Sick.

The first few days in Taiwan haven't been that great so far. Grace has been a wonderful host, taking care of us and bringing us to eat delicious taiwanese food but I haven't been able to enjoy it.

It started on the plane from Toronto to Taipei, I felt a strange soreness in my muscles. By the night of our first day in Taiwan, while we were walking around the area near our hotel looking for 臭豆腐 (well, A was, not me) I was feeling feverish chills and my muscles felt like I just ran 10km without warming up properly. In other words, I felt like shit. When we came back to our room, a full blown fever was raging. I thought I'd be better after a night's sleep but no, my immune system was just getting ready to collapse.

The next day, I felt even worse. My stomach was painfully bloated and my lower back ached like crazy. I could barely stand. It hurt to stand and it hurt to sit.

Grace brought us to Sanyi where we were supposed to go for a short hike to view aluerites montana, a seasonal flower in Taiwan which blooms around this time of the year. Before we drove there, Grace made a stop at a medicine dispensing store and got me some panadol. There is some weak ass panadol here in Taiwan. Didn't make a dent.

We had lunch almost immediately so we had a place to sit and drink some hot tea because I was feeling so terrible. The food in the place could've been AMAZING. It was Hakka cuisine and I wish I were in a better condition to enjoy it. My favourite was 雷茶, a thick comforting mixture of green tea and peanut powder served with mua chee. A enjoyed the food a lot and Grace and I could only watch her eat. Slow and steady. By this time, I was ready to die. Grace very kindly decided to scrap the rest of the day and concluded that sending me back to the hotel to rest was a better idea.

Back at the hotel, A discovered that she had this ginger and cumin powder mix which helps to relieve any digestive problems. I downed a packet and I could feel the effects 15 minutes later. The rest of the day I kept passing water (not pretty, extreme discomfort wrought unto my entire being) and I finally was able to sleep at 4pm. My whole body was crying out for sleep but my stomach wouldn't let it.

Anyway, this is the first time I've suffered this illness. My stomach felt like someone was twisting and wringing it dry. I thought I'd be fine after resting but it wasn't done with me yet.

We had to cut short our itinerary again. This time, in 日月潭 (Sun Moon Lake), my stomach began to act up again. The fact that it was foggy and rainy didn't help either. On the drive back, A determined that I should just go to a doctor and get it sorted once and for all. It turned out to be a good decision, I got meds and while it took a while to work, it helped. 

Doctor Liu, who saw me, had a semi Beethoven gray poof for a hairstyle and was quite the joker, however, I was in no mood to entertain him so I just gave him several strained smiles for responses.

At dinner I felt like death warmed over and something in the doctor's office caused my eyes and nose to run like crazy so I just took the meds, drank some soup and sat quietly.

This is the first time I've ever been to a doctor while travelling in another country so here come the pictures:

Look how they scribbled my mandarin name! 

Medicine is packed neatly for each consumption. They really do everything for you here. 

A, unfortunately had to suffer the scrapped day with me and she spent time hanging out in the hotel reading and checking out the Haagen Daaz Bar in the lobby. Sorry!

Keeping you up at Night

It is now 3.22am on Monday morning. I got sick ( ha ha, hey immune system I've been taking care of you, what gives?). Its a horrible stomach bug I think. I'm aching and bloating and passing water. Ugh.

Taiwan has been great so far. We're currently in 台中 and the food is good and people nice. I am so glad we have Grace to bring us around. But more on that later. I've got a shit load of blogging to catch up upon so here goes.

I've been non-existent at posting lately

The past week has been just packing non-stop and stressing about sorting out my life here, I don't feel like it will make for any interesting posts. We got in from Orlando yesterday which you will no doubt be reading about. Substantially.

The Orlando trip aside, Anne and I have pretty much been shopping at various places including Niagara on the Lake, which I feel is the only post worthy topic I'll write up. The rest..well, pictures! I'll include some commentary.

Have a figure instead:

I have spent close to $3,000 shipping all my stuff back to SG. The last boxes were sent off at Canada Post this morning. I thought I would've had to hire a taxi to cart all those boxes to the Post Office but thank god, my Aunt's good friends/neighbours came over and helped me out. Thank you Winnie and Spencer!

I'm dead beat from all the travelling, cleaning and packing and right now, I just do not want to fall sick. It would not be pleasant dealing with a double whammy of sickness and jet lag.

We're off to Taiwan tonight..another long haul flight awaits. DUN DUN bleurgh.


Btw, my trip partner Anne is blogging too so if you want to read from a different perspective, go here. She's been doing a better job than me.

Productivity reigns at 4 in the AM

I knew I was a morning person. 

Okay, the jet lag thing? It comes at the other end. In the morning. But at least I get through the day and early night. 

I decided to do something productive with my time if I couldn't stay in bed any longer. 

Books, books, books. Everywhere. 

I forgot to take a before picture of my bookshelves but just imagine two layers of books stacked on each section of the shelf. 

Another shelf emptied, another victory. 

They were all sent here, in brown cardboard detention boxes. 

And finally, 

Your pseudo intellectual picture of the day.

A special note of thanks to A, who basically did all the packing/arranging of books in all but one of the boxes. I, quite simply, only shove things in boxes with not much consideration of how nicely they're going to fit. But she has garnered experience packing viagra at her job in Biopolis (you can ask her about it here) , so everything was Fairy Godmother wand waving magic over my self/mouse-sewn attempts at packing (keeping with the Cinderella theme). No space shall be wasted with her around!

Today I had planned to go and get the car so we could be independently mobile and I could begin running errands: Getting boxes, packing supplies and grocery shopping. 

But first! 

With our appetites in a dire state, we headed out to breakfast. I brought A to Centerpoint Mall at Yonge and Steeles, it was a pleasant 10-15 minute walk from our place. The weather was April's finest: a cool 10 degrees, bright sunshine and cloudless blue skies. While we were walking, I realized that this would probably be the last time I'd be walking along this route for the unforeseen future. I'm really glad that I have A along on this trip because she is the fresh, critical eye to my complacent one. What I mean is that she takes pictures of things that I wouldn't think of because its just another mall or another grocery store to me. 

But A is the freshie here and she probably got all the most important pictures. When I say important I mean the ones that I would most likely treasure the most. Its not the famous landmarks that makes you nostalgic, its the field behind your house, the benches by the tennis courts you used to hang out, the yards of the houses you walk by everyday to get to the bus stop, the aisles in the chinese grocery store that provided much comfort when you missed home the most. Its those images that conjure up memories of my past 5 years here the most vividly. 

******

We headed for the food court in the mall and A chose Taco Bell because "the cinnamon sticks were too hard to resist." To be quite honest, I hate the Mall Food Courts here because they serve the most unworthy artery clogging foods and I wouldn't be caught dead eating any of that shit. 

    Boring, healthy (but still delicious!) me: Tuna Salad in Whole Wheat Pita + Coffee

   

   

    Party Food for A: Taco, Burrito, Nachos and Cinnamon Twists + Dr Pepper's (Like a Boss)

******

After breakfast we took a 10 minute walk to 7200 Yonge Street to rent the car. If you recall, we started out this trip on a bit of a dramatic note. It seems that is becoming quite a theme on this trip. When we finally found the car rental place (Enterprise Rent-A-Car, hidden behind massive blocs of car dealerships), all seemed well. The guy was able to offer three types of cars and I was pretty excited to be honest because....DRIVING IN CANADA! Something I didn't get to do after I got my license last year. Anyway, the drama starts during the payment process. He took my license and credit card and all was fine..until I made the mistake of mentioning that A was from out of town (country) when enquiring about registering a 2nd driver for the car. His attitude immediately did a 180 and he tersely handed me back my credit card and driver's license claiming that he couldn't rent us the car because "you have no proof of liability and you're under 25." I clarified whether proof of liability meant insurance and he said yes.

Well, I'm pretty sure that your website states that one of your company's products is CAR INSURANCE. So, you should be able to sell it to me if I don't have any and I want to purchase it. But he ganged up with another guy behind the counter discreetly and they both concluded : "yeah, we don't sell car insurance, try Hertz." *shrug* *shrug* *pretend to shuffle papers* *avoid eye contact* 

Why the hell would Hertz, another car rental company, be insuring a car from your company?! 

I guess he just didn't want to take the risk of renting out a car to drivers that are not from around these parts. Still, he could have just told us that. 

Anyway, we found another car rental place nearby and went for that instead. This time no mention about an out of town 2nd driver. Stated simply, we managed to get a Kia Rio in about 20 minutes. 

I was slightly nervous about the left hand drive after driving in Singapore for the past few months. But so far, any differences have not made themselves evident to me. I think I haven't been driving long enough in either places (left hand and right hand) to actually be accustomed to one side of the road.  Well then, here's to no accidents in the next few days. 

With our mobility power secured, it was straight to the Fed Ex Shipping Centre near my University to get boxes. They didn't have that many so we ordered some (F.O.C!) and then went to Staples to scrounge for more packing supplies. By this time it was 5 pm and I guess our stomachs were well and truly awake. So it was off to T&T (my favourite Chinese Groceries Store) for food. It was dinner for me and lunch for A. I eat according to the time of the day and A eats according to the order of the time she eats. 

Cheap and fabulous. 

******

Me 1 Jet Lag 0

A method has been disproven today.

I've flew enough long haul flights between destinations with opposite time zones to notice a pattern. Conventional, or rather, logical wisdom would dictate that if your destination has a 12 hour time difference from your point of embarkation and you arrive at 11am local time, you stay up (through the night according to your body clock) and go to sleep at night, like everyone else. I've been doing this about 4-5 times and it still takes me a while to adjust. Sure I can zombie through the day and sleep in the night but I get tired early (like, around 5pm) for the next few days.

Yesterday, we arrived in Toronto at 10am (10 pm according to our body clock) and it would've been business as usual, struggling to stay up until night time came around. But after lazing about for a few hours, I felt like utter shit: Hair a mess, eyes bloodshot, hungry but the body shutting down due to exhaustion etc.

I was happy to succumb to weakness of sleep.

Showered, hair dried, burrow under blanket, snooze, rinse, repeat.  I slept at 1.30pm Toronto time and woke up at 10.30pm..and proceeded to stay up through the night till 6am. After a Wizarding World of Harry Potter picture viewing party on Tumblr, A suggested we try and sleep a bit before doing anything. We decided that 4 hours should be enough to get us through. At 10am, we woke up and went about the day, neither of us having slept that much and.. here we are at 8pm TO time, still going strong. I'm surprised, I would've been happy to make it to 6pm.

Biologically, we spent most of today trying to fix our dire appetite and hydration levels.

I can sleep well tonight. Hopefully, we'll all be adjusted by tomorrow!

Picture-steps

This is what A does on long haul flights:

    This is instant micro wave baked pizza, in case you were wondering. 

This is what I do on long haul flights:

~Btw, Korean Airlines is really good. I never flew with them before and was pleasantly surprised. Comfy seats, lots of legroom (for tall people like myself), nice food and good service. Fully recommended!

********

Incheon Airport: 

SO CLOSE YET SO FAR ~ (I really want to visit Korea) 

********

At Regis Drive, the house we're staying at in Toronto (also the house where I spent most of my Undergrad years in!):

A eats to stay warm

                                         

I huddle in my bathrobe to stay warm

                                         

Pre Long Haul Flight Adrenaline Rush

It is wise to know a country's immigration laws before travelling to it.

We had a rude surprise waiting for us when we were attempting to check in at the Korean Airlines Flight counter at 11pm. The lady informed us that A couldn't board because we didn't have a return ticket out of Toronto.  Now for me, that was no issue because I have an official work permit that would allow me to move in and out of Canada with no problem but for A, this deficiency equated to indemnity forms that stated that Korean Airlines was not to be responsible if you were turned away at airport immigration.

Okay.

Cue A calling her travel agent in vain because it was Saturday Night.

We concluded that the only option was buy the tickets out of Toronto (To Taipei, our next destination) immediately on the spot. After much frantic attempts to get airport wireless and squinting + cursing at A's blackberry, the counter lady pitied us and offered us the flight counter computer. This resulted in us being mistaken for ground staff by some blissfully unaware Chinese National. Which was quite amusing since A was dressed in sweatpants and a blue sweatshirt and I, in some baggy purple shirt with a giant tiger on it. Yes, welcome to Korean Airlines, how may we help you?

At 12.10am, we FINALLY bought and printed our tickets and managed to check in our bags before the counter closed. Relieved laughter all around and A's Dad suggested to the counter lady that she upgrade us to business class after our stressful ordeal. Alas, no deal.

I went and googled this thing and here's what I found:

2. I do not have a return ticket. Can I travel to Canada with a one-way ticket?

• We strongly recommend that travellers who enter as tourists present a return ticket upon entry into Canada, but this is not a legal requirement. Port of Entry officers may want to see proof that the person entering Canada will leave before expiry of their authorized period of stay.

via Canada International FAQs

So you don't *require* a return ticket, technically.