by Jonny | Dec 21, 2012 | Opinion
This post is sort of an update as to why I haven’t posted on this blog in quite a while. I haven’t exactly had anything entertaining going on in my life and in-fact my health has been the concerns that I’ve been having. I contracted a virus and I’m waiting for the effects of the virus to go away, however for now I’ll have to live with fatigue and boredom. I guess after coming back from Korea, I haven’t really recovered as it has made me more depressed about life, as I experienced something amazing and coming back to Taiwan, well, I just feel as bored as ever.
To pass the time I’ve been playing games such as PS2 (Planet Side 2) and that game has kept me pretty happy for a while, however PS2 has quickly become boring for me. While I should be studying, to which I haven’t, my Chinese has actually improved a little, even with minimal studying.
I guess I posted this as there are people going around saying that today is the end of the world. NASA has a quality article about this, and here is a small excerpt: (Link to the full article)
The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened the doomsday date was moved forward to December 2012 and linked to the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar at the winter solstice in 2012 — hence the predicted doomsday date of December 21, 2012.
Quite ludicrous, but there are nut jobs out there that firmly believe this, I don’t understand how they can continue spouting out crap when they are proven wrong, time and time again.
Anyways, whatever the case, the world is not ending.
Going back to my life, I have thought about my future and have decided that I’ll be going back to the UK to study. I’ve had enough of my life in Taiwan, especially so with my family here. They are a complete nightmare, and I just need some time where I can get away; so to speak.
That’s it for now, I guess.
by Jonny | Sep 20, 2012 | Updates
Friend: Your Chinese is getting better and better! Keep going!
Me: Thank you! You are great!
So, I can read that bit of text and it’s no problem for me, even though it is in Chinese, I can actually read over 200 characters, but I still have a long way to go. According to sources that I’ve read, you need to know at least 1,000 characters to read newspapers here in Taiwan.
However, the issue here is with ‘Bing’s’ translation service, that is being used on Facebook. It sucks, period. For some reason it mistook “中文” for “英文”, which is quite a bad translation as it just mixed up two totally different languages. At least with Google translate that service is somewhat accurate, especially when it comes to regular verbs and nouns. But Bing fails altogether and I’ve been using it for a while, just for fun on Facebook to see what mistakes it makes. – It sure makes a lot of mistakes, which is essentially why Bing is a failure.
by Jonny | Sep 19, 2012 | Travel
Chinese: 今天我和我的狗狗在台中散步!
English: Today, I walked around Taichung with my dog!
Let’s just say I might make it a habit to go around Taichung by myself in the morning just to look around, it’s so peaceful and the exercise is good. Plus, it’s like exploring, seeing places you haven’t seen before and you get to see how things work in the morning, like people rushing to go to school, work or things like that. Anyway’s, here are my pictures for today! 🙂
This is MODE Mall (德安購物中心) in Taichung, just across from Taichung Station. (台中火車站)
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People in Taichung heading to work.
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Looked like a really old alley way, so I thought it would make for a nice picture. This is also an entry way to peoples homes!
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Came across this today, it’s across from the MODE mall, but damn, this building is so narrow. It is the narrowest building I’ve seen in Taichung.
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Just waiting to cross the road. (我等一下、過馬路)
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Police scooters! (警察摩托車)
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This is a 警察車 or police car! They drive around in what I’ve come mostly across as Mitsubishi vehicles from Japan!
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This is the view from when you exit the entrance of 台中火車站 or Taichung Train Station!
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Front view of Taichung station! (前端台中火車站)
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我的狗狗! My little baby doggy! She’s so cute! 🙂
It was great exercise and it was quite enjoyable. All in all, we walked for around 2 hours! 🙂 I love having free time!
by Jonny | Sep 18, 2012 | Travel
This morning I decided to go for a walk, as opposed to the running that I usually do. Instead of running inside the park (台中公園), I walked and I went sightseeing around the area where I live nearby. I took a few low quality pictures with my phone’s camera.
Here are the pictures:
Outside Taichung park (台中公園)
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Goat Statue in Taichung Park (台中公園)
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Just a random photo (台中公園)
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The famous house in the middle of the lake! (台中公園)
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These are horrible looking apartments just outside of Taichung Park. They really look awful with their windows covered with metal & with walls which haven’t been washed in decades. (台中公園)
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This is Taichung library, or at least it used to be. They moved to another location, so this building is currently not being used. (台中公園)
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A man exercising. I saw him hitting himself on the head repeatedly, quite a strange way to exercise. (台中公園)
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I found an extremely cheap gym in Taichung, well, if it’s true. According to the sign it says pay $4,000NT for one year. Which is around £83 or $136USD. If it’s true, I might just sign up!
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This is YiZhongJie (一中街), of course in the mornings the place is deserted, however as soon as the afternoon comes the place soon lights up and is literally crowded with people.
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- This is ZhongYouBaiHuo (中友百貨), a large shopping mall/centre nearby to where I live! I sometimes go there to purchase coffee, frappachinos etc from Starbucks.
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This is World Gym Taichung. This is a little more pricier than the previous gym I showed. However, it’s much more pricier for a reason. If memory serves me correct, it costs like $2,200NT per month on a 12 month contract. Month by month it’s like double that price. If I could afford it, I would, but frankly speaking I’d rather pay $4,000NT for an entire year for a less established place and yeah, the other place is not as attractive, but it’s a gym, not a house. Not sure what point I’m trying to make, but I try to avoid expensive places, lol.
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Oh, and here’s what I had for breakfast!
That’s all for now. I’ll try and take more interesting pictures next time, and I’ll be travelling to South Korea this month on the 29th, so hopefully I’ll get some interesting pictures up. I’ll also be uploading higher quality pictures of my trip in Seoul, Korea to my photography website, so be sure to check that out. 🙂
by Jonny | Sep 5, 2012 | Opinion
Let’s just say that life is being a pain in the butt for me right now.
I have probably the most controversial decision that I have ever made in my life. Whatever decision I make now will have an impact on my life later on in the future.
I really want to obtain a degree in computer science or even at least to have some sort of degree. At this point, anything will do. – An English teaching degree would probably be ideal seeing as it’s likely the best job a foreigner could obtain in a foreign country. This is because my girlfriend is Korean and I’m thinking that perhaps one day I’ll be able to live in Korea with her and I could possibly teach English.
I haven’t even completed university and she has. Although she is 26, and I’m 20, I feel that perhaps we are destined that we will break apart as long distance relationships aren’t that easy. It’s worked up until this point. We’ve been together for over 10 months with 3 of those months actually together in Taiwan. The rest of those months, well, for the most part we have been talking over Skype and KaKaoTalk. We have had fights, wonderful talks and just a general feeling of not being alone. — Sort of, having someone to speak to and someone waiting for you. – That genuinely feels good.
The problem
My options
- I could go back to London and complete a degree in something, preferably something to do with computers. – Although, if that isn’t possible or not worth the hassle, then I don’t mind doing other things. – Like a teaching degree. I like that feeling of being able to go to different countries to teach English and if I have a degree related in that field of study, then I have a higher chance of getting some sort of job in Asia, preferably Korea. That would take 4 years. I would spend 1 year taking a foundation degree course then spend the last 3 years doing the actual degree. By then… well, my girlfriend has already said that she wants to get married to someone by at least 30.
- I have an obligatory military service tenure coming up next year in April. I have no choice but to do this military service. I do however have the option of deferring the draft, however I need to be a university student. That is my dilemma. The military service will be for a 1 year period. I’m thinking of getting this over and done with then after I can go back to England to apply for a degree or something. — I could also save up money from the military service ($6000NT per month/£120 per month/$200USD per month), then use that money for a ticket to the UK. Literally, the ticket would cost the same amount I could actually save, if I did one year of military service in Taiwan. It’s quite absurd.
Those are my two options.
At the moment, I’m leaning moreover to option 2. When I first heard when I had to do military service, my initial reaction was pretty much of option 1. Now I have realised the better option.
Just get my military training over and done with then I’m free to do what the fuck I want in Taiwan and I won’t have any travel restrictions to Taiwan. Unless, I intentionally want to be pulled into military training.
But first, before I do the military training, I want to go to Korea to see my girlfriend.
