
Plus, we learnt what was “harmonizing” finally.
We had a quick bite at Shilin night market, which turned out to be quite different from the way I had imagined it to be. It was quite empty, except for a few stalls which were closing up. Maybe it was Monday night, and it was nearly 12am. Nonetheless, I managed to taste the infamous Hao Da Da Ji Pai (translation: Very big chicken chop). Shops were closing already, so we went back to our hotel so that Cathy can start her leg-elongation regime (after being inspired by a contestant from Guess).
And thus, we slept pretty soundly that night, after a thwarted attempt to smear toothpaste on Colleen’s face. Hehe.
End of Part 7
11:30 PM
Monday, June 02, 2008
想念那山水我们都不像睡而你们始终是一样的美火车穿过时光隧道背着包逛街一直跑太平洋的海鲸仿佛对着我微笑学习兴奋高跳不容易兴奋跳不高跳高时鞋马上飘火车5小时难不到我鞋子变白纸我把灵感写成字
11:19 PM
The Taiwan Diaries Part 6- Dressed for the wrong season
By the time we reached Taipei on the 5th day, each of our personalities was beginning to take on a life of its own. Somehow, by living with each other, we get to know a lot more about each person.
Tiny little previously unknown facts about a person begin to creep out involuntarily, inevitably.
Just like how Joyce lives up to her alter ego as Nai Cha Lao Shi, as she has to drink her Nai Cha at least once a day, and how she loves to laze in bed, or how Cathy doesn’t like to have vegetables in her food, and the terribly fluffy hair she has when she gets out of bed, or how Colleen loves mushrooms so much, and the way she wrap herself up like a cacoon when she sleeps.
And of course, my very own terrible sleeping secrets have been exposed to them as well. But judging from my experiences, a special bond is formed when people sleep together, er, literally, even if it is just for one night.
In conclusion, friends should start sleeping together.
Oh wait, Monica, Chandler, Ross and Rachael already did.
Alright, I know. Cheap shot. Just couldn’t resist though.
Anyway, we reached Taipei around 2 pm after taking the chug chug chug from Yilan. The first thing we did over there was very much like The Amazing Race too- we tried to find our hotel in the crowded streets of Ximending.
Imagine a bright Sunday afternoon, and people are streaming from street to street, browsing, meeting friends and doing their shopping. It is a relaxing day. Then imagine seeing 4 girls with turtle shells and disheveled hair (mostly me) walk around like madwomen, frantically searching for that darn hotel that seemed to have been swallowed up by the ground. Their backs are aching, legs about to give way anytime soon, and the hotel is still nowhere to be found.
Finally, after looking at the map for the gazillion-th time, Joyce (or Colleen, I forgot which one) began to walk back to the MRT station where we came out from. Before she hit the station, she turned into a small alley, and hey presto, there it was right above our noses. Gleaming with bright fluorescent lights, a large signboard bearing the name “Guo Guang Hotel” hung above a nondescript shop. A half sigh of relief and half cursing under breath for the extra miles later, we managed to sustain for a good 10 minutes before finally dumping the bags on the ground of our hotel rooms.
Then it was time for the shopping madness to start. Before that though, we had a late lunch at this restaurant that played super old hip hop tracks that seems to go on and on forever. Argh. FYI, playing songs that contain a lot a lot of uncensored F words does not spell cool. Instead, it makes patrons nauseous.
Our first stop was Wufenpu, which I heard was a Bugis Village-y kind of shopping area. Joyce told us to try speaking in Mandarin, so that we may blend in with the locals and get a good price. And so we did.
But Colleen got the memo wrong.
Under my keen observation, the kind of Mandarin in which she spoke while trying to communicate with the shopkeepers were flavored with a tongue-rolling, Beijing-like accent.
“老板， 这个多少钱”
“好啊，我要一个新的可以吗？”
For a moment I thought we were in China.
Well, the rest of us spoke in our usual lazy drawl of Mandarin. But anyway, it wasn’t Colleen’s weird accent that played us out, but the way we were dressed.
At first, we couldn’t figure out how come the shopkeepers knew even when we kept silent. They would ask, “Which country are you from?”, much to our surprise. Finally, we solved the mystery.
You see, we were attired in slippers, shorts and tees, just like how everyone dressed for a casual shopping trip back home in Singapore. Problem was, it was spring and the temperature was only 20 plus degrees Celsius. And no (sane) Taiwanese wore slippers. Nil, zero, kosong.
The thing was, I had thought it was summer over there all along. Before going to Taiwan, Cathy wanted to bring winter-y jackets, but I rolled my eyes and laughed at her. “What? You siao ah!? Now summer leh!” I had said with much confidence.
In the end, with the exception of Joyce, we brought only light cardigans/ jackets. Joyce forgot to bring any. And we’d walk around with our slippers and shorts, not batting an eyelid about who’s staring.
Wufenpu was a shopping heaven, and in fact, a little too much like Seoul’s Ehwa Street. For a moment, I thought I was back in Seoul. However, the sweetest thing about Wufenpu was that the prices were much, much more cheaper. Cardigans are sold for less than S$10 each, and they have so much patterns and designs to choose from.
However, the shopkeepers at Wufenpu have put the art of “cutting vegetables’ heads” (砍菜头) to practice. They charge the tourist way more than the locals, which was proven after Colleen saw one shopkeeper discreetly showing a different price to a Taiwanese using the calculator, after quoting another price to Joyce.
Tsk tsk. Which makes me wonder if the Bugis Village people exploit tourists as well.
However, the prices, even though they were relatively higher for us “tourists”, were a steal. After unleashing a wave of shopping madness for 3plus hours, I got tired. And we’d only covered 2 alleys out of the gazillion alleys there were!
For my sake, the rest abandoned their shopping plans and we went over to Raohe Night market to eat all we can. Over there, we could smell the Smelly Toufu, which gave off the scent (har!) of a burst sewage pipe.
Maybe Taiwan invented the Smelly Toufu because sewage odour was a major problem, and the Smelly Toufu was just a tool to mask it?
We ate many stuff, some weird and some not so. Walked the whole stretch, and the three of them found that I always gravitate towards free samples. Once, Colleen, Joyce and I were walking together while Cathy was lagging behind. After a while, Colleen and Joyce found that I wasn’t walking with them anymore. On turning back, there I was, at an ice-sorbet stall, trying out different flavours of ice sorbet.
Thus, I became known as the one who never stops eating. I think when they see me, they can see a rubbish bin lid floating above my head, like a halo. The rubbish angel!
That very night, my double chin started creeping out from its hiding place. It was about to to meet the world after a long time in exile.
End of Part 6
 It's the Taiwan version of Red Ruby. We dub it "Nemo" Smelly Toufu in soup. This one doesn't stink bad, and tastes like normal.
Dig in!And yeap, that's all the photos we have for that day. Girls don't take photos when they shop. They really, only concentrate on shopping because it's of utmost importance.End of Part 6
11:09 PM
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