Trip to Taiwan - Part 14 (LAST PART!)

Still on the same night....
It was indeed a long night that we hardly slept. Let me tell you later how long we got to sleep. Even some people told me that in the last night, we wouldn't be able to sleep due to repacking stuff and just got busy. If it really happened, then it would be my first time not sleeping all night long. I was thinking to write it down in my record book or something.
So as I told you before, we spent the rest of the night gathering in the hallway, sharing our impressions and stories we'd been through so far and we also ticked the checklist of places and accomodations, where they were good or not.

After the gathering ended, we didn't go straight to bed and sleep but instead we repacked our things, we positioned them inside the luggages so that they would fit it. The airline regulation required all luggages to be under 20kg and those whose luggages' weight were over the target were in state of panic. Some of my friends who were heavy shoppers experienced that, apparently, and they had to get someone (boys particularly, who didn't shop much) to stuff their things in the boys' luggages.
As you can see below, this is the condition of our room just as we were repacking things.

It was already 1 o'clock in the morning and yet we were still wide awake.
The hallways were crowded with people dragging their luggages all around to the living room where the scale was. Anyway, another activity that occured at that moment was that, we - particularly my group - gathered in our leader's room to start making souvenirs for our fu dao yuans. The souvenirs would be in form of three booklets (we have three fu dao yuans) and each of them would be filled with impressions of us towards our fu dao yuans. So practically, we wrote on this glossy black paper using a golden and silver marker impression of us about our fu dao yuans, could be in Chinese or English.

But since I couldn't write in Chinese, I decided to write in English.

We were done with everything at like 2 o'clock.
I finally got to return to my room and my roommates were taking late shower early in the morning. We spent about an hour watching a recorded football match (England vs Germany) while some of my roommates were still busy stuffing their things into the luggages. Some even succeeded finding someone else to share luggages with.

At 3 o'clock, we wrapped things up. My luggage was locked already and so was my cabin bag. I stuffed my shoulderbag into the luggage and decided to wear - as promised - my new hot pink backpack. There was plenty of space in the backpack so it was really worth it.

Honestly I didn't feel sleepy at all, but not until one of my friends decided to sleep. Her action was eventually followed by others. Even though we might not be able to sleep for like six hours, but instead an hour, because the morning call would be at 4 am.

Twenty first day: July 11, 2010 (Taipei - Jakarta)
Finally, got to change the date.
It was a nice, short sleep, almost like a nap and I suddenly woke up at like...4.30 am!!! *panic* Half an hour before the morning call!! I hurriedly took a shower, washed my hair, and got dressed. The last day was really a mess. But I managed to get ready in time. We had a quick breakfast with, again, Doraemon bread, Onigiri, and a juice box.

I barely remembered what happened next because I think I was still half asleep, even when I was loading my luggage and cabin bag to the bus. But at least I remembered the chill air of Taipei that blasted once we got out of the hotel.
The sun had just risen at that moment and the streets looked awfully quieter than yesterday.

Anyway after loading our things to the bus, we got in and thus the bus moved, leaving Taipei Hero House. Xiao Xin gave a short intro on the bus which I didn't exactly know what he was saying, but since we slept early in the morning and only slept for like an hour, we took a quick nap on the bus. I was woken up when the bus already made its way to the airport, passing freeway. And that's when Mia started to cry after we gave her the souvenir we made last night.

We got off the bus and took our things, then headed straight to the departure hall where the leader, Janet, took care of all passports and stuffs. The fu dao yuans also took us inside, so it wasn't a goodbye yet. I took some pictures with the fu dao yuans while waiting for Janet handling everything.

Here's me with Xiao Xin.



With Pizza. Isn't she such a sweetie?



With Mia or Xi Bao :)



Taking a pose with the fu dao yuans of my group



Then we took a group picture together. This one has better quality. Thanks to Jeje's camera.

But later it came to the moment of farewell when we were about to enter the immigration, where non-passengers weren't allowed to go inside.
It's time when we had to bid our fu dao yuans farewell. Things got a little bit blurry as all of us cried and hugged our fu dao yuans. It was a tearful moment indeed, and that's when you felt the bond you've made with them had gotten stronger for three weeks. I cried too, which is embarrassing because that was at the airport. I remembered hugging Xiao Xin, Xi Bao, and Pizza, and Audrey telling them "Pu yao qu." or "Don't cry".

Okay, let us not expand this topic as everyone hated being discussed about them crying.
I don't though, but well...after hugging and bidding them farewell, telling them not to forget about us and that we would tag all the pictures in Facebook, we finally stepped into the immigration counter.

Again, it was another embarrassing moment. When it came to my turn, I stepped forward, handing the officer my documents, still with swollen eyes. I remembered the officer looked at me meaningfully but I decided to return the eye contact so I just kept looking at other directions. I was sure his face was like saying. "Just cried?"

We headed straight to the gate as it was already boarding. So we didn't spend much time at the gate as we lined up towards the entrance of the plane. Later, the plane took off. So long Taiwan, see you again in the future, see you again tomorrow (particularly for me) as I'm going to transit for a couple of moments there before continuing my flight to San Francisco.
We were excited to go back to our country, and sad at the same time to leave the country which had indulged us for three weeks long.

On board, I only watched The Last Song and I didn't really watch other movies since I kept falling asleep and woke up to find the story was already somewhere else. So I decided to switch the movies.

As we landed, we quickly took our luggages which was a very quick procedure and headed out to meet our loved ones who picked us up. I spotted my mom and dad and they sort of complimented that I was wearing all stuffs they hadn't seen before (new backpack, new shirt, new white cardigan, new shoes).
But we weren't to go home first as there would be a group photoshoot near Hoka Hoka Bento for a local Chinese/Taiwanese newspaper (what?)

After that, we bid each other good bye and quickly arranged a reunion at the same week.
Wow, that's fast. We were just about to part but then we quickly arranged to meet again at a reunion.

Monika headed home with me and mom already brought me lunch which was a local dish, rawon (spicy beef soup). So after three weeks not eating Indonesian cuisine, I was quickly greeted with one shortly after my arrival.
There was a bit of a problem though. Monika sort of lost her luggage lock, but once we arrived at her house, my dad solved it quickly and then I headed back home.

Phiew, I went straight to my bedroom and crashed on the bed. After all, I only slept for an hour. I didn't even get to attend the dinner my family arranged with my friend's family.
But I managed to wake up at 1.30am to watch the final World Cup match between Spain and Germany.

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Phiew (again) after writing parts of Trip to Taiwan, I finally finished everything today! Just a day before my other trip kicked off. Hope you enjoyed it.
I'll be returning to Taiwan tomorrow even for a short time (just a transit) but this won't be the same anymore. Awww...I'm going to miss everyone.

Anyway, tomorrow is also Xibao's birthday!
Group 4 is already arranging a surprise.
Thanks for reading. Now I can get back to real life writing and babbling just about everything in this blog.

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