Alexandra Hospital photos and an oooooops....

Pathway up to the hospital. It's been drizzly the last few days so we haven't had quite as many patients.

Beautiful grounds and gardens...you can just see the front of the hospital through the trees

The hospital has some artwork on the walls. Some of them have fuzzy flocked patterns on them.

So, this used to be a treadmill test. Then it got knocked off the table and into the shredder...
 By some freak coincidence, it was at exactly the correct angle to get stuck in the shredder. And the shredder was on. And working. Here is the end result.

House officer's worst nightmare...

Protip: it is not advised to put original copies of patient documents in shredders, especially when the one and only copy of the consent form is attached.

Countdown to Oceania!

I am going to be at the Oceania Karate Championships in Sydney on the 15th-16th September, fighting in the under-50kg womens' division.

Far East Plaza

Today's post is brought to you by Hipster Hamish. I swear these glasses have magical powers that make me want to buy all the super-cutesy girly-girl things in the world.

Animals of Asia (i.e. mostly pet shop/petting zoo photos)

This cat is so chill.

Jurong East, Bugis Street/Junction/+ and a lot of shopping.

So my plan today was to go to Bugis Street and go shopping, as recommended to me by some of the local Singaporeans. And it was a Very Good Idea. I went there in a roundabout way via Jurong East, since I initially got on the bus going west rather than east. Oops. I had a wee poke around Jurong East trying to figure out how I'd ended up there, then decided the best course of action was to take the bus to the MRT and actually figure out which way to go on the train. I also had a lychee iceblock which was fairly average.

I am bad at blogging about food

This is why. See this? It was once a very attractive slice of cake. Note that I didn't even think about photographing it until halfway through its demise.

Introducing a kitty.

This is Nala.

Shopping.

Singapore, part 1

After 9 days in Taiwan, it was time to depart for the first part of my amazing Asian shopping trip elective in Singapore. As I left, Kit's mother gave me a graduation present (no, NOT the hexapus...) which I opened as soon as I got to the airport. It is awesome and will be worn at some point during grad weekend.

Given that the airport is over an hour away from Miaoli, I think I did pretty well to not open it for that long, although that might have been to do with the fact that I put my bag in the trailer rather than the car. Once I got to the airport, I had a couple of hours to take photos and spend my remaining 120NTD. There was no shortage of options for amusing myself except for a lack of claw machines.

Hamish and the Hello Kitty check in terminal.

Night Markets, Taichung Edition. And waterslides!

So first I'm going to post pictures of things I didn't buy at the night markets...

Like these flowering cacti in all the bright colours! I was tempted to poke them to make sure they were real.

Miaoli + Taichung

The conference finished after visiting the national park, so Kit and I took the train from Taipei to Miaoli (where his parents live). I was thoroughly exhausted and sick of trains by that point, so we had dinner and crashed.

 Dinner was hotpot with beef and a whole plate of things. And a 500mL bottle of beer :P

Magical tiny baby mushrooms. I'm pretty much in love with the magical tiny mushrooms on stalks.

Taroko National Park aka the time I really wanted to go swimming (and couldn't)

From Hualien City we hopped on a tour bus with the mean disco lights...

and somehow (I was asleep for this first part) ended up here!

Hualien City

From Yilan we went to Hualien. Kit was very unimpressed when waiting for the train :P

And Hamish was tired from all the travelling.

He perked up a bit as the train was due to arrive though!

People of ACTION2012

Those are some amazing, amazing tents people.

Despite me wittering on about my adventures in Taiwan for several posts, I haven't shared some of the most amazing parts - mainly because I feel like this blog is very public, and making friendships/meeting people is a very personal experience that no-one can really understand from the outside (and consequently, people get terribly bored reading it in a public blog post)

However, many of the delegates are now added to my facebook, so hopefully this will serve as a reminder of all the relationships and the intangible things that occurred during the week. I apologise if I miss anyone out in the photos, mine are mainly of the best group Group 2!

Mainly because, of course, group 2 was the best. And no, I'm not biased...but I think I jumped in front of Ai in this picture, sorry!

Far doesn't really count because I already knew him, but it's a good picture of the tents!

We all look JUST like the window, right?

Also Toroko National Park...

....aaaaaaaaand if you can't remember me, I was the crazy one running around screaming about aliens and people trying to kill me (and just screaming)

Yilan, or "camping" in Taiwan

So we all went on a field trip to a campsite about 1 hour from Taipei proper. Now, the Taiwanese and New Zealand versions of "camping" vary somewhat. In the Taiwanese version, you have little concrete or wooden platforms which are raised off the ground, and the tents are not attached to the ground at all. This really, really confused me. There's also no playground, the river is off limits due to being dammed and likely to flood at a moment's notice, and the swimming pool is empty. Oh yeah, and they have things like snakes - someone spotted one! And squat toilets, but those are kinda ubiquitous.

On the plus side, the butterflies are FANTASTIC, open fires are permitted as long as they're in the prescribed area, there's a blowtorch if you need some help getting things going, the river can still be accessed (red tape is a guideline, not a boundary, and all it said was that we weren't liable if we crossed it), the tents and bedding are provided, and there's no cursing about people forgetting poles and pegs or sleeping bags. And there was a rope set-up to show how you can get across obstacles, plus practical tuition on rope harnesses.

Trees and bubble gun.

Does this tree not look like it should be in a Seuss book? Sure, it's no Truffula tree, but it's cool, right?

Shilin Night Markets!

Taiwan, Day 1

Day 1: Taipei 101

My first impression coming into Taipei was that it was just like SimCity! I'm sure all big cities in the world are like that, towers and apartments and construction and half-finished roads and tiny-looking cars, but the drive from Taoyuan Airport was particularly mesmerising as there was a lot of infrastructure being built. Of course I forgot to take any pictures because I was so busy rubbernecking at people driving on the wrong side of the road and all the freaking scooters. Have some blurry artistic cityscape (the blurriness represents the fast pace of life! and the lack of focus is the impersonality! and...and...yeah.) instead.

Between travelling and visiting 101 there were a few things like dinner and lectures, but I barely had time to sit down and was still in the same clothes I'd been travelling in (yuk) so there are no photos of me. Hamish was feeling a bit sticky and gross, so I left him to sleep while I was out.

Obligatory Taipei 101 lit up shot.

We actually didn't go to the top because we are all cheapskates and the view from our hotel was pretty good anyway, so we all went to the mall at the bottom (full of designer stores) and a huge enormous bookstore down the road.

Oh and I forgot to mention in my last post...there were these awesome Swatch watches in Duty Free. Anyone remember the hypnotising glasses you used to be able to cut out from old comics/serials? The one on the left of it is pretty awesome too.

 

On the right - actually looks a bit like a foetus with a knot in the umbilical cord, right?

The Travel Diary of Hamish Constantine the 42nd (and myself)

Introducing Hamish Constantine the 42nd, a hexapus who is much more photogenic than I am and who will be consequently featuring in many of my travel photos. He apologises for the introductory myspace angle.

We're going to Taipei! Have some transit photos.

Flying Singapore Airlines - total travel time was 16 hours, stopovers not included. I also had a wee bit of a snicker when a lady was told she couldn't sit in the exit row because she required a seatbelt extension.

Spot the hexapus

From the window...So. Much. City.

And touchdown in Taoyuan international airport, a "sultry" 30 degrees in full sun and what felt like 100% humidity!