Spent the last night before Taiwan figuring out the saddle point between minimum time spent as a stone at Changi Airport and minimum cost incurred going there. Finally settled on taking the 33 all the way to Bedok and then taking a taxi from there. The cab fare worked out to about $11, including midnight surcharge. Not too bad, although it did take more than 2 hours on the road. But it was a nice nap on the bus, and anyway the time would have been spent sleeping either at home or at the airport anyway. Same difference. Bedok bus interchange at 1 am was extremely quiet. And almost deserted. It was like the whole town centre was asleep.
Changi Airport was pretty quiet too; guess there aren't too many flights between the midnight rush and the sunrise rush. Terminal 3 is a nice and spacious place. The shops inside the passenger waiting area are arranged nicely around the corridors so that the whole place looks like a bustling shopping street. And the fountains and greenery outside the waiting area are pretty pleasant.
Presently it's time to fall-in. Regimentation begins.About half a dozen hours later we arrive at Taipei. We step off the plane, cruise through the unremarkable and rather empty airport (does Taiwan get this little air traffic? Strange) and step out to board the bus ... hallelujah. Are you sure we didn't just step into a sauna?
It's a long bus ride. About 5 hours to Meilin. And then training begins.
Phase 1A -- Training: Until 7 August 2008.
Training was, well, training. Something I don't really want to talk about and can't even if I did, courtesy of the collective blockheadnesses of MP Command, MSD, Mindef, the Cabinet, the PAP, Old Harry, and the Man. Suffice to say it was like training in Singapore writ large: mountains instead of hills, hills where there would have been microknolls, extreme heat and humidity, even worse than in Singapore, and distances magnified at least fourfold. Oh, yes, and the views from up high were excellent. Too bad we weren't allowed cameras.
Phase 1B -- Should have been Training: 7 to 12 August 2008.
But my immune system and the sandflies conspired to make it otherwise. Their very successful joint operation resulted in my being confined to the Medical Centre in camp for 5 days. So while my comrades continued to charge hills, march overnight and sleep at odd times in uncomfortable positions, I observed the sick bay ceiling, cleaned the medical centre, reported the current temperature to the Ops Room every hour during daylight hours, and watched TV. Caught the Olympic opening ceremony, which was truly spectacular, and a couple of movies.
Also went to a hospital in Douliu, the nearest town, twice. Once on the 8th, right after I came in, and once on the 12th. Douliu is a pretty unremarkable town, but it seemed the epitome of urban bustle after we'd been out in the field for more than 2 weeks, when the largest human settlements we saw were villages, with no more than a dozen or two low-rise buildings.The MO and medic were also nice enough to buy me breakfast in town both times. It tasted particularly excellent after combat rations and cookhouse food, although on hindsight it was perhaps just of the usual standard for Chinese roadside stalls. Burgers (freshly-made, not fast-food-style factory-made) and chicken cutlets figure quite prominently in Taiwan, somehow. American influence, perhaps.
On my release I went to join the rest of the platoon to do post-administration, packing up our bags and everything ... and promptly had to fall out after getting rather giddy in the overwhelming afternoon heat. Oh dear. Maybe I had been lounging in the air-conditioned Medical Centre for a little too long.
Phase 2 -- Rest & Relaxation! : 13 to 15 August 2008.
Despite all the drama of Phase 1B, I still got the full three days of R&R. Incredible and amazing.
A guided tour took up the first two days. It was, well, not too great. First the tour guide went crazy (but then she was quite helpful afterwards so we should just forgive her), then we visited an amusement park. Two roller-coasters promptly convinced me that undue accelerations weren't exactly my thing ><. And then there was the highlight ... getting suspended, sort of, at the top of a 110-metre vertical drop right before you plunge down, perpendicularly. What a thought, no?
By the first day night we had reached Taipei. The second day we went out again, to two more amusement parks, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. Did someone mention the word 'repetitive'? Yes, it is a very apt word to use here. The second one was really more for children. And by the time we reached the third ... we were all getting just a little bored. Fortunately, the guided tour didn't eat up all of the three days. So on the first and second evenings, we poked our heads around the major shopping areas. 士林夜市 and 西门町.
Not particularly remarkable, actually. The atmosphere and stuff on sale weren't very different from, say, major shopping areas in Singapore. Other than the food which was excellent. The mango ice was nice (except I bought too large a portion and got a stomachache), and using pastry to wrap up crushed pastry (大饼包小饼) produced an intriguing and pleasant texture. Oh yes, and there was this shop tucked in the 万年 Department Store in 西门町 that specialised entirely in Japanese magazines and design catalogues ... or actually I'm not quite sure how to describe the sort of publications. Somewhere in between the two, or maybe both at once. Like coffee-table books in that they were full of pictures and graphics, but not entirely that since they also had plenty of words and verbal description ... there were regular magazines, and unofficial owners' guides for various models of cars, collections of logos, colour catalogues, collections of drawings of anime characters, and more. Quite an interesting shop, and probably something you wouldn't find here. Or maybe I'm just being ignorant about it. (EDIT: Yes you can find such a thing here. Go to Kinokuniya's flagship store and look in the "Graphic" section.) Also, Taiwan is full of convenience stores, particularly 7-11's. Just an observation.
The last day was given over entirely to free and easy. Followed Pui Kit and Yihan to the 故宫博物馆 (National Palace Museum) for the morning. The Museum was quite a sight: large and grand, almost like a palace.
After viewing the superb lacquerware collection and a few of the other exhibits, a few of them rather jaw-dropping (the piece of braised meat or the cabbage, both carved out whole from precious stones, for example, or the concentric ivory spheres carved out of what was originally one solid piece of ivory) we split; Pui Kit went to visit Taipei 101 and Yihan somewhere southwest of Taipei, while I went, with Afiq in tow, to airmail excess cargo (which turned out to be a really bad decision, financially, in the end, but never mind that), and then to 中正纪念堂 (CKS Memorial Hall). Larked around the huge square around the Memorial Hall for a while, then went off to 鼎泰丰，a twenty-minute walk away, for lunch.
The 小笼包 were really excellent: the meat and soup just melted in your mouth. The egg soup was quite tasty too. It was most unfortunate Afiq couldn't eat anything there ><. After that we headed back, by foot all the way, passing by the National Theatre, built in traditional style with a huge Chinese roof, various government buildings built in an imposing and large style, the President's Office and the huge 凯达格兰大道 (Ketagalan Boulevard), the rather messy bus station. 
Taipei felt a bit like a mix between 厦门 and 南京, and perhaps 浦东. The parts around City Hall and Taipei 101 were most like 浦东: wide roads and broad plazas and skyscrapers, and bustling commerce. The bits near the Presidential Office were more like 南京: broad roads and facades, imposing buildings, lots of greenery and open space, an air of official seriousness. The parts around our hotel and further north and east were most like 厦门: old buildings, a little dilapidated, a faint air of faded glory. The place as a whole was rather less crowded than most cities on mainland China, or even today's Singapore, come to think of it. Singapore is getting awfully crowded. The MRT is often standing-space-only even during off-peak hours, and the difficult crowds in the shopping centres make movement at anything beyond a leisurely saunter difficult. Even the RJ campus feels like it's getting more and more cramped. But excuse me. Digression.
And the people seemed rather more polite and civilised. They queued up to board the MRT, unlike the huge crowds congregating around the doors and squeezing in here, or in China. On the escalators people would automatically keep to the right if they weren't moving. People didn't seem to be in so much of an impatient rush everywhere, and didn't show any impatience if you asked them for directions or other help.And, on the whole, Taiwan felt more Chinese than China. Here you hear Chinese being spoken everywhere, see signs on the roads and shops purely in Chinese and generally just feel soaked in Chinese. Whereas on the mainland there are plenty of people trying to practise English, the Chinese signs are usually accompanied by bad English translations, and the general perception that things Western must be better than things Chinese is still alive in some corners.
Day 21: 16 August 2008
And then we came back. A most uneventful journey homewards. Taipei CKS International was rather busier on the day we came back. Maybe it was just the time.
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