Defense of dissertation

I passed my dissertation defence on Friday! Yay! I was having sleepless nights, and was very nervous up till the days of my defence. I tried to calm myself (so did Hannah and my advisors), telling myself everything would be fine. However, it was hard not to feel nervous since my examiner is one of the top 5 scientists in my field. And I have been working on my PhD for the last 4 years (since 2012), and it seemed that everything would be a waste if I would to do badly in the defence.

On Friday, I woke up at 5am (don't really think I slept much at all), had my morning routine, coffee, practised a bit on the Q&A session with Hannah (yes, she woke up with me at 5am in the morning! Poor Hannah), and off I went. When I went to the room to prepare for my presentation 30mins prior, the examiner (Dr. David Bourne) was already there as well! We greeted each other and I am glad he remembered me (we had previously communicated with each other over emails a couple of years ago). He asked me how am I feeling, and I said I am nervous... His answer "You will be fine..it is a process. You will be fine. It is just my job to be critical about your thesis." With his answers, my heart stopped racing, and I felt more confident! The presentation went smoothly (I had already practised it at least 5 times myself, and twice with Hannah), Q&A session was more a wonderful exchange of ideas and knowledge, rather than an interrogation. I felt great, learnt a lot and before I know, three hours had already passed! Time for the examiners to discuss about my result! I excused myself and went outside the room to wait for their answer. I was tried (felt drained of all my energy!), and I was yawning non-stop. Out of the corner, Hannah poked around and asked me how were things going?!... I was so glad to see her, although I might be too tired to show my appreciation and happiness. I told her it should be fine. And FINE it is, a couple of minutes later, the defence chairwoman (Dr. Deidre Le Fevre) called me into the room, shook my hand and said I passed my defence. Dr. Bourne and Dr. Giovani Coco (HOD representative) also congratulated me. I only had some minor changes to my dissertation, but I am now Dr. Lee!

Dr. Bourne treated Hannah and I to a lunch at Scarecrow (an organic restaurant) after the defence. We talked about a lot more things than just coral microbial research.. we talked about trialthon, beer, science, diving, being young, being old and power rangers! It was great!

After lunch, Hannah and I went to the School of Biological Sciences, and told all my friends and colleagues there that I passed my defence, and we would be heading to CHICAGO!... (that would be a story for another post) :)

Xiaochukeng track

Last weekend in Taiwan, so when a couple of colleagues invited me to go with their friends on a trip, I did not even think twice about it. We (Chialing, Chinghung, Xiaoyu and his girlfriend, Jiaho and I) are going to join Chialing's friend on this short trip. It is a old track call "Xiaochukeng" that joins a town, Hou Tong to another town, Jiou Fen. Along the track, there are supposed to be some old houses that were left behind.

The weather prior to the trip was not that great - it had been raining all week, and we were worried that the trip would get cancelled. Fortunately, when the day came, we had lady luck on our side..not only was there not a single drop of rainfall, but the sun was shining brighter and the day was warmer :)

We took the train (cost us NT40 each) to Hou Tong which was about an hour from Taipei city. The town was famous for its roaming cats. There were cats all around the train station, in the shops, along the roads etc. It may be hard to tell in the pictures because most of the cats were in the shops having their breakfast! The plan was to walk through the mountains from Hou Tong to Jiou Fen, which was just around 3km. So, it was going to be an easy, scenic walk.

Along the way, we passed by bridges, waterfalls, old houses, temples etc. There was even an old, abandoned high school. However, it was so broken down, and the only structure left was a wall and a couple of benches. You could just barely see that there was a flag post next to the wall. Over time, the flag post had given way to nature, and it had plants creeping all around it. We reached the top of the mountain in about 2hrs, and took the chance to take some great panoramic views of the town at the foot of the mountain.

After a couple of hours, we were near Jiou Fen. The cheery blossom trees along the track to Jiou Fen were blooming! Hannah and I had been to Jiou Fen. It was the inspiration for the anime "Spirited Away". We did not manage to visit the theatre the other time, but I was lucky this time! The theatre was opened - it was an old theatre where they used to feature films during days when the miners were here. After wandering about the old streets which Jiou Fen was famous for, we went for lunch and snack - of course, there was smelly tofu, and not forgetting fish balls and yam dessert. By the time we were ready to go back to Taipei, we were all full and happy. The train ride back to Taipei was uneventful as we slept all the way from Rui Fang train station to Taipei Nankang train station.

Oh yeah!... Not forgetting to thank Xiaoyu for bringing and displaying the wonders of using his newly bought selfie stick! :)

Like a local - National Palace Museum

Last weekend, I spend a day at the National Palace Museum. Hannah had been there in January, and taking her advise, I was there bright and early to avoid the huge tourist crowd. I was very lucky - there were only 3 people (including me) in the jade "bak choy cabbage" and "meat" exhibit. I think Hannah had mentioned about those exhibits in her previous posts. Shortly, after my visit, there were queues of at least 20 people waiting to look at the exhibits, and you weren't even allow to stay a minute longer to enjoy.

After enjoying the two most important exhibits in the museum, I started to wander through the other halls. About this time, huge crowds of Chinese tourist started pouring in! I can sense the helplessness and frustration of the people in-charge of the museum as they keep going around telling the tourists to lower their voice, put their cameras away etc. etc.

After spending about 3 hours in the museum (unfortunately, there are no photos because no cameras are allowed), I started to wander out to the exterior. There was a garden next to the museum which is free for people who holds the museum's entrance ticket. It was a smallish, nice Chinese garden with artificial streams, ponds and pavilions. Quite a number of people also bought fish food to feed the kois in the ponds.

Overall, it was a nice experience and a great day to be out (as compared to stuck in the apartment). The sun was out occasionally, and it wasn't too warm either. Would love to be back here again with Hannah in the future, and we can spend a whole day here, going though the exhibits slowly.

Shenkeng tofu street

After being in Taiwan a couple of times, I started to join the "dinner gang" (Jiunyan, Yilong and Chaoren). Last night, we went to Shenkeng street for dinner. The old street is famous for its smelly tofu. The whole street has shops selling all style of smelly tofu. We chose a shop which was highly recommended by Yilong. We ordered the spicy smelly tofu, ginger fried smelly tofu, duck blood , vegetable and chicken. The whole dinner cost us NT 880 total (each NT220 ~ NZD10). Taiwan is definitely well known for its cheap and delicious food! 

Hannah would be so jealous because she really LOVE smelly tofu... I am sure I would bring Hannah to this street again if we were to visit Taiwan in the future.