Simaya vs Wild

Hello!!! Today on Simaya vs Wild I went on a
wild adventure through the wild! (The Sandiaoling hiking trail just outside of Taipei city).

First thing in the morning after having the hotel breakfast,  my family and I hopped onto the train that would take us to the starting point of the hiking trail. On this very long train ride of 1 hour I learned from my dad about relativity and the speed of light! It's really cool but I don't remember it all.

Once we arrived at our destination we went looking for the hiking trail. We read that the trail begins at an elementary school.  We thought that the path would be past the school but we were wrong. At first it seemed that we were going in the right direction because of the flags that lead the way. I walked up a lot of stairs and travelled  through some, not very travelled paths.  We realized we took a wrong turn from the beginning!

While following the trail that I thought was the right one, I found a couple of large jars. At first I had no idea what it was but I soon figured out that the jars may have contained cremated people as this was a grave yard! Beside many of these jars were tomb stones! Where there are tomb stones, there are dead bodies! That means that I could have accidentally stepped on someone!




After venturing off into the wild and back we found the real hiking trail and so we followed that trail. The right trail was behind the school not past it and it took me and my family around an hour to get back on track! On the path, my siblings and I met an older lady that had been hiking for 2 hours.  She told us that it's an hour hike to the first waterfall and 30mins to the next water fall, then a very tall ladder is right after the second waterfall, and the last waterfall is not too far after that. As she was talking to me and my siblings she noticed that my dad's knee was causing him a bit of pain.  She told us that she thinks that he wouldn't make the whole hike so she went over to my dad and started to rub his knee while saying something in Mandarin.  There's always a first for everything!

Simaya vs Wild:  The First Adventure (Ep 1) - This is the first of many Simaya vs Wild episodes. Today on Simaya vs Wild, I'm going in to the real wild somewhere in the wild South-East Asia (A hiking trail just outside of Taipei city)! Click the link below to se me venture off into the wild, get completely lost, find my way back and see Simaya vs Wild special : Dangerous Dangers!

Simaya vs Wild: The First Adventure (Ep 1)




Later near the end of the hike we got lost again!  The trail lead to a small quiet village like I've never seen before.  I asked some locals which way is to the Shifen train station.  He told me to follow a road and that would lead me to the train and the train would take me to Pingxi (Pingxi is a very small area in which at night you can light sky lanterns and watch it fly). I walked for about 10 mins and then I saw a little shuttle bus go in the opposite direction. At first I didn't think that the bus was going to turn around so I was going to keep walking. Luckily this older man came out of his house and told us to wait at the bus-stop. Then I ran back as fast as I could and then the bus stopped at an abandoned looking bus-stop to pick us up. The bus driver told us that this was a free shuttle to wherever we want to go.  He took us all the way to Pingxi, our final destination.

After exploring this very small area, we got to the sky lanterns! We chose the sky lantern colour and then we painted our wishes on it.  I also painted the Canadian flag because I'm proud to be Canadian!

Click the link below to watch a video of when I launched my sky lantern.

Our Sky Lanterns at Pingxi 

I'll post soon so bye for now! :)

~ A Really Cool Canadian :D

Taipei

Once I left the airline I found the bus that would take us to our hotel.  The bus was like a coach bus with curtains and suspended TVs.  The 45 minute bus ride to the Cosmos Hotel didn't seem that long because of the cool local shows that were on TV.

After I settled in, my family and I went out to explore the area.  I found this night market called Ximending. I really liked Ximending. It's known to be a very popular night market for teens.  Ximending was my favourite place to go after a full day of exploration because there is always something to do.  There are a lot of shops that look interesting, like a little DIY cake decorating shop or a clothes store with a different style from one in North America! You would also see little restaurants serving local food.

When I ate at one of the authentic restaurants the menu was completely in Manderin.  There were no pictures on the menu and of course I don't speak or read Mandarin.  Since we needed help to order,  I asked two people that were sitting at the table next to us to help me order. These two guys are originally from Malaysia and they had come to Taipei to study computer science for one of their university courses.





The next night at the Ximending night market I met a girl who worked at a clothing store called Fifty Percent.  Though she didn't speak English and I don't speak Mandarin, she still tried to help me. I didn't catch her name but we did take a picture together.  We both liked each other's style in clothing.  Her style is very anime-like and my style is more North American. It was very different for both of us.






One day when I was going to the National Palace Museum my family and I met 3 medical students. They are from Denmark and are in Taipei to study in the hospitaland to travel. They told us that this was their first time traveling together and they have studied in many places like Canada, USA, Denmark (of course) and Taipei!

The last of all the people we met were high school students from the Ruifang train station going back to the Taipei after our long hike in Sandiaoling. 

While my family and I waited for the train to arrive, a group of teenagers (mostly girls) were looking at me and my siblings and then giggled. Apparently,  they thought Ethan was cute and they wanted a picture with Ethan, me and Kira! After taking lots of pictures, we got to know one another a bit more.  They are all in their last year of high school and they were just going home now from school. I was shocked because it was almost 8:30PM and they were just getting back from school.  One of the girls, Angel told me that school starts at 6:00 am and ends at 7pm and they get home at around 9:30! Once we got to our stop we had to say goodbye and then we left with yet another interesting experience!

One of the best things to do in Taipei is shopping because the style is so different from Canada.  Taipei has a lot of Japanese influence and that's why the style is so different!

I'll post soon so bye for now!

~ A really cool Canadian :D

International best friends

Once I got off that Singapore-air flight I knew this was not going to be a 2 month long vacation.  I suddenly realized that Singapore is going to be my home for a while.

So many thoughts rushed though my head as I waited in the car going to the NUS (The National University of Singapore). The drive was not very long since Singapore is only about 48 Km long. The first thought that popped into my head was that I would be on the other side of the world with my family but not my friends.  I assumed that there would be nobody here my age and the next 6 months would be like living in a ghost town, quiet and alone. I was wrong!

After the first 2 weeks of going to the gym with nobody to meet, I met a girl named Alice. Alice is 10 years old. She does competitive swimming and short distance running. We decided to meet at breakfast so we could hangout more.  She told me that I have a really cool North American accent. I think that she has an amazing Australian accent!

We became best friends and I introduced Alice to my family and she introduced me to hers.



Kira, Ethan and I hung out with Alice and her older brother Albert. He is 14 years old.  Alice and Albert were here in Singapore for a month. We all went to the basketball court together, then the pool, and to finish the day we'd all go to the gym. We even spent New Years together down at Marina Bay!

The gang and I accumulated more and more friends!  Jakob and Sara joined the group. Jakob is my age and Sara is 9 years old. They were in Singapore for only 7 days. We all hung out at the pool playing Marco Polo.  Playing Marco Polo was our thing to do every day! All together we were such an international mix; my siblings and I are Canadian, Alice and Albert

 are Australian, and Jakob and Sara are Danish.

We all had so much fun together! As a group it was so easy to gather up more friends. In the pool, Alice and I met this girl named Mahaut.  She is from Paris and she will be here till June. Mahaut loves to read and her favourite pool game is Marco Polo! Mahaut and I played squash once! I've never played squash before but she taught me how to play.

A month later I met 4 other kids.  Veronica, Jessica, Claire and Robert are from Switzerland.  They speak German and will be moving to Singapore in July.  They were checking out schools during their visit.  We played Marco Polo and soccer while they were here.  We didn't get play with them as much because I left for a trip to Taipei and they went back to Switzerland before we returned.  They had left a little goodbye note under our door to say farewell and hope we meet again!

You'd be surprised at how fast time goes by when you have nice people to spend it with. We are all international best friends and hope to meet again soon!

I'll post soon so bye for now! :)

~ A Really Cool Canadian :D