IJSO 2007

Yay gold =). Country 2nd, total medal tally 4 gold 2 silver + 2nd team for prac (barry, vincent, daryl). Full results available here

A big thank you to...

1. All teachers & trainers who have taken time off during the most busy periods of the year to train us (especially an overworked mr wee who coordinated the trainings, and conducted all the physics trainings (since he is both the science club & RA teacher for physics)

2. Ms Lim and Ms Wong from MOE (together with other NUS high and RGS teachers) who helped to arrange external trainings, briefings etc,

3. Everyone (including Mrs Lai and Mr Yuen) who encouraged us

4. All our friends for being so supportive,especially daniel lim, jian yang, and jie liang (i hope i haven't missed out anyone...) who received us at the airport on 11dec.

5.Mrs Yap and the library for making lots of resources available.


A great trip

Actually it was quite slack on the whole. 1 day test, 1 day tour... could sleep early and soak in the bath for 30min every day, and yet still manage to study, play cards and mahjong. Huiyao's blog has a relatively comprehensive account, but I shall be lazy and just mention the most juicy snippets.

Taiwan side was really quite serious about organising it (to quote someone, probably because they get to publicize themselves as "taiwan" instead of "taiwan R.O.C." haha). Whatever the motivation, i must say that it's impressive.

We were given some of the better rooms in the grand hotel (one of the best there). I got a huge room (2 double beds and lots of space to spare!) with a huge balcony and great views of the whole taipei city. Frills included: japanese style toilets (the UK people flooded their toilet because they switch on the wash function and didn't know how to stop it), leather room slippers, plasma tv etc. They also made specially-printed MRT cards, and during peak hour the police even helped us to clear traffic.

From a geographic perspective (ahaha geog is a disease that becomes an inseparable part of you once you are infected)... taiwan suffers from huge sprawl, largely due to laissez-faire central planning (if any). Looking down from taipei 101, it is interesting how the city has evolved to fill every valley of flat land in somewhat mountainous terrain. This is ugly in more than 1 way: firstly the horrendous 6-story high multi-tier elevated highways (bringing noise and darkness to the streets and buildings beside it) that alleviate the inevitable congestion, and secondly in the decaying buildings and dirty sidewalks - sometimes right next to shiny office blocks - that clutter the city.

And yet beauty lies therein. One is a sense of charm that is hidden in the crudeness of some areas of the city, and can only exist when the urban scape is built up in a purely spontaneous way and is not sanitized. Such a cityscape, coupled with textural details of culture (in the forms of symbols and often loads of good food), often embedded with many stories, dreams, and hopes that reveal themselves if only you look hard enough, provides a distinct and unmistakable sense of place. Some of the places i enjoyed the best, including Danshui, Shilin, and Taipei main station reflected this.

Yeliu and Yangmingshan are also wonderful. Yeliu is actually an headland outcrop between two bays, being eroded in from both sides. Mushroom rocks, shore platforms, arches, caves and other textbook examples abound - there is even clear evidence for sea level change (isostatic or eustatic?). As for yangmingshan, haha i collected some volcanic rocks from boiling pools of water near sulphur vents =). Not everyone is orange enough to experience an earthquake from the top of taipei 101 though...

It is after all Taiwan, so some politics is to be expected. Chen shui bian came to give a speech (with 20 bodyguards! and probably doctors on standby in case he gets "grazed" by another rogue bullet), and i seem to have heard soft hisses of "ah bian xia tai" (or maybe it's just my imagination). Protests went on while we were there (as they always do... it's taiwan), but we conveniently happened not to pass by. As i predicted there were people giving out political leaflets around taipei main station, and huge posters ranging from "China communists stop persecuting Falun Gong!" to "Taiwan for UN - Peace forever" (sense the irony... how will taiwan's attempt to join UN under its own name create peace forever? it won't even build peace in the present moment!)

And not to forget the people! Haha nice memories, especially our friendly student guide, and Mr Yeah, and that of playing mahjong. Talked to teams from other countries too and someone almost traded a red blazer for 5 pounds haha.

Leaving for thailand at 4am tomorrow... pictures of all 3 trips another time! Oh yah haven't said much about perth... another lovely trip, except for The Flies, especially when they get trapped because the Door is closed. Really, great company can change so much! Ok ok i shall let the pictures do the talking