My Trip tp Puli, Taiwan
Monday, December 15, 2008
Its been 2 weeks now since I came back from Taiwan, and I think I am finally ready to blog about it.
I was really glad that Jovin came along with me on this trip since unlike the previous camps, my buddies did not go for this camp. Afterall, we are all aunties and uncles now, too old to be going for youth camp. He was initially apprehensive about the camp cos he didn't know anyone, but it was only a matter of time before he made friends with many of them. But maybe he might have got too comfortable and started to be his racist self and made a young boy cry.
I must have been very nice to him cos many people were asking if he were my son, and commented that I treated him like my son. Well, what to do, the Chinese saying goes: 一日为师,终身为父。
Puli is an extremely beautiful place and we were surrounded by mountains. The lack of high-rise buildings has allowed us to enjoy the many beautiful sceneries and our Creator's art work. The weather was great as the country approaches winter. It was one of those very rare occasions where I enjoyed staying in the sun and not have to sweat.
Other than having a chance to see the many works of the Corps, we managed to visited many nice places there (many thanks to all the staff from TSA). One place where we really enjoyed ourselves was the Formosa Village. It is like theme park where, at one location is all the rides and the cultural village on the other. It was fun going to that place with the youths. So far, all except one of my theme park experiences were with youths.
We also went to Sun Moon Lake, which was a really beautiful place to visit during when the sun is setting. The ride on the yacht was such an enjoyable and relaxing time, that was until just before the sun sets as it got too cold for many of us, especially those who left their windbreakers and jackets on the bus.
Last but not least, we visited the earthquake museum. The museum was built to commerate a major earthquake that killed many people in Taiwan. It was also the event that sparked off TSA's work in Puli. There was one point in time where our guide got a bit emotional while talking about the event and she was surprised that none of the Singaporeans seems to be moved by what she said. Can't blame our kids, they were not able to relate to the severity of it all.
On the whole, I really enjoyed this trip and find that Nantou is a really relaxing part of Taiwan. I would like to visit the place once more. This time, hopefully to bless the Corps there with some service that I can offer.