Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
The Passport
I thought my passport was totally okay, but the people of the Customs, both in Taiwan and in the US, stopped me to examine my passport. Because there were some wrinkles on it, they thought it was fake and kept asking if I was the person in the picture. They asked me to offer another ID. The Taiwanese Customs never heard of UW-Madison, so they didn't find my student ID useful. Eventually they let me pass but it was very annoying. Well, what should I do?
Monday, May 28, 2012
STLF Tour - Memphis Zoo (Memphis, TN)
Date: April 3rd
Stop: Memphis, TN
When I've heard about that we were going to volunteer at the Memphis Zoo, I thought we would do things like cleaning animal dung and cages. But they wouldn't let us do such dirty works. My job was simply folding ads and membership info with a Danish girl named Cecilie. Other people helped selling tickets, guarding doors, keeping children safe, guiding direction, or putting back puzzles after they were messed up by children.
The Memphis Zoo was not big. Two pandas from China were the biggest stars there.
There was a dinosaur area, with those vivid moving and roaring machines, though I don't know what dinosaurs have to do with zoos.
This mascot was one of our travel partners. People who were mascots were so hot and sweated all over! Their works were probably the hardest.
The male gorilla.
The zoo built an area looking like a Chinese temple for the two pandas. They even had a Chinese garden with crappy festival couplets on the wall. I was lucky enough to see the panda eating. The other student complained she only got to see panda butts and lazy, sleepy pandas.
Those monkeys had mohawks!
Bald eagle, beautiful bird!
It was very touching to see two young bears chasing and playing with each other on the meadow. They did it for a long time. Cute!
We browsed through almost all the animals after our volunteering time ended, but didn't have time to see each one for more than a minute. Ryan, a boy who toured with us, had a special fondness for kiwi bird, but had never seen a real one. He said, "Let me spend a minute with it quietly," and stood in front of the glass cage, looking at the bird. Before he left, he said he would miss it very much.
Things got fun when Ryan saw a cage-full of Madagascar cockroaches. This biology major was afraid of cockroaches. I laughed silently in my heart at his face of disgust. When we were at Mississipi there were cockroaches in the old building and the poor Ryan was scared. I reminded him about the cockroaches and pretended that I was there to protect him, just because I kind of liked him and felt like teasing him. Okay okay I was kind of mean. LOL
Stop: Memphis, TN
When I've heard about that we were going to volunteer at the Memphis Zoo, I thought we would do things like cleaning animal dung and cages. But they wouldn't let us do such dirty works. My job was simply folding ads and membership info with a Danish girl named Cecilie. Other people helped selling tickets, guarding doors, keeping children safe, guiding direction, or putting back puzzles after they were messed up by children.
We browsed through almost all the animals after our volunteering time ended, but didn't have time to see each one for more than a minute. Ryan, a boy who toured with us, had a special fondness for kiwi bird, but had never seen a real one. He said, "Let me spend a minute with it quietly," and stood in front of the glass cage, looking at the bird. Before he left, he said he would miss it very much.
Things got fun when Ryan saw a cage-full of Madagascar cockroaches. This biology major was afraid of cockroaches. I laughed silently in my heart at his face of disgust. When we were at Mississipi there were cockroaches in the old building and the poor Ryan was scared. I reminded him about the cockroaches and pretended that I was there to protect him, just because I kind of liked him and felt like teasing him. Okay okay I was kind of mean. LOL
Monday, May 7, 2012
Monday, April 30, 2012
STLF Tour - Belleville, IL
Date: April 1st
Stop: Belleville, IL
STLF (Student Today Leader Forever) is a non-profit organization on campus. I've heard about them by seeing their posters about this spring break community service tour. "One student can make a difference!" they advertised. Why not? I was just worried that I didn't find travel partners and had no where to go during spring break. I signed up for the trip 4 days before the set-off.
The 8-day-long trip seems like a perfect deal, costing only $450, including about 2 meals a day and a 2-night stay at a decent hotel. However, we'd be sleeping on the floor in churches, schools, and YMCA, so I ran to buy a sleeping bag. I remember that Friday was completely hectic. I skipped 3 classes, packed up, and tried to finish my lab report due on the same day right before the trip. Ready! Final destination: Dallas, TX. It's like an adventure! 40 other young and daring college students like me made this decision of jumping onto a bus full of strangers down to the deep South.
I didn't sleep well on the first night, nor did I throughout the trip. The floor was hard and the sleeping bad was too warm at first and too cold in the morning. But new friends' companion and all the fun and magical things happened on the trip proved to be more than worthy.
Our first stop was Belleville, a rather small town in Illinois. The very first mission was to accompany the old people in Sycamore Village, a senior center. Didn't sound hard at all. I looked at this finely decorated place curiously. They seemed to have everything - from pretty bathrooms, barber shop, restaurants, to ice cream shop. It was really like a village on its own, but all the residents are old people, many are physically or mentally disabled. I suddenly understood the significance of our first mission - those elders must be very lonely and bored to be confined in this village, with no one but a few caregivers and each other.
We went around and tried our best to interact with the elders around tables. Some of them talked to us happily but many of them seemed to be too old or too ill to talk or even move properly. We were encouraged to play music and dance with them. The music machine had some Western oldies that the elders liked to sing along. I danced to the beats and amused not only some elders but also my trip-mates. Some girls and I danced with them and apparently one of the old men liked me a lot. He kissed the back of my hands many times and said I had a beautiful ponytail. (LOL I'm the old man killer; for some reasons some old men like me very much, including a little girl's grandpa I met around the old campus of HAS and a janitor of the UW chemistry building and who is a retired navy.)
Everything was fine except an obviously psychotic old woman going around and nagging "they are going to kill my children!" and another old man was annoyed. Most people seemed to get used to her. We were provided with children's toy and puzzles to play with the old people, but most of us found them too childish. Before I left, I asked for paper and pencils and drew a portrait of an old man named Phillip, using two colors of his choice. His caregiver was joyed and showed it off to other people in the center. Before I left, they all wished that I could stay longer and do more portraits of the elders. Well, I'd love to, if that made them happy, but would I ever have the chance to visit the same place again?
Stop: Belleville, IL
STLF (Student Today Leader Forever) is a non-profit organization on campus. I've heard about them by seeing their posters about this spring break community service tour. "One student can make a difference!" they advertised. Why not? I was just worried that I didn't find travel partners and had no where to go during spring break. I signed up for the trip 4 days before the set-off.
The 8-day-long trip seems like a perfect deal, costing only $450, including about 2 meals a day and a 2-night stay at a decent hotel. However, we'd be sleeping on the floor in churches, schools, and YMCA, so I ran to buy a sleeping bag. I remember that Friday was completely hectic. I skipped 3 classes, packed up, and tried to finish my lab report due on the same day right before the trip. Ready! Final destination: Dallas, TX. It's like an adventure! 40 other young and daring college students like me made this decision of jumping onto a bus full of strangers down to the deep South.
I didn't sleep well on the first night, nor did I throughout the trip. The floor was hard and the sleeping bad was too warm at first and too cold in the morning. But new friends' companion and all the fun and magical things happened on the trip proved to be more than worthy.
Our first stop was Belleville, a rather small town in Illinois. The very first mission was to accompany the old people in Sycamore Village, a senior center. Didn't sound hard at all. I looked at this finely decorated place curiously. They seemed to have everything - from pretty bathrooms, barber shop, restaurants, to ice cream shop. It was really like a village on its own, but all the residents are old people, many are physically or mentally disabled. I suddenly understood the significance of our first mission - those elders must be very lonely and bored to be confined in this village, with no one but a few caregivers and each other.
We went around and tried our best to interact with the elders around tables. Some of them talked to us happily but many of them seemed to be too old or too ill to talk or even move properly. We were encouraged to play music and dance with them. The music machine had some Western oldies that the elders liked to sing along. I danced to the beats and amused not only some elders but also my trip-mates. Some girls and I danced with them and apparently one of the old men liked me a lot. He kissed the back of my hands many times and said I had a beautiful ponytail. (LOL I'm the old man killer; for some reasons some old men like me very much, including a little girl's grandpa I met around the old campus of HAS and a janitor of the UW chemistry building and who is a retired navy.)
Everything was fine except an obviously psychotic old woman going around and nagging "they are going to kill my children!" and another old man was annoyed. Most people seemed to get used to her. We were provided with children's toy and puzzles to play with the old people, but most of us found them too childish. Before I left, I asked for paper and pencils and drew a portrait of an old man named Phillip, using two colors of his choice. His caregiver was joyed and showed it off to other people in the center. Before I left, they all wished that I could stay longer and do more portraits of the elders. Well, I'd love to, if that made them happy, but would I ever have the chance to visit the same place again?
Friday, March 30, 2012
Be Gone until the 7th of April ...
I'm going on the community service tour now and I won't be back until the 7th of April.
I ran out of time to explain what it is, but basically we'll pass by and stay at many cities while doing some community service project. Hope it'll be fun!
I'll take photos if I can.
I ran out of time to explain what it is, but basically we'll pass by and stay at many cities while doing some community service project. Hope it'll be fun!
I'll take photos if I can.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
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