OELP Taiwan - Day 1

25th May 2014 

-Assemble at Changi Airport to board our flight to Taipei.

-Upon Arrival, proceed to Hsinchu by high speed train.

Yijun: Today is the day that we have been anticipating, it's the day that our trip to Taiwan begins. It's been a very nervous day before the flight and I could hardly get any sleep, during the check-in at the airport, I was so excited that i could hardly control myself. During the flight it was indeed quite boring, I wasted some time by playing games and chatting with my friends about this trip, it was so very intense. Upon our arrival in Taiwan until the bus trip to the restaurant, I was so hyper that i could not stop talking with my friends, it was quite rude after I had realise that I had not been listening to the teachers and tour guide's instruction, I feel ashamed of my actions and hope not to do it again. Nevertheless, it had been a fun day, I have greatly enjoyed it and I hope that the following days would be just the same :) Finally, we arrive at Taiwan! 

Sharlene: Finally Day 1 of Taiwan!!! I was so excited for this day that I woke up three times in the middle of the night and went back to sleep, dissapointed that it isn't morning yet. It's a surprise that I could even wake up naturally! So first off, I was late to reach the airport at 8am sharp because my family made the wrong turn and were lost on the way. Oops! ): After checking in, I watched "那些年, 我们一起追的女孩” on the plane and it was great YAY. Here's a view out of the window: 

 

The whole day has been of travelling, the high speed train from Tao Yuan to Hsinchu was the first experience for me. The picturesque view was relaxing and beautiful. It surprised me that commuters can eat and drink on the train because in Singapore, we are not allowed to eat of drink on public transports. Even though the locals could eat and drink on the train, they were considerate by keeping the train clean. 

The tour guide seems very friendly and experienced, I hope to learn more about Taiwan from him throughout this trip. Also, our behaviour as a class was not very favorable today. I think it is because we were overly excited and because it's the first day on this trip. After the briefing, I think that we will make changes to improve tomorrow. The three important things to take note is:

1. Awareness to surrounding

2. Respect others

3. To be considerate

All in all, today was fun and there's more to look forward in the next 6 days! :) And all the best to Fiona for being the Day IC tomorrow!

Shaun: Today is our first day in Taiwan! I was really excited at first, but it turned out that most of the day was spent on traveling, which was exhausting. It was my first time in Taiwan and also the first time I took a high speed train and it was really cool traveling at 273km/h. The fun started when we were taking dinner. We really enjoyed the food especially the meatball soup and had lots of fun laughing around. However, we did not think about the other customers and were making a lot of noise even on the train and at the airport. We must remember at all times that we are representing our school. I think that this is one area we should definitely try to improve on from tomorrow onwards. Secondly, we should always listen attentively to the tour guide as this is a form of respect. It is also because we can only learn more about the history, geography and culture of Taiwan. Other than that, we should learn to cooperate with the IC of the day so that our trip will be more enjoyable. 

Fiona: Today was finally the day!!!! We were all very excited for oelp. I felt that our behaviour was very bad and that we were very rowdy. I could also tell that the tour guide was quite annoyed with us when many people were talking when he was speaking. We can definitely improve in our behaviour tomorrow and I will try my best to manage the class tomorrow, when it is ny turn to be the IC. We should always keep in mind that we are not only representing ourselves when we are here, but also representing RV and Singapore. Our behaviour was unacceptable and we should definitely reflect on this. I hope that we can improve tomorrow when we visit the Hsinchu Experimental High School. Overall, we still had fun and we are very satisfied with our rooms!! ;) hope that tomorrow will be a success!!!

Esther: Today is the 25th of may, which is the first day of our highly-anticipated taiwan oelp trip. I was very excited as this is only my second time going overseas with the school. Everyone else was also equally excited just like me and discussed about it in groups. Even though we did not manage to go to any famous landmarks today except riding the highspeed train, we still had a lot of fun and we also learnt about some of the history of taiwan from our friendly tourguide. We also went to some convience stores like 7-11 and i found out that they were very different compared to those we had in singapore. There were more choices of food available and they issued different receipts. I hope to learn more and visit more in hsinchu tomorrow where we would go to a school first and then the industrial park :). However, i do think that there were more things that we could have improved on as a class, such as the noise level and sensitivity to our surroundings. We should learn to be more quiet and remember that we are representing river valley high, and not on a casual vacation with our friends. 

SORT OF A GROUP PICTURE (HI WEE HUNG)