Back from NCO Camp and Taiwan Trip

A New Addition! The White Tiger!June Holidays 2008 was practically more like a 1 week March/September school break for me. Start of the holidays was the all so great weekend at the camp Resilience at Pulau Ubin. Tired and worked out, I came back home on the following Monday with around a week before I board the plane to Taiwan. As you know, holiday homework will definitely be present and as the days flew by, it slowly stacks up, finally piling up to a mountain of stress and work. Of course coming back from the all so great camp at Pulau Ubin would require me to take a few days of break. I rested and played hard, bonding so close with my PS3 and leaving no time at all for my textbooks to swing in. Before the Taiwan trip, I have another 2 days of full day courses. There goes another 2 days of resting. Time passes quickly and it is time for the Taiwan trip. I went for around a week, spending money and time resting (supposedly, well I prefer resting at home but still.) at the hotels there etc. Back the following week later, I had only two days of rest, before my recent NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer. Something like a preparation camp for us students before we take over the unit) camp starts. It was way exhausting and painful physically. The camp was carried out for around 3 days and I recently came back home not too long ago. Now I am left with practically a few more days before school start. Should I rest? Or maybe I should perhaps start working on my homework? Oh well, that sure is stressful and a difficult decision to make. It is like choosing from a million of dollars or a million of cents. Resting is just so tempting. Argh.  Anyways, lets not talk about that, instead lets talk about my camp and trip.

Taiwan Trip

The trip was okay, average to be exact. Nothing too special to set it apart from my other tours I had before. I was there on tour, which means the time spent on moving is much more then the time spent on sightseeing, shopping or simply exploring the different places. We had the usual buffet breakfast, four to three star hotels, bus rides, history lessons, and some tourists trap spots. However, all those are really nothing much to remember. What was most significant in my memory, was two events that took place. Both happened on the same day, and it had to do with some Chinese stuff. Please do not quote me or anything, I am just recalling from what I heard and saw and if I remembered incorrectly, spare me.

You see, the tour group was brought into this Chinese herb shop that sells herbs that are extremely beneficial to us humans. Basically it sells Lingzhi (very healthy and helps prevent cancer etc) and LuTai (some part of the deer baby or something. I think it is the fetus if I am not wrong) and it states that its products are 100% genuine and helpful. Okay, whatever, companies self-praising and making lots of promises are always common. However, the professor there indicated something that seems rather, well not too appropriate. Yes indicated, he did not speak about it directly, instead indirectly through experiment and the choice of words, he brought down the local hong ri pai ling zhi saying that it is not 100% real and that taking one year of their would be equal to the sum of six years of eating the hong ri pai ling zhi. So basically for whomever out there who is a regular buying hong ri pai ling zhi, please do not feel pissed off or anything, that is just what the professor there states. He also says that ling zhi in tablet for is rather hard to believe and that if best, choose the latter (the whole lingzhi instead of tablet form). 1 year is to 6 years. Wow.

Another thing was the funny fengshui masters and their so called apprentices’ words. I went to China before, went to their fengshui tourist spots as well. What was so different was the words from both sides of the fengshui masters. The China said that you should never let people touch your erm that lion thing, as it would mean that all your wealth would go that person who touches. However, for the Taiwan master, he told us ALL to touch his lions so as to get wealth and healthy bodies. Weird. So the next thing was the gender of the lions (not sure but it looks like lions anyways). For the China side, they had different names and if I remembered correctly, the China master’s male was the Taiwan master’s female. Who should I believe? Then followed the incident when the assistants were persuading us to buy their amulets or necklaces. We seriously had them already, so we truthfully and politely told them we had already purchased them before from China. Guess what their reply was? “Na Li Zhong Guo? Ta Men De Shi Jia De, Pian Ren De” (Which part of China? Theirs are all fakes, you got cheated”. And all the faces looked rather pissed and pulled. Kind of weird eh? Isn’t Feng Shui, Feng Shui? I don’t remember having Taiwan Feng Shui and China Feng Shui. Oh oh, perhaps there is also Singapore Feng Shui?

That is basically all of my Taiwan trip that was interesting. Now on to the exhausting NCO Camp.

NCO Camp

The NCO camp was basically created to train and prepare the next batch of officers who are about to take charge of the unit (NPCC in my case). Be it training them on how to teach or spread the joy of being a NPCC Cadet, the different cheers and methods of commanding etc. It is simply everything to make sure that the unit does not fall after you take over. Therefore, it will have to be tough, and not fun. Drills drills, tying of knots and more tying of knots. Some lectures and that is everything. What was most memorable are the hours long of drills with just minutes of short breaks for consumption of water. Of course the day where we are let off from the camp was fun as well. Usually on the last day of the camp, everything will go so smoothly such that you think the camp was awesomely fun and exciting. No seriously the officers will forgive and forget whatever wrong you have committed so on and so forth. Nothing much to talk about just that the camp sure have worn me out and made me drained of energy.

However, if I were to rest and recuperate, what about my homework? Argh, will someone please give me directions. Holidays are about to end.

P.S A new addition to the family, the white tiger. (As Above)

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