Summer in Taiwan: Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall

An #outdated post 

Chiang Kai Shek was one of the leaders of the Kuomintang Party in China. Back then, Taiwan was a part of China. And oh, I just checked Wikipedia . Taiwan is also known as 'The Republic of China' while the Mainland China is called 'People's Republic of China'.  On the day of our field trip around Taipei, we were brought to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. 

Meet Vera, a friend from Indonesia who loves the camera a bit too much. :P

Again 

While I, on the other hand, love to take pictures of buildings, sceneries

and candid pictures of people.xD 

See this girl?

Trust me, there are so many pictures of her in my camera. T__T HAHAHA) 

The one-whole-day of a field trip ended up with the bonfire night, where we were brought to a spacious field of some sort and that we had to dance around the fire ( reluctantly, for us Muslims), chanting 

'Oh, Mighty fire, God of fire' and bowed to it. Of course I just stood still. No way am I going to bow to the fire!!! If you refused to dance properly, you'd be given a sticker and would be forced to dance in front of everyone. All these experiences were rather new to me and I felt so sad and sinful. It made me question myself "Why didn't I just refuse to dance? Who cares if they thought that I am a boring person?" This is my religion, and I need to stick to my aqidah and principles. 

A funny story: Before the commencement of the bonfire dance, I was standing between this Korean guy, Lee on my right side and Cindy on my left side. When the committees ordered us to hold the hands of those standing next to us, I immediately ran away from Lee, taking Cindy with me. Lee looked confused and his facial expression at that time seemed to say "Why are you running away from me?" 

 Sorry Lee.. I should have told you nicely. Dx

Summer in Taiwan: Taipei Expo Park

It was the field trip day, from 8 in the morning till 12 at night. Our first stop was the National Palace Museum, Taipei. We were not allowed to take photos inside the museum. Correction: We were not allowed to bring a camera inside the museum.

The museum was okay. After we had finished sightseeing, we gathered in front of the museum. 

Kind of like the Forbidden City, but I am not sure whether it was once a palace or not. 

And, we took the bus to Taipei Expo Park.

Flowers!!! 

Hello Kitty Plane flying directly above us.

Moarrr flowerssszzz!!!

And we entered this amazing place. We were given this Power Rangers-like bracelet which we wore around our wrist, and as we entered into this place, we were awestruck! 

It's like a Flower show. Mechanical flowers changing its colours according to different seasons, and you could hear the birds chirping, the rivers flowing, anything that gives off the distinctive vibes of that particular season. The audio system was totally amazing!

You were required to put your bracelet to that space there, and the screen will pop up, asking you to choose one 'category' from several options like Love, Career, Family, etc. I had chosen 'Career'. Then a special flower hologram thingy would appear and move to your palm, and you had to grab that flower and close your palm.

A passageway. 

The same great audio visual presentations. You need to step on this particular round thing and the pictures on screen would change. 

If you ever dreamed to become a butterfly like that green caterpillar from 'A Bug's Life', then this is the perfect place for you to fulfil that desire of yours. :P

Walk and walk....

and tadaa!! You have transformed into a butterfly!!!

Again, more amazing 'high-technological' flower shows. Before you stepped out from this 'Flower Theatre', you were required to return your Power Rangers bracelet and received a 'flower card' of which there are descriptions about your future, based on the option you had chosen earlier. 

It was written in Mandarin, and Cindy, my Malaysian Chinese friend translated

It has something to do with 'You will become successful in the future, but you must work hard, get away from the distractions'. It sound similar to what I am encountering now but hey, it's a good advice to EVERYONE, right? 

Oh, I lost the card. :((

And, moving on to the 3D theater, 

Basically, a 3D presentation on how Taipei had developed all over the years to become a metropolitan city it is now. 

We went to another theater where we sat in the middle. It was a round-shaped theater.

And again, the screen depicted the places of interests in Taipei and all those beautiful stuffs about Mother Nature. 

And in the afternoon, we went to Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. Next post!!!