VJCO in Taiwan

The 6D5N trip is probably the best school trip I've been on so far! Taiwan is an amazing place, not too dissimilar to Singapore (I did not miss home, lol), I was constantly surrounded by fun people, and most of the local food were great. It was a music exchange trip with 中國文化大學 in Taipei and 延和國民中學 in Nantou, for initially 3 days, but it was cut short to just a day for each school, so I felt that our interaction was too brief to glean anything from. Oh well but the food and shopping and fun times with VJCO compensated for it. I've been to Taiwan back in 2008, but I felt that my family didn't get to do much sightseeing as we only toured Taipei! In this trip, I got to explore abit of Taichung and Nantou County in addition to the capital. 

Day 1

At 淡水漁人碼頭 (DanShui Fisherman's Wharf), on 情人桥. We were supposed to watch the sunset but, er, there was no sun. It was rather late into the evening and the winds were strong and I only had a light cardigan and was freezing to death.

2012, 2013, 2014 Perc SLs

Percussion!!

淡水老街 (Danshui Old Street) for free-and-easy dinner of local food. I think I ate the most here, for there weren't stupid long queues given that it was a weekday.

^ The fried mushrooms were THE BEST! It's SGD$1 plus and in retrospect, it's not worth for a small packet of mushroom bits but it's really good 

The is the famous 阿婆铁蛋 at the old street. I was eating a few wondering what kinda eggs they were and felt perturbed by the onset heart diseases I would probably experience because they were QUAIL eggs, which contain higher cholesterol levels than that of chicken. I thought the braised flavour was strong, and the rather hard texture was abit unique. It was cold, though, which kinda ruined it. 

酸梅湯 (Sour plum juice)

淡水阿給!!!

Some of us went to 阿给老店. I didn't know it was famous until I googled it just now. The specialty 阿给 dish is actually just generous portions of 冬粉 wrapped in tofu, and topped with special odd-looking gravy. Its light pink tinge sort of put me off abit and the entire dish looks unappetizing (together with its cheap orange plastic bowl) in my opinion, but I liked it!! Their fishballs were like typical 福州鱼丸, just harder and oblong shaped, and were a let down.  

臭豆腐

糖葫芦 - I was pretty sure I'll get diabetes

Day 2

The morning was rather uneventful as we had a 2 hour practice in the hotel's conference room. Some of us didn't have our instruments so we formed an acapella CO instead

Omg fangirling

We went to 誠品書店 (Eslite Bookstore) in Taipei, which is its flagship store. I love the ambience even though it's abit classy especially the first storey where there's coffeehouses and branded stores. The bookstore is 7 stories, I think, but they organised all books according to genre, regardless of language so I couldn't find books I wanted since the shelves were dominated by Chinese books. I got the above book as requested by my mom, it's about history and politics in Taiwan and China, and I felt abit intellectual carrying it about. Hope that my mom's pleased!  

We then went to 西門町! 

I LOVED the 阿宗麵線! It costs close to SGD$2 for a small bowl and there were hardly enough chairs for the customers at the roadside. I just ate while we strolled along. I had my first taste of nightmarket traffic at 西門町, which I totally hate because I have to fear for my life as vehicles sped past. 

^ This was the authentic Koi! It's like SGD$1 plus LESS than Sg's ugh why do this to us

甜不辣 - I took forever to get through 3 of these because I got so tired of chewing

After dinner was a Guzheng concert at Taipei 國家音樂廳. I loved the place, with its exterior so majestically oriental but the concert, 競箏 Transcendence, featuring only guzheng, might as well be the best SEDATIVE in the universe. My only experience with the guzheng was in primary school; it was an SYF stint and I was unfortunately picked to play it and I never liked it because the instructor smacked my hand once and I almost cried, LOL

I couldn't appreciate the songs played as I don't particularly like the instrument, and because they were rather boring (except for 2). I was initally all agog because I thought it would be an ORCHESTRAL performance. A solitary guzheng on stage lacks the grandeur and volume I anticipated. Surprisingly, there were quite a few young people among the audience. It was a sleepy 2 hour 15 min for everyone.

Day 3

Day 3 marks the start of our 2 day interaction with the Taiwanese at 中國文化大學! The university was situated at 陽明山 so it was rather cold. Our day started off with a lecture (conducted in the CO room) with the professor being one of the guzheng performers from the day before. I realised that the Taiwanese students were apathetic and rather disregardful and as he droned on on music competition and its history and its differences between the East and West. I could hardly keep awake. Some students actually just arrived for the last 30 min or so (lessons are 2 hours long - we actually sat through the entire duration) for attendance taking. 

Following that was another 2 hour practical lesson on music recording. They were using this complicated program called Cubase, and most of the Taiwanese students were quite blur about what to do (according to my friends). It's basically a program that allows you to alter the composition of a piece of music. The tutor was quite boring, the lesson was boring as well (obviously I'm not an aspiring music major), and I was pretty sick of hearing the same tune repeatedly (they were all editing this short music piece of "My phone is ringing"), and even now I still can remember its tune.

We had this short "music exchange" after lunch, whereby the university orchestra presented 2 songs and we just played a line-up of short songs. It was THE WORST, EVER. I don't bother to hide the fact that our performance were absolutely lousy, having our morale and esteem being completely destroyed by their above-average skills, and by being disproportionately dwarfed by the sheer number of people in their orchestra. They played <<秦兵马俑>> and <<天山狂想>> which were quite good pieces.

I just knew it when they started performing that it was no "music exchange", but rather a music humiliation, but I did not expect our standards to dip so drastically infront of a more skilled audience. I felt like death when we made obvious mistakes, and all our songs were extremely badly played. And no, I'm not exaggerating things, it was the worst, really. It was like we were sight-reading there and then.

The Taiwanese students were a good sport, clapping and cheering after every song, and dancing along abit, but the entire event completely demoralised me. But on the bright side, I'll probably never get to see them again!!!

We were to have our own free-and-easy lunch in the university campus but since we were being mercilessly BUFFETED by strong winds and cold weather, we just headed to the nearest shop we could find, which was the ubiquitous 7-11. My hair in the following photos can bear testament to the strong winds. I just wanna rave about their 关东煮 which was probably the most suitable dish/snack you can have on a cold day. The soup (or rather copious amounts of MSG + water) and the liao were really quite nice (actually abit unsure, my tastebuds might have been frozen). It was very comforting to eat something hot and spicy on a cold day!!!

关东煮

We had abit of time because sightseeing at 陽明山was called off due to the unwelcoming weather so we walked about at some random mall to kill time

Inception of the VJCO Complain Club

Then it was 士林夜市! It was so crowded my group lost Lingjing but thankfully she reached back in time!

Debrief with Ms Chong

Surprising birthday boy Kaihong! I can't be any cooler

Day 4

Made a 3 hour journey from Taipei to Nantou! Karaoke on the bus to keep us occupied before visiting 延和國民中學.

Though the school's exterior campus was quite scenic, its CO practice room was austere and rather sparsely furnished. I had the urge to get out of the room because it was asphyxiating given the windowless room was small and had high ceilings and was dark. The conductor mentioned that their bass was 20 to 30 years old, and indeed, it was visibly ancient, judging from its multiple scratches. He also mentioned how because the school lacked funding which explained the terribly ripped stage curtains.

We had mini ice-breakers with the secondary 2 students whom I thought were really shy especially the guys! My group consisted of only Taiwanese guys and Singaporean girls so it took abit of effort to start the ball rolling. I talked most to YouQuan, a cello player whom I think I'll probably have no recollection of soon (ok jk)

Note to self, the second from left is Youquan

I believe that we were all rather touched by the school's hospitality and how there was evidently, an immense effort on the part of the Taiwanese school in welcoming us, unlike the university, whose Vice-principal gave us a mere welcome talk and that was it. After our performances (both our performances went well!! :-) ) they presented us with gifts and local snacks which are specialties of Nantou County. I felt that our interaction was way too brief and it would probably be so much better if we could mingle with them more. 

Day 5

Day 5 was our laid-back, sightseeing day. It was 廣興紙寮 (GuangXing Paper Mill), followed by a boat trip on 日月潭 (Sun Moon Lake) and 921 Earthquake Museum. 

At the paper mill, we sort of learned how paper is handmade from plants and stuff and had our hand at paper printing.

Sun Moon Lake The place was filled with people and it was too crowded for a hill trek

Uniqlo siblings

Ms Chong

Ms Suriani

ChungCheng people were excluded and this is the "Miscellaneous" schools group of the dichotomy

J2 Excos

茶叶蛋!

921 Earthquake Museum It was quite an interesting place but such a pity that Mandarin seismic terminology totally confused most of us. I couldn't get hold of what the guide was trying to convey, because it's like geography but in MANDARIN. Unfortunately, the earthquake simulator theatre could not fit the entire 25 of us, and I was one of those sad people who had no choice but to walk around abit. But I felt it was probably more enriching because I had more time to look at the pictures of survivors and victims to the disaster. Each of them had a story (sad or happy) to tell, and from there I realised the enormity of the 921 quake. I was initially quite unsure how devastating the 921 earthquake was in scale, because in all honesty I didn't know anything about it.

Dinner, then proceeded to 逢甲夜市! Our tour bus stopped when we turned into a less crowded street so that we could alight, and when we got down, this traffic controller woman started screaming at us like a banshee "这里不可以停车!!" repeatedly in quite a mean way and we got really scared. 

During late night percussion gossip session

Day 6

It was the last day of our trip and we made the journey back to Taipei and visited 宝岛时代村 (Taiwan Era Village). To be honest I didn't learn anything much from there as most of us did our last minute souvenir shopping, so it was quite a uneventful day. We had our lunch at the airport, sitting around, eating our burgers and fries, which I think was rather unsightly and incongruous.

The tour guide who seems to have asthma whenever he talks/wheezes

^ I had too much quail eggs on this trip and halfway through the stick I felt really sick and decided to kindly offer these cholesterol balls to my friends

I'm just really thankful for VJCO for making this trip much more entertaining than ever. Come to think of it, my 2 years spent in the school revolved quite abit around the CCA, and to be able to participate in this trip concludes my 2 years in school on a good note. The 2 nights spent on reflection and debrief were also quite insightful, in my opinion, and I definitely learn more about myself (like how I should shut up more often, and be less critical of others etc all these aren't very new). 

Apologies if my eyes look terribly small in the photos. 

Interstellar + Ms Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

It was in the midst of the last few A Level papers that I caught Interstellar. I was initially extremely skeptical that a SCI-FI movie could deserve so much acclaim, because I don't personally prefer spacey science fiction movie or books. Honestly, I entered the cinema not really knowing what to expect (because I only watched half of its trailer lol), other than the fact that it IS supposedly a good movie.

ON A SIDE NOTE can we just take a moment to aesthetically appreciate Anne Hathaway?? I spent a large part of the movie admiring how her features complimented her hair and I swear she is the only person with sharp enough features who can pull off a short boring haircut???

According to my friend, the film is very characteristic of Christopher Nolan, with its dense concepts like time distortions, relativity in space, dimensions, parallel existences etc all pertaining to space travel and stuff. I have to confess I have yet to watch Inception (yes omg ikr) so I was abit unprepared for the barrage of abstract concepts Nolan would throw at the audience. Plus, the similar-looking space crafts and all the jargons on space travel in the film confused me abit. 

I'm also surprised that they did not further develop this film into a 3D one, because all the computer generated landscapes and surroundings seemed really suitable for a 3D film. But then again, people might actually get migraines from all the flashing lights in some scenes.

I find the story plot rather amazing, with just a good balance of emotional tear-jerking scenes. I find it funny that it was only 1 hour into the movie, I think, when the film had its saddest scene, the one when Matthew McConaughey bursting into tears upon seeing his daughter all grown-up. The soundtrack by THE Hans Zimmer also gave me goosebumps throughout the movie

I never liked sci-fi movies and books because they're hardly realistic and logical. I didn't like the fact that there were two semi-sentient robots in the film that are completely capable of perception and speech and move about in such an odd manner. The entire scene when Cooper was ejected into blackhole and had to signal to his then-daughter in this continuous bookshelf dimension also seemed preposterous and way too incomprehensible to me. But then again, given my lack of understanding of time warps in space and "what on earth is a blackhole?", I can't delineate what is fiction from non-fiction in this movie. 

Also, the ending where time travelling Cooper finally met up with his elderly daughter bore abit of resemblance to the ending of THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE, a book by Audrey Niff -something which I have toiled over 2 years ago and subsequently swore to never revisit again (because it's so lousy and stupid - you're telling me a man that disappears, and appears back again in his BIRTHDAY SUIT, during his work as a public librarian can hold on to his job?!). It kinda reminded me of the book and in fact, I think the whole time-travelling and meeting a person thing is abit cliched so I didn't particularly enjoy the ending.

Overall it's pretty much an amazing movie.

During the A Levels period, I also read Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. Like the news and media were raving about it quite a long ago, and I decided to give it a go. 

The book surprisingly features bland, unexciting writing, like a first-person narrative from from a 10 year old. Fine, it may be a teen fiction but I don't remember John Green's writing in Looking for Alaska (the next book I'd burn after The Time Traveler's Wife) being THAT boring. 

The pictures throughout the book indeed piqued my interest, because they are quite creepy. According to Wikipedia, the photos were supposedly procured to be made in to a PICTURE book, but now look what you've done, trying to weave all these pictures into a story plot by writing a narrative to fit these photos, instead of the other way round. I thought the incorporation of some photos were completely uncalled for, like the below 2 masked boys. Like ok, so Jacob met these two masked creepy boys, SO? It was extremely disappointing to realise that some photos did not make any contribution to the plot. They were completely unjustified and just mere photos. 

There was this astonishing inaccuracy in the writing as well, when of all of a sudden, the name 'Billy' was mentioned, with no prior references or any appearance of a Billy in the story.

I find the entire concept of being in a 'Loop' (basically a time-void safe haven for 'the peculiars'), and the cat and mouse game of the monsters and the children quite promising for a YA fiction, but the brainless narrative just ruined its chances and made me skim the pages abit too frequently. It was quite a let down. I won't be touching its sequel lol

Cycling at East Coast Park! Played Cards Against Humanity and caught Pee Mak at KY's house

Fancy Armrest

I've been watching Youtubers play CAH and I honestly thought it'll be easy but I was so bad at making up funny sentences

Foreword and 2013/2014

It has been a long time since I've last posted on BllyBrwn! I used to blog about the littlest mundane things in my life (as you can see from hundred over posts yearly in my archives). I would just like to start off with a short disclaimer that those ancient posts were crafted when I was, what, upper primary to lower secondary? Some just make me go "What is WRONG with me". So don't expect them to be of substance (not implying that my upcoming posts are that worthy of reading), and they certainly don't represent the (smarter, wiser) being that I am now. You all have no idea how mortifying it was to read through posts from my 12 year old self OMG CRINGE. With that said, I'm resurrecting BllyBrwn for the sole purpose of sharing what I like, and perhaps update bits and pieces of my life.

If you were to scroll down, in the more recent few posts, I featured books that I've read, but I've just unceremoniously dumped low resolution pictures of them with no reviews or anything. I'm looking at doing reviews of books, dramas, movies in this space!! It'll be fun to talk about what I like, recommending things to people if there are any. I'm not gonna post like a string flattering pictures of myself (I don't like the lingo 'Selfie', it sounds stupid in my opinion lol ), because huh how to look good in photos??? And I don't have an ego size that matches up to blown-up pictures of my face. 

I've not been on a hiatus. I have created a private blog like 3 years ago, somewhere in the secluded depths of the internet where I do reviews and stuff, and where I also, rant, ramble and bitch about life. I'm still active on it, maybe even more active than ever. It's limited to a few people only so do pm me or whatever if you're interested! And also do pray that you're not one of the few people that I rant about hurhurhur 

Just a bit of background info, BllyBrwn (Billy Brown) was created when PSLE was over (L O L) with the help of my friends. I've since deleted many, many embarrassing, incriminating posts which I am not proud of but you may look forward to more 'intelligent' posts, I pray. 'Billy Brown' is a musical number that talks about a homosexual that had abandoned his family, ditched his religion and still ended up being confused over his sexual orientation. The number of posts have dwindled over the years because I didn't have enough social life to update, or the motivation to blow the dust off this space. Within these two years, my life revolved around nothingness and A levels, the latter a topic that hardly needs to be rehashed lol ew

May I present to you some pictures of my life in 2013 + 2014

Nepal OCIP:

Secondary school friends:

Misc.:

Vhapsody 2013 & 2014

VJCO

That's all I have for now watch this space :-)

Moving On!

I just had a class reunion a few days ago and nothing beats the familiarity of old classmates.
My point is, being in VJC brought about so many changes. New experiences await. The school has a dynamic culture, truly living up to what they claim to be and possess. Moderating studies and play. But I'm not sure I'm up for it. Coming from a neighbourhood school and suddenly being transplanted to a swarm of students from VS, Cedar, Anglican and all makes me inferior, and at times, makes me feel compelled to prove myself.
It's not that I like my previous class or something, but when hanging out with my current class I long to go back to 4R1 where I had at least a person whom I can relate to. The past few weeks has been a whirlwind of emotions and blurness. Everything was progressing so fast and I can't seem to catch hold of being constantly on the move and the practically snowing LT5. Sometimes I felt happy, but most of the times, otherwise.
It's not that I dislike it, it's just that the fact that I'm in VJ hasn't sunk in yet and I think it never will? Even as I type 'VJ' it's so foreign and prestigious-sounding. But I know that ultimately, VJ is the right choice. Of course, this is just the beginning and I know things will get better!!!