Believe me when I say this: I Hate Winter.
written: 5:12 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 25, 2008

The short of it is, I fell sick when we went to Alishan. And luck would have it that it wasn't just a regular old flu; it was some whatever sudden ear infection that caused some part of the ear to swell. As a result, I couldn't fly - which meant I had to stay in Taipei while my dad and my brother flew off to Kinmen. At one point, I was seriously worried that I wouldn't be able to come home on Christmas, as planned. We were also supposed to go to Tainan for a day after leaving Alishan but because I was running a fever, a headache, and having a dripping tap for a nose, we checked into a nice 5-star hotel at Jiayi (where Alishan is situated) instead and spent the night there. The only upside to that was the awesome 5-star hotel and seeing my third aunt who made the arrangement for us; that was about it.

I wouldn't have given a damn about the ear infection or whatever and would have just gone to Kinmen, except the doctor advised me not to fly and said that if the infection got worse, I'd go deaf.

DEAF. My right ear was inflicted with this loud whooshing, like the sound of the wind when you speed down the expressway with the windows opened. It felt blocked, and it had felt blocked for more than 24 hours by then. The problem first started when we descended from fucking Alishan. I thought sleeping in the cab would take care of matters, but no - I woke up, my ears still felt blocked, and when I yawned I felt a sharp searing pain piercing through both ears. I thought it would go away after a while - meaning by the next day, latest. But the 5-star hotel didn't do the trick; we got back to Taipei and the whooshing started. I thought it was the water that I accidentally sprayed into my ear when I was taking a very comfortable hot shower in the hotel room's disgustingly luxurious bathroom - but it wasn't. It persisted until about 7 p.m. when my mom brought me to the doctor and then, my trip quickly and steadily got flushed down the toilet. First Tainan bit the dust, and then Kinmen was next in line (two ways to get there: plane or ship. Ship takes forever. And apparently the port isn't even in Taipei). At first I wasn't too bummed about it because I didn't really want to go to Kinmen super badly and I thought the three days in Taipei weren't enough.

But as the days wore on, as I dragged myself through each day fighting to stay awake on the Metro, in Taipei 101, walking down Zongxiao East Road Sector 4, in the Taipei Art Museum, especially on the Metro, as I spent each day with hardly an appetite, it became painful, it became laborious, it soon became very, very boring. I genuinely had no mood to do anything: no mood to eat, no appetite to eat, no mood to even shop, and even if I was in the mood to shop, there was nothing to buy. The winter fashion was obviously unsuitable for Singapore's perpetual summer, and everywhere I looked, I saw coats, turtlenecks, long-sleeved knitted blouses. I slummed around departmental stores a lot, like Sogo and Xinguang Sanyue (I forgot the Japanese name), which was a humongous waste of time. If you're a Singaporean with average income and you want to shop meaningfully in Taipei, don't bother wasting your time in departmental stores. The clothes are unspeakably expensive. A random dress can go for NT$4000, which is around S$200 - and we're not even talking about recognised and recognisable brands. I don't even know where those people get off pricing their clothes like that because basic salary in Taipei isn't even that high. My mom always says this, and it's so true: We become poor when we go to Taipei.

Of course, this isn't true for night market clothes but then, I went to Shilin purely for the deep-fried spring onion pancake (there was a queue! Third year in a row buying from that road side - literally road side - stall and the queue stretched to the main road), and even if I'd wanted to buy cheap clothes, 99% of the stuff was long sleeves winter-appropriate material anyway. So yeah, I wasn't even arsed to look around, couldn't be bothered, made-in-Taiwan shoes are dirt cheap (I bought three pairs of shoes) but nearly always too small for me. Their biggest size is like, half a size smaller than the size that I wear, so the fact that I managed to find shoes to buy is a miracle in itself.

And as a further testament to the ridiculous prices that are tacked on imported fashion, the Mango coat I bought in Singapore went for NT$7000-something in Taipei. That's at least S$350 - and I bought it for S$178, after being marked down from S$255. And the one in Taipei wasn't even on sale.

I love Taipei's departmental stores; the clothes are so varied and alluring. But one look at the price tag and I immediately turn the other way. It's absolutely insane, is what it is. And the thing that struck me most during my aimless and pointless shopping trips? The malls were really, really empty. Taipei 101 was like a ghost of its former self, the Sogo in Yonghe where I stayed barely had any customers, and the only time when I had to fight with the crowd was when I was in the smaller, lower-end Sogo in Zongxiao East Road. Shilin was packed to the brim, for sure; but the malls were sad and empty.

So yeah. Taipei wasn't what I expected it to be. Of course there were high points, but generally, the trip was just...lacklustre and disappointing, and I sorely, sorely missed Singapore's stupid weather. Of course, the moment I stepped out of Changi Airport and felt the humidity smother me, I longed for Taipei's dryness. Haha. I can never win, eh?

I'll write about the trip in more details another day. I have to go for some family dinner in a bit.

***

Before I post this: Everyone knows I don't care who knows my grades and I post my grades here every semester without fail (well, as far as memory serves anyway). So this isn't me boasting or rubbing it in or whatever; it's just what I do.

I think NUS Law gave me the best Christmas present ever - no, the best present, ever. My most listless, lackadaisical semester turned out to be my best. The world has been turned upside down, emptied of its contents, the cosmos have gone out of whack. I genuinely have no clue how this happened:

Conflicts: B-
UN Law: A
Law, Governance and Development in Asia: A-
Interpol: B+
State Building: B+

The only disappointment is State Building. I was secretly hoping the minimal effort I put in could get me an A-, but alas, it was not to be. But then, who can complain about a B+ when the paper took second seat to Roger Federer? In fact, I don't know how I didn't get a C for Interpol, how I didn't fail Conflicts and got a B- (?! WTF), how I thought I completely misread Question 2 for LGDA and still got an A-. I would've been happy to have lucked out with a pass.

So yeah. I don't know. I was all ready to resign myself to the second lower and not give a damn for the final semester, but this had to happen. Not that I'm seriously complaining, but...I'm really damn sick of school. I haven't found a module to replace Directed Research yet (still refuse to do it) but I'm pretty sure it's going to be an FASS module. We'll see.

Okay I gotta go.

before sunrise // before sunset

Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010