JJCSB!
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Wednesday, December 15, 2010 @ 12:05 AM
Last night at Taiwan ):
Hi dear readers!
Today's post will be about our final day in Taiwan, the end of JJCSB's first ever overseas trip. After our breakfast at the hotel, we set-off to visit Anping Tree House, an architecture whose lng history has allowed it to become one with nature, with trees growing inside it and roots covering its walls. Our bandmate certainly had a wonderful time photo-taking in such a scenic location.

Next up, we visited the Ten Drum Cultural Village, originally an abondaoned sugar factory. However, with their member's creativity and determination, they have successfully converted the factory, producing one indoor concert hall, one outdoor concert platform, workshops to produce drums, classrooms for drum lessons, and even a temple dedicated to their God of Drums!




Always dedicated to showcase the ancient art of chinese drums, our guide held basic drum lessons with us. Naturally, we did well, much to the guide's pleasant surprise. Of course, the visit wouldn't be complete without a performance by the members looking at their breathtaking display of virtuosity at the chinese drums. I'm sure that they have definitely motivated us to work even harder and to strive for greater heights in our own playing.

After our lunch, at the village, we prepared ourselves for the long journey back to Taipei. Although the journey might be tiring, nevertheless, we were all excited to do some last minute shopping at another Taipei Night Market.

It was a mad rush to buy everything and anything, to bring back a little part of Taiwan to remind us of the wonderful time we spent there.

Although we definitely do not want the shopping to nd, it was still inevitable that we would hve to go back to the hotel. Now, we are all back at our hotel rooms, enjoying our last night in Taiwan.


Monday, December 13, 2010 @ 11:59 PM
Taiwan - Day Two
Today we woke up early to take a bus down to Tainan for the music exchange with National Nanke Int’l Experimental High School. After an arduous and torturous 4-hour bus ride (where everyone slept), we first visited the ZhengChengGong & WunChang Place, after which we had Hakka food for lunch. The food was healthy but neutralized by the KouRouBao aka Fatty Pork Bun. We learnt that the food is good for our blood circulation, eye vision, aids digestive system and improves metabolism rate.

After lunch, we took a bus ride to the school and prepared for our music exchange. We were happy and pleasantly surprised when the students gave us a cordial welcome. We went up stage to have a quick sound check before the start of the actual performance.


Performance-wise, we felt that many of us could have done better. And due to unexpected circumstances, we had little time to spend interacting with the students. Somehow, we were dismayed by the fact that we couldn’t do much with the students.

Still, amid the gloom and doom, Ms Lim reminded us to count our blessings in this trip, by the fact that this is the FIRST time the JJ band could travel overseas for a real public performance, by the fact that the hosting school accepted our sudden request for an exchange, by the fact that we even managed to travel to not just any ASEAN country but Taiwan. And while our exchange with the students was extremely short-lived to the point that we could only exchange our e-mails for Facebooking, Ms Lim wants us to remember that we have to be thankful that we been given this opportunity, to look at the perfection in our imperfections.

Mr Ong further augmented Ms Lim’s reminder by teaching us three words:
1) Intrinsic Motivation – ‘Motivated for the sake of being motivated’; we practise our instruments because we must (seniors recall : We Should, We Must, We Can, We Will).
2) Altruism – Doing good without expecting anything in return.

We were also reminded of the bonds we have forged since we set foot in Taiwan, bonds we forged playing games we could have played in Singapore, but in a sense needed to come to Taiwan to forge them, and thus this trip has been a rewarding one.

Bidding farewell to the students there, we headed for Tainan Wei-Yet Toong Mao Grand Hotel to have our dinner and stay for the night. We had funky fish, salty soup, diluted tea, many mian, glutinous rice and sotong balls, though the best of the dishes was The Coffin Board.








That’s all for today!

Thank you Mr Ong, Ms Lim, Mr Er and Ms Loy for this fantastically fun-filled field trip!
Goodnight to everyone and we look forward to tomorrow for another one the fool day~


Sunday, December 12, 2010 @ 11:26 PM
Taiwan - Day one!
Today was an awesome day with a full day cultural tour around Taipei ~

The morning breakfast buffet was scrumptious with ham, hard-boiled eggs and curry & rice :)

On our way for cultural tour =)

Have more vitamins, take care of your health people!!

We set off to Tamshui Historic Street and the best part was... ICE-CREAM!


Seems like the one who enjoyed it the most is Jinyang!

During lunchtime, we gave NuanQi a birthday surprise! HAPPY BIRTHDAY NUANQI! ^^


Then we headed to the National Palace Musuem. The tour guide, Sunny is really knowledgeable and fed us with lots of historical facts and we are really appreciative of it, ;)

This is our v v cute tour guide - SUNNY!

We also visited the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall.





The part that we were looking forward to finally came... XI MEN DING!
It is really like Singapore Orchard Road and is very very crowded!!
The second highlight of the day finally came - Shilin Night Market! It is totally like Singapore Bugis. There were lots of cheap and good deals around and we really look forward to tomorrow's music exchange and performance :)
Thats all for today. Stay tune for more updates from Weishan's and Nic's group tomorrow!! :>

Saturday, December 11, 2010 @ 12:15 AM
BEFORE THE TRIP.
Hehee. I hope all of you had finished packing and all good to go tmr! :D

Anyways, all of us had intense band practice this whole week and it's obvious that our parts are slowly falling nicely together, so good job guys! :) But do also remember to not forget what Mr Ong expects/ had gone through before.

All the best to all of us during the concert then :D

Well, just rest well and do take care of yourself so we'll have an enjoyable trip k?.
^^

Good night all,
Approx. 16hours to flight.

Friday, December 3, 2010 @ 11:45 AM
Taiwan!
Hey band mates who are going to Taiwan! Here's the packing list for the trip! Sorry it took so long :)

Click here (2010 version) or here (97 - 2003 version) to download it! :)


Only 8 more days to the trip, let's put in the best of efforts and make the performance a success! Only then, the sense of accomplishment we get will be much more rewarding. Don't give up, it'll only make the 3 months(?) or so a waste of all our time and effort we put in. We are almost there, don't let go of it! Most importantly, let's go there and enjoy ourselves! :D

Btw, I wanna congratulate all the sections who have made tremendous improvements over these few months. You know who you are. You deserve a pat on your back :) Keep it up! SYF is around the corner~

Also, thank you all the J2s who are helping us! Your efforts are greatly appreciated. :)

Darrel :)

P.S Do leave a tag, the tagboard is so dead.