Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Day Three


I love pomegranates - it took me ages to de-seed it though!
Don't you love the Xmas theme? :)


We drove to Yin-Ge at lunch. It's this ceramics streets just oustide of Taipei...


They sell arty fartsy stuff as well as everyday ceramics kitchenware.

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I love cheesecakes with a passion, esp the ones here in Taiwan.

I grew up eating this pudding too...


ohh and this... soybean curd?! with taro and red bean soup...
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Ooodles of noodles..yumm

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Day Two Part I


We attended Thanksgiving service on Sunday morning
It so happened that they have their annual whole-congregation photo session today!
I was sitting at the back taking this photo but eventually they made me and Jen go up.


We rushed off to the hairdressers appointment.
This is me before. I don't really have an after shot though.
It didn't turn out very well an I prefer my previous 'do.


Rushed off again to Chiang-Kai Shek memorial for this theatre/opera show about the 'Black bearded Bible Man'


This missionary guy from Cananda- George Mackay had a huge influence in Taiwan back in the late 1800's and early 1900's.
He worked as a doctor/pastor in Taiwan back when no one had heard of the Gospel and stayed in here until he died.
He founded a university and hospitals here - oh guess where I was born! Yes, in his hospital here in Taipei! :)
This guy's amazing! But the opera didn't live up to my expectations though...
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Goodbye Sydney

Sydney Airport in the sky...



We touched down in Taipei at around 9pm local time.
Mum and Dad took us to have supper straight from the airport...


I am still not a fan of oysters...even mini ones...



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Ilha Formosa

So here I am again, in the comfort of my parents home in Taipei, far away from the end of year stress and work in Sydney...

Life is so different yet so familiar here for me, afterall, I am in the country where I spent the first 8 years of my life. And now I think about it, I've pretty much spent every single Christmas holidays in Taiwan for the past 15 years... some things just dont change! :)

Anyways, one thing I have to get used to is the length of my holiday this time. No more 3-month long break from those uni days! I am 'lucky' enough to get 1 month off work given I've only started work this January...just gotta make the most of my hols this time and make every day count!

I'll let the photos do the talking for now....

Sunday, March 16, 2008

I'm back!

If I know the way home and am walking along it drunkenly, is it any less the right way because I am staggering from side to side?

-Leo Tolstoy

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Temporary moving...

Since I am traveling for the next 6 months...I'll be journaling in this blog:

http://ayearwithviv.blogspot.com/

See you there :D

Monday, June 04, 2007

in 17 hours...

In exactly 17 hours, I will get my life back....

I will say goodbye to this computer lab that I've been calling home for the past few weeks...to the burgers at Maccas across the road that I've been feeding on almost every dinner, to the codes that I've been writing but fails to stay bug-free, to the usual morning fix of caffeine that keeps me awake throughout the day...

So loooong...THESIS....in 17 hours...

Thursday, May 31, 2007

update

I havent updated for the looongest time!

Here are some of the things that happened in the past few months.

1. I was so close to being kidnapped or abducted by some strangers at the bus stop. Lessons learnt! Stranger Danger!
2. My laptop died on me in the middle of my thesis. Should mention that I don't keep it a habit to backup my files. Another lesson learnt.
3. Got accepted to teach English at a high school in Paris for 6 months!
4. Met the nicest person on the face of the earth! :p
5. Spent most of my weekends inside the computer lab
6. I can no longer get through the day without the morning caffeine fix :(
7. Got a job at PwC next January as an IT consultant!
8. Got the worst mouth ulcer that is ouuuchhh!
9. Got an invitation to a wedding in France from an online friend I've never met before.
10. Missed a friends wedding as I forgot to mark it on the calendar :(
11. Had a chest x-ray done. Healthy lungs! Yay!
12. Watched the devil wears prada several times

Monday, May 07, 2007

why are there delays?

JAMES 1:2-4 NIV

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

-If you always reaped the harvest of your deeds immediately, the incentive to do right and refrain from wrongdoing would only be selfish. No faith, or love for God, would be required.
-During delays we have opportunity to demonstrate whether we really love God, and trust Him, or not.
-If we really trust God, time is not a problem. Leave that with God. His timing is perfect and He is dependable! We know He promised, and can never fail -- and that is enough.

I've received these words during the weekend and God continued to speak to me clearly about some of my desires and wants. I had a stressful week last week, mainly because I had wanted soemthing so badly and I knew I had done a terrible job trying to 'obtain' it. There were sleepless nights in which I blamed myself for my incapacity and inability to do a good job at getting it. I questioned why my countless prayers were not answered...fully aware that God has his timing and perfect plan for me, I was too stubborn to acknowledge the truth. Then He began to reveal Himself to me, and made me think about my motivations behind the desires...then He showed me that even when I am not faithful, He remains faithful. His words were so strong and comforting that I knew that not to trust Him and rely on Him would be the biggest mistake.

Recently, I've been feeling like I'm the perfect living example of the Murphy's Law, that "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong". As I am approaching the final leg of the thesis, my laptop decided to die on me and therefore there is a bit of a delay in my progress. On top of that, I'd been doing pretty terribly in other parts of my life.

...

will continue another time.