The Beginning

Hi,
this is my or say our 1st attemp at blogging. Generally, it doesn't seem like i've so much to share. maybe because all my close frens area always nearby and around.

But coming to taiwan is a really overwhelming experience for us.
To all our close frens out there, firstly we missed u guys a real lot. Wonder if you guys are having fun down there. As for grab, jj, you ahve our support all the way ya :)

The first day at taipei was quitr fun, but jsut like any routine travel, lots of eating, shopping and walking. Taipei is quite a noisy, busy and messy city. But the people here are quite good. Say for example at the underpass, every1 keeps to their right, so you will almost never clash into any1.
at the train platform, people actually queue for the trains...can u believe it...wow... :)
So for the 1st day we ate and ate and ate and ...hmm ate...


Mango ice...nice le..hee Hee dumpings here cost 25cent sing each :)

ha...and taiwan is a animal place....esp dog....
there are all sortd of animals as pet...even a pig...ha :)
anyway....we say a "lion dog" that really looks like a lion but is a dog....
and the saussage dog...that's the doggy with really really short legs...ha cute..


anyway...i really wanna tell u guys about tzu chi in hua lian.
on the day we arrived, it was their 40th anniversary....and already we were awed by the number of volunteers they have. The hospital is really nice and huge...and impressive looking.
and ya...they gave us free accomodation.

most people here call each other "shi jie shi shiong"(senior) or junior etc...and the medical cohort is really closely knitted. The first thing that impressed me was one of the doctor, when he had a patient who needed MSW referal, he didn't "refer" the case. The looked for the MSW, and told him " i've this paitent who might need your help, shall we sit down and discuss this"...and i was like WOW......

also here they have an ideology, when u take from the patient, you give it back to her, so they do try to take care of their patients by going to the dr in charge to remind him of some "minor" problems that he might have overlooked(like constipation).

Then again, the students here face the same prob of patients ignoring them when they know they are students...ha .....happens everywhere in the world.

what impressed me even more is that every ward has at least 2 volunteers who would do everything from comforting, talking to patients to pushing them to take x-ray etc....
and they re all doing it for an altruistic reason. hmm.....

i wonder if i'm sounding conherent here, cos many of these feelings actually overwhlemmed at that moment. like how i wished things were somewhat similar in singapore.

Anyway....nurses are nice here and they are really cute, and they wear u know the white cap/hat...ha...have been wanting to take a photo of them with the hat but...hmm.....shall wait and see... :)

then on tue, we went for a pallative care sharing session. there was this girl who had ALL, and the amount of love, care and concern she got from the drs, nurses and all the volunteers were so so much adn encouraging that she was smiling throughout the session(despite being nausea)
and this brought me back to the ALL girl that we clerked during our hemato elective, and wondered if she could have enjoyed the same kind of support

then we went for a "fun science toys" class. where this teacher taught the children how to make really fun toys with really simple stuff.








i've been typing a real lot right? haven't really told you about our acaemic work here, which is really tiring, but shall leave it to next time.

finally some words for thoughts from the ALL patient. shall show u guys the pciture she drew next time :)
lionel : need translator?? hee :)