{A Photodiary} Taiwan D3: Taipei // Paragliding // Jiufen // Shifen

Hello again :>

Finally got back to posting D3 of Taiwan although its been months LOL. Guess I should continue haha :----)

Our driver brought us to paraglide on top of a hill, and the ride took about an hour.

First time paragliding so I was really excited about it! :-)

It was drizzling a little and the area was really cloudy, so the visibility was actually quite bad. Even so, since we have already driven all the way up here to paraglide, we just went ahead with it!

Jiufen

Headed over to jiufen after, the location where spirited away was based on! :-)
We had lunch here and stayed for around 2-3h, and there were many souvenir shops here -- definitely a good place to buy stuff! :-)

Ice cream popiah

rly nice view from the top

Golden Waterfall

Our driver then drove us down to the golden waterfall which was just nearby. TBH, it was quite underwhelming but it's still really amazing how the colour is so different.

Yin Yang River

The road led us to the yin yang river, where the colour of the river is really unusual.

Shifen Waterfall

After that, we drove over to shifen asap as it was getting quite late.

Shifen waterfall

Shifen

This was the best part of our trip :-) We walked over to 'fang tian deng', which is to set sky lanterns! :-)) Like the place in the really popular movie -- You are the Apple of my Eye.

There were many varieties of sky lanterns, and the different colours have different meanings

And we just had to hog the railway to take photos :')

Qi

Dong

Qing

HAHAHAH GUYS PLZ

Ali

Had to leave after a short while as we were going to overshoot the time we hired the driver :-(( But he was really nice not to charge us for the extra 1/2h although it was really our fault. :-)
He even drove us to the hostel to put down our stuff first before driving us to the nearby night market. So nice!!! :-))))

Anyway so this concludes day 3 of TaiBBBabes, finally.

Tingz

Daily cycles

Hello!! :-)

Today I've decided to test out my new lens alone so I cycled out at noon to work on my photography skills. I'm still an amateur and I rarely have time to practice both shooting and editing, so it's during these times when I can truly learn. So everyone please forgive my lousiness!! :_)))

Tingz.

a h m a

hello :-)

This' just some late night emotional post so if you don't wanna feel emotional or anything plz skip this :-)

My ahma passed away a few days ago, on Wednesday 14/09 and so now it is currently the midst of her funeral. Today is the last night of her wake, and tomorrow will be her funeral. Truth is, it hasn't been easy cause I know throughout these few days I've been avoiding best as I can not to think about it. I still remember the first time I saw her in her coffin once I landed in Penang, and my heart just broke seeing her inside. I did not hold her hands one last time ; I can never play with her flappy arms again ; I can never push her around in her wheelchair again ; I can never buy her her favourite food again. Everything just ran through my head.

The past few days I've been doing anything and everything but look into the coffin -- seeing her face was just too much to bear. It's funny how everyone tries to make the situation less sad, but that's inevitable. I haven't really felt the loss of a loved one before, since I wasn't really close to my other grandparents, and I was still quite young when they passed away, but it's really not easy.

Even typing on my bed, I could hear the sniffling in the room when we are all supposed to be asleep.

But nevertheless, I finally plucked up the courage to look at ahma's face one last time, before she will be cremated. My uncle just said softly, "take a good look at your ahma. It'll be the last time you'll see her. May we meet her in our next lives."

Hearing that made everything so emotional. I will never see her again??? Has it finally sunk in??? I'm really dreading tomorrow. I wish she could stay with us forever. I really don't know if I can get back to leading my life normally again for a while???

I just know, tomorrow, we will need a fucking load of tissues.

Tioman Dive Trip 12/8 - 14/8

Have you ever thought about what goes on under the never ending waves in the ocean? The luscious waves, gently engulfing one another are constantly creating white swashes in the sea of blue all around. It has been my dream ever since young to dive in the ocean, into a world different from what we have always been in. And now, I’ve finally have had the opportunity to learn diving with my friends before going on exchange overseas.

We signed up with DeepBlue Scuba after looking through the different companies which offers diving lessons. Part of the reason why we chose Deep Blue was due to the online reviews, but we were glad that we made the right choice. Tucked away in a little building called MMI building along 74 South Bridge Road, we made our way there for payment after booking our diving lessons and timings for open water dives (overseas) through email.

There was 1 theory session and 1 pool session which we needed to clear before going for our open water dives, and it was relatively easy to ‘pass’ these sessions, other than the fact that we had to tread water for 10min, but as a non-treader (I don’t know how to tread water lol) I struggled for the full 10min. HAHA.

TIOMAN

We took a bus to Mersing from Singapore (through Ubi) at 6pm on Friday, which took a total of around 3h to reach Mersing jetty. However, as the tide was too low, we had to stay for 1 night in Mersing before taking the boat to Tioman the next morning. One thing to note is that the Wi-FI there is H O R R I B L E. Don’t even try to send any Whatsapp messages as the connection was actually really bad.

At 5am all of us headed to the jetty again to take the boat to Tioman, which took around 1 1/2h before reaching. We stayed in a little hut-like room in Damai Tioman Resort in Genting. 5 of us stayed in a room together as it was more convenient for us to hang out to chill and instead of having to split us up.

Heading out to our first dive was rather exciting as we were grouped together with Rescue Divers who were under training, and we got to witness how their training was conducted. We were taught how to gear up properly, what to check etc, and what to do before entering the water. The air tank, is ESPECIALLY important. It’s like carrying your LIFE in the water. In the sea, we were tested on the skills we did during the pool session which was relatively easy so we cleared the stage quickly. The tough part about diving is equalizing, as the water pressure would affect the ears, and it is mandatory to equalize frequently, or your ears will hurt.

During our second dive, we were tested on the rest of the skills so that our next few dives after could be for leisure. Really, who wouldn’t want to see fishes when you are diving if you are already in Tioman?

Between dives, we went to the front of the boat to chill and the view was breathtaking. The vast horizon made the sea look so endless, and you’ll never stop to wonder what’s below the moving waves. The sun rays, though merciless, made the sea sparkle like tiny gems floating on the water, and we could get a nice tan at the same time too. It felt so much like a short getaway from all the responsibilities in Singapore, not needing to care about anything but diving and enjoying the view underwater. I felt so free.

Wendz!

Honestly, the leisure dives were the ones which made me excited the most as we could actually swim with the fishes and observe them. I was literally mesmerized by the world below, with tons of corals and sea creatures inhabiting the sea. Seeing how these fishes interact and swim together with others made it look like I was living the mermaid dream. However, it was regretful that we didn’t really know much about the different species of sea creatures, since knowing them would definitely make my experience much better.

We had to do this

Anyway, we felt that we should have gotten a GoPro to record the underwater views which were so spectacular. Maybe I should invest in a GoPro soon.

We left Tioman at 1pm on Sunday and reached Singapore at 7.30pm.

Tanned and PADI Open Water Certified, we are ready for our next diving trip!