國際志工第八週來台心得

It is already my last week in Taiwan. I could not believe two months had gone by so fast. It felt like I had only been here for one month instead of two. On that Monday night, one of the directors brought 6 of us to a restaurant up on Huashan which is on the borders of Yunlin and Chiayi. He treated us to dinner at that restaurant and also brought us to have a look down at the night scenery of Chiayi. The food at the restaurant was really good; every dish is delicious which is not common in almost all other restaurants. We did not get a good view of the night scenery though, as the fog up on the mountains was thick that night. On Tuesday night, another director treated everyone in the office where I sit in everyday to dinner in Minxiong. Two teachers and I reached a little late because we played badminton beforehand but it was all good – dinner that night was palatable as well. The next morning, I woke up earlier than usual to prepare as it was my performance day. I first played clarinet to ‘Libertango’ and another Chinese song with two other teachers played flute and keyboard. Then, I sang two songs – ‘Tong Hua’ by Guang Liang and ‘Ai Pia Chia Ee Ya’ by葉啟田 – before ending my performance with a one minute dance to Jason Chen’s ‘Thank You’. I was unlucky enough to realise that I had accidentally stepped on dog dung right before my performance. Nevertheless, it was a good performance in my opinion. Apart from that, I gave a speech – first in English, then in Hokkien – and also received loads of gifts from the teachers in the school which I had them sent back to Malaysia by post on the following Monday. On the fourth day of the week, I went to Pinyin Elementary School in the morning and gave two lessons to the kids in the school. Some of them were really brilliant; they managed to answer my question at the end of the class without needing the teacher to translate the question into Mandarin. Later in the afternoon, one of the teachers took me to a place called Pan Tao Yao before going back to the school just in time for the dinner feast with all the teachers including a few other parents who were invited. That weekend, I went to Kenting with six other people – four of them were teachers and the other two were on national service working for the school. When we reached, we first checked into our stay for the night before going for lunch in a restaurant serving Thailand cuisine. Then, we went for a thrilling jeep ride full of bumps and ups and downs which lasted for two hours. Near the end of the ride, we were also brought to a lake where we were splashed with water that got me soaking wet because my disposable raincoat tore earlier on. At night, we had a small barbeque behind our stay which turned out really bad as we were not given butter. Besides that, we were also only given a piece of aluminium foil which turned black easily without having the butter. Luckily we managed to borrow aluminium foil from the owner of that place to barbeque the rest of the food. Afterwards, we walked around the night market in Kenting before going back to our stay to play card games. Next morning, we woke up early to go down for breakfast. The weather was not on our side – it was raining and the wind was really strong. And so, we changed our plan from playing the rides available to visiting the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium where we saw many different types of aquatic animals such as jellyfish, catfish, corals, eels and whales. After that, the rain abated completely which we took that opportunity to go go-cart racing and rolling down a slope inside a ball. The latter was a really dizzy game that actually made one of the teachers vomit slightly. Finally, we left Kenting and drove back to Dalin. And that was how I ended my 8 weeks of volunteering in Taiwan. Over this period of time, I have made many friends who had had a large impact in my life. These teachers had taken care of me and kept entertaining me the entire time. They had brought me to various places in Taiwan, so many that the only place that I have not been to yet in Taiwan is Eastern Taiwan. I have tried and eaten almost, if not all the famous food in Taiwan introduced by the teachers. They also treated me to so many meals that I even lost count. Apart from that, the students in this school had also been really welcoming. They listened attentively to what I teach and are also very responsive. Hence, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the people I have met in Taiwan; every single one of you plays a part in making this trip a memorable one. I will not forget this wonderful experience as it has also taught me to better appreciate the culture in every country i.e. the things that differentiate the country itself from the others.

國際志工第七週來台心得

My second last weekend in Taiwan was spent in Taipei. I followed a teacher back to her home in Taipei by bus on Friday. By the time we reached Zhongshan, Taipei, it was already late at night and so we just rested at her house. The next morning, I woke up, had breakfast prepared by the teacher and left the house at 7:30 a.m., taking a bus to Taipei Main Station. At the station, we waited for about half an hour for the MRT train to head to Shifen - our first stop on the Pingxi Line. We reached around 10:00 a.m. which was rather early as there were not many people around. The stalls near the MRT station at Shifen were mostly selling things related to lanterns. I was told that this is because Shifen and Pingxi is known for burning lanterns where one writes their wish on the lantern and then burn the lantern to let it fly up into the sky. The higher the lantern flies, the higher the chance of the wish being fulfilled or come true. We walked along the street and then took around half an hour walk under the hot sun before reaching the famous Shifen Waterfall. I had to pay $80 to enter but it was worth it. That was the first natural waterfall I've seen in my life. It was beautiful watching how something as simple as water could create such an amazing sight. After that, we took the MRT to Pingxi to have lunch - sausage, steamed bun (pao) and glutinous rice balls (tang yuen). We then walked to the next stop which is only 15 minutes away because waiting for the MRT trains takes a long time as they usually reach every one hour. We reached Jingtung to have a look at one of the oldest train stations. Also, this place has lots of bamboo sticks with wishes written on them hanging on various spots throughout the whole area. Afterwards, we went to Keelung to see the famous rubber duck. Taiwan had made a few large rubber ducks that float on the water with the intention to attract more tourists into Taiwan. This idea originated from a Western artist who then sells the idea to other countries. We then had dinner at Miaokou Night Market also in Keelung before taking the bus back to her house in Zhongshan. On Sunday, after getting all washed up, both of us took a bus at the Taipei Main Station to head to Yangmingshan. We strolled around the mountain, also looking at the Flower Clock and Datun Waterfall. After that, we took the shuttle bus further up to Qingtiangang. The ride up was extremely bumpy with the sharp turns only making it worse for those standing up holding the handrails and rubber straps inside the bus. That made the trip felt longer than one hour but finally we reached and started walking the circular trail. We only wanted to have a look at the wide grassland filled with cows initially. However, we ended up walking the whole circular trail because by the time we realise that, we were halfway through and so there was not much of a point in turning back. I had to brace myself to walk up and down the slippery rocks on the ground and my Vans shoes only made it worse. It was like Dulishan all over again. I almost slipped a few times which made me really afraid that I would actually slip. I had to walk really slow and with extreme caution that it was a little torturing and tiring. The fact that it was drizzling made the floor even more slippery. I was really glad when we had finally reached the end of the trail, which was the point where we started. After all that, we took another shuttle bus and went through the bumpy ride again - a shorter one this time - down to Shilin. We had steamboat for lunch in one of the restaurants nearby before going to the famous National Palace Museum to look at the collection of Asian art such as bronze, artifacts, jades and lacquerware. It is really big - there were three floors and each floor is full of these collections. We did not have time to look at all the exhibitions even though we were in there for three hours. Later on, we went back to her house, packed up, had dinner and went back to Dalin.

國際志工第六週來台心得

Class 203 presented and introduced Taiwan to me this Monday; they talked about the aborigines, food, tourist spots, festivals, and a few others. They also bought me breakfast, which was minced turkey rice and duck noodles with thick soup. It was a good presentation even though their English was basic. I got to know Taiwan better through them and I really appreciate the time and effort they had put into this presentation. Tuesday this week was New Year’s Eve. After school, I went to one of the cinemas in Chiayi City to watch American Hustle with the other teachers. Then, we walked to an open place opposite the building where the government of Chiayi is situated. We watched a bit of the concert but did not stay there for the countdown to year 2014 as the place was too crowded. Instead, we walked back to the train station in Chiayi and waited one hour for the train to go back to Dalin. On the first day of New Year, I followed three other teachers to Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village – a theme park. We got there at 10 o'clock and started walking around the whole area, playing all the rides - except the ones meant for kids - and sometimes stopping to take photos. Out of all the rides we or I went on, the relatively exciting ones were the UFO Gyro Drop, Mayan Adventure and Caribbean Splash. We also watched one of the performances by the aborigines showcasing their traditional dances. Apart from that, we sat the cable car for a round trip to Sun Moon Lake since the cost had already been included in our entrance fee. The sun’s reflection on the lake made the water shine and sparkle brightly; it was beautiful. In the afternoon, after lunchtime on Thursday, one of the teachers in the school took me out to Meiling Scenic Area in Yujing, Tainan – just below Chiayi County – to see the national flower of Taiwan i.e. plum blossom or mei hua. It took us one and a half hour to get there – longer than the expected time of one hour. We walked around the place looking at the plum blossom flowers for about one hour before going up to a very curious spot called the Mysterious Aura Square. It is a round spot where if you stand in the middle, you can hear the echo of any sound you make - voices, claps, stomps etc. Also, only you can hear the echo, other people standing anywhere else will not be able to hear it. It is really intriguing and got me interested in knowing how this mysterious event occurs. Saturday started off with a wedding lunch in a restaurant a stone’s throw away from the school. One of the teachers in the school had got married and this lunch is done on a smaller scale in Dalin for the teachers who could not make it to the wedding ceremony a week ago; I was invited to attend as well. We had something like a 10 course meal and it was a hearty and delightful one. Then, I went to Guanziling in Tainan with two other teachers. When we first reached, we had a look at the Fire and Water Spring where, as the name suggests, there is fire and water at the same time. This is because the natural gas far below the ground is able to rise through the holes in the rocks rendering the fire seeming to burn eternally. After that, the teachers brought me to one of the hot springs to let me experience soaking in hot springs. I didn't really like it at first as I would prefer cold over hot anytime. After soaking for a while though, I got pretty used to the heat and started enjoying it. After one hour, time was up and so we left Guanziling to have dinner in the Carrefour night market back in Chiayi city. The next day, we went to Taichung to visit the Gaomei Wetland in the morning. However, as we were planning to go down into the water, we had to wait until the tide is low. We first went to a baseball field in Taiping to watch a local baseball game. It was pretty interesting to watch and to get to know the rules better as it was my first time watching a baseball game through my own eyes. Then, we went to Wuqi which was near the Gaomei Wetland to have seafood lunch. Afterwards, we went to a temple also not far away to have a look and kill some time while waiting for the tide to fall. When it was time, we got to the wetland and noticed that the wind by then was much stronger as compared to earlier in the morning. Nevertheless, we braced ourselves to walk down the walkway, took of our slippers and waded into the water. The water was freezing cold but it was fun altogether; we also managed to get a good view of sunset behind the fast spinning wind turbines. We left at around 6 o’clock and had dinner at the Qingshui Service Area which is one of the most visited rest areas in Taiwan. Since we were already there, we took a little walk around after we have had our dinner. The most attractive part of this service area, in my opinion, would have to be the toilet. It is the biggest toilet I have ever seen in my life which makes me wonder why does it even has to be that big. Then again, that could be the reason that made this place famous.

國際志工第五週來台心得

First day of the week started off with Class 304 inviting me over to have breakfast with them; we talked and took pictures together. Before leaving, they even gave me more food and snacks – it was a hearty breakfast. Besides that, I had steamboat with Class 205 on Friday as well. They had prepared a few small performances for me and their teacher beforehand. And so, we watched them perform before eating together for around two hours. On Tuesday, three teachers invited me to join them for dinner in Minxiong. Apparently, in Taiwan, they usually have roast chicken to celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas day itself. That explains why one of the teachers took us to a restaurant located near the National Chung Cheng University to have roast chicken; it’s Christmas Eve. We had half a chicken each and it was a delightful meal even though we only had one hour at our table. This is because the restaurant was fully booked and so they put a one hour limit on each patron in order to cater for the large number of guests. After that, we walked to the Chung Cheng night market that opens every night to have fruit juice and chat. On Christmas Day, I had roast chicken again for dinner but this time with another group of teachers including the guy undergoing national service. We had that in a Carrefour building in Douliu and then went window shopping in the building before going back to Dalin. I started my second lesson in Taiwan on Thursday. In this second lesson, I introduced them to Malaysian food, sports and also traditional games. I also taught them one of our favourite games that we used to play in primary (elementary) and high school. It’s a game called ‘ceper’ or ‘tutup botol’ and it is very convenient game as the only thing one would need is five tin bottle caps and a flat surface. The first two classes went well and the students seem to like playing the game even though there are some who are not interested. There would definitely be some who are less interested in the game as this situation is inevitable - everyone to his taste. Saturday was like a Sports Day. Three teachers and I first played 'The Strategy Game' and 'Tiki Topple' in the morning until lunch time. After that, we had Japanese food for lunch in a restaurant near National Chung Cheng University before entering the university. As we are not allowed to drive in, we walked in and towards the gymnasium building of the university where there are lots of sports facilities available. We first played squash. As none of us knew the rules of the game, we read the rules online and roughly played according to what we understood as the rules were not very clear in words. We then found out later that squash is actually very tiring as one needs to stretch and run around a lot. Then, we played table tennis for a while before going down to play three rounds of bowling. I had a great time playing these three sports and as usual, I never had enough of them. After all of that, we went to the Carrefour night market in Chiayi for dinner and also to walk around the place. We played darts while we were there and one of the teachers actually won a prize from that. Besides darts, we also played softball and baseball, once each. That was when I finally got a taste of how playing baseball feels like - awesome. It is not as easy as it looks though. The faster the ball gets, the harder it is to hit as you would need more strength, precision and speed to hit the ball far and high up. Following that, we had tau hua (tofu pudding) and sweet potato balls (one of my favourites). As for Sunday, the guy doing his national service and I followed a teacher to a few places. Her husband and her smallest daughter tagged along too. Her husband first drove us to Pineapple Hill in Minxiong where every visitor would get one free pineapple cake. We had ours and then walked out into the farm to have a look at the pineapple trees. Afterwards, we went to a famous temple in Xingang, Fengtian Temple. Before going in to the temple, we had ya rou geng (thick soup with duck meat and bamboo shoots) which tasted pretty delicious. We entered the temple, prayed and walked all the four floors. As we leave the temple, we had octopus balls which tasted delicious as well before having the famous steamed dumplings and suan la tang (hot and sour soup) for lunch. Next, we went to a joss sticks making place to see the process of making joss sticks and also the different types of materials used to make them. After we had seen everything over there, the teacher dropped the two of us near the intersection of Zhongshan Road and Wenhua Road in Chiayi City and we started walking along the two streets, stopping at stores to see if there is anything we would like to purchase. We walked until about 5 o’clock when another teacher came to join us. At that time, we had seen almost all of the stores on those two streets and so we took a taxi to Nice Plaza which was close by to continue window-shopping until it was time for us to leave.

國際志工第四週來台心得

The weather got colder this week. Luckily, one of the teachers said that winter in January would be around the same as this week so I do not have to worry much about not having clothes warm enough to survive through the winter. On Monday, after I was done with my classes, one of the teachers in the school invited to play kendo (Japanese fencing). I got to learn a bit about the rules of the sport, where you will only earn points if you say a Japanese word that refers to the part of the opponent’s body you hit - 'man' for head, 'tore' for both sides of the waist, 'koteh' for the hand the opponent is using to hold the bamboo sword. Also, this week, class 111 invited me over to their class on Tuesday to eat glutinous rice balls with them whereas class 105 invited me to their class party on Thursday – to celebrate their winnings in the school’s sports day the week before. I had a great time especially seeing their enthusiasm trying to converse with me in English even though they struggle at the language that is almost foreign to them. Apart from that, on Tuesday, after school, I learnt to play two tabletop games, ‘Bang!’ and ‘Tiki Topple’; the former taught by one of the probationary teachers and the latter by one of the teachers in the school. I played both games with them including another teacher and the two guys currently doing their national service in this school i.e. they aid the school in anything they need help with. Both games were amusing – I loved both of them. Friday morning, after my only class for the day, I went to the Dalin train station and I took the 10:05 a.m. train over to Douliu in order to get on the Taisi bus heading towards Junfusan Fancyworld. I reached Junfusan at half past 11, paid a rather expensive entrance fee and started playing the rides as I was afraid that I would not have enough time to play all the rides. However, as it was a weekday, there were not many people around, and hence, I did not have to wait for a long time to go on each ride. Of all the rides that I sat, the relatively more thrilling and breathtaking ones are G5, space shot and the floorless coaster. At 2:00 p.m., I watched a performance held at the Rainbow Theatre. There were clowns, aerial dancers, trampolining and also dancers who incorporated contemporary dancing, ballet, hip hop, tutting and popping. After the performance, I walked around the whole theme park, taking pictures until it closes indicating it was time to leave. The next day, three teachers and I went hiking up Dulishan which is in Zhuqi. We had lunch first in Zhuqi and then started hiking up the mountain at around 2 o’clock. It was pretty slippery as my pair of Vans shoes do not have a good grip and there was a slight rain earlier in the morning. Also, I wore the wrong clothes – the temperature was low but we didn't hike much before I started sweating. We went all the way up to the peak of the mountain – a little over 800 meters – and stopped at the resting place to have a short break before going back down, leaving the mountain. We then went to one of the teachers’ house where I watched her father inspect and separate the different maturity of the areca nuts (pinang), ate glutinous rice balls made by her mother and also played a few rounds of mahjong before having dinner at her house. Sunday's destination was Kaohsiung. It is a two-hour drive from Dalin and so we (myself, three other teachers and one of the guys on national service) left early i.e. at 9 o'clock. We even bought takeaway food for breakfast to save time. When we've reached there, we went to Guoshan and walked along the pathway close to the sea and the ferry terminal. According to one of the teachers, there are many locations in Kaohsiung couples usually go to and one of them is that pathway. We then went up to the entrance of the British Consulate at Takao (a.k.a Kaohsiung) where I saw a fascinating machine that as you insert TWD 10, a woman would walk into a miniature temple to fetch you a scroll and in that scroll would be your fortune paper. I tried and the teachers helped translated the Chinese words for me, telling me that I got a lucky one. I then paid the entrance fee to enter the British Consulate area and walked around the two buildings, looking at the interior and the exterior of what used to be the consulate. After that, all of us took a ferry over to Cijin and each rented the bicycle there as the island is relatively too big to walk – it would require a lot of time. We first rode to a nearby restaurant to have lunch where I ate sea snails for the first time. It tasted a little weird at first, and then it turned out to be really exquisite. After lunch, we rode around the island, stopping by the beach to walk around a little and enjoy the sea breeze. A few hours later, we rode back to the ferry terminal, returning the bicycles before taking the ferry back to the mainland to have dinner. We had a look at Kaohsiung Normal University, watching one quarter of a basketball game before leaving for Dalin. On the way back home, I also got to see the beautiful Love River, a famous dating location at night in Kaohsiung.

國際志工來台第三週心得

This week could be considered as my first week teaching the students about Malaysian culture as the week before was more like a tryout and I only had two days of class then. It turned out pretty good; most of the classes were responsive to my questions and took part in the activity that I had prepared for the class i.e. the group that has the highest score from getting the right answers would get a chance to enter the lucky draw carried out by the school. I had some slight problems initially with the students not comprehending what I say due to their lack of understanding of the English language. However, using my hand movements together with the help of teachers translating what I say into Mandarin, the classes went on smoothly. Also, as usual, on Mondays and Thursdays, I would play badminton with the teachers at 5 o’clock – after school hours – for roughly two hours in the school hall. Sometimes we also play table tennis at the start while waiting for the other teachers to arrive. We will go for dinner afterwards in one of the teachers’ car. He would always take us to different places every time so that I would get to taste a variety of foods in Taiwan. This Saturday, I went to two main places, Aogu and Budai with around 10 other teachers. We went in three separate cars meeting at the front of the Aogu Wetland Forest Park. We were then given a brief introduction of the park through a video that was in Taiwanese. Luckily, one of the teachers translated the words into English for me. Otherwise, I would have just been watching the images flashing. After that, we were unlucky enough to have one of the long-winded workers who explained to us the fishes and evolution of methods used to catch them, the latest one being the most environmental friendly and conserving the ecosystem. He also talked about oysters and how oysters are taken care of to make sure they grow healthily and that they are of better quality to be sold and eaten. He then, introduced the types of birds that can be seen in the park - kites, egrets, gulls, stilts and etc. - especially the black-faced spoonbill where there are only 2000 of them left in the entire world. After one hour, he finally finished and we were able to go see the actual birds instead of just photos of these birds. We drove around the park stopping at a places where there would seem to be more birds. During our first stop, as we only had one normal pair of binoculars, we borrowed one of the telescopes that a tour guide had brought - to allow his group of tourists to watch the birds - to get a clearer view of the birds. After bird watching, we then went to Budai where one of the teachers treated us to a hearty lunch at one of the seafood restaurants. For instance, we had oysters, clams, prawns and fried body parts of octopus. After that, we went to the Budai market to have a look around, trying some of the food there before heading over to the seaside to go fishing. That was my first time fishing, and it wasn't boring at all, it was pretty fun to me. I caught a few fishes although they were all the same common ones; I was hoping I would be able to catch a rare or a big fish but did not manage to do so. As we fished until dinner time, we had dinner at one of the teachers’ house - ginger duck and Thailand prawns. The prawns were really large and delicious. Sunday turned out different from what we had originally planned. The initial plan was to visit Sanmen, get lunch and then play tabletop games with a few other teachers. And so, me and three other teachers went to Sanmen, an old village with antiques like telephones and typewriters. There are several ponds where fishes are bred, acting as a place for fishing, charging those interested at a price per hour. We looked around for about half an hour, and that was when the sudden change of plan happened; we decided to go to Sun Moon Lake. Thus, we first had lunch at La Morning in Minxiong, before going up to Sun Moon Lake which took us around two hours instead of the expected travel time of one hour. We took a few pictures of the area, walked around, tried muachi - which was a little tasteless - and ate ice-cream cones from a Family Mart nearby. After that, we went to a farm - if directly translated from Chinese to English is called basin - where the land is so soft that it shakes and feels a little bouncy if you jump on it; it was intriguing

馬來西亞志工第二週來台心得

This recent weekend I followed the school band to Taoyuan where they would be joining the parade for the Taoyuan Band Festival 2013. On the Saturday morning, I went to get chicken hamburger over at 7-Eleven before we left the school by bus at 8. There was a schedule planned in advance about what we're going to do for these two days. Our first stop was Miaoli Hakka Cultural Park, an exhibition centre which showcases the Hakka culture – houses and their interior, language and festivities. One of the exhibits there that caught my eye was the old telephone which requires one to spin the numbers to call. It made me think of how technology had changed our daily lives. After that, we had lunch at a restaurant nearby. Lunch was good; there were many dishes – about five or six different dishes not including soup. We then reached the parade destination (in Zhangli) at a little past 1 - took us one and a half hour to get there. There were many bands also participating in the parade and I watched quite a number of them from the side. One of the school bands, Chiayi Dong Shi Junior High School caught my attention. Their colour guards were impressive for their age; they did a good job at spinning and throwing the mock rifles. The parade ended at the square of Arts and Cultures District of Taoyuan where there would then be performances by some of the bands. I saw a Caucasian drum corps there too and thought they were just a random band invited to the parade. I was wrong; it was Blue Devils, one of the top drum corps in DCI. I watched the performances by other bands but sadly, did not have a chance to watch the Blue Devils perform as we had to leave for dinner right when they were about to do their routine. Dishes for dinner were surprisingly almost the same as the ones we had for lunch over at the other restaurant. Nevertheless, it was still good. After dinner, we went to our stay for the night, Park Hotel and took a rest. After resting for an hour or so, the two teachers brought me around the shops near the hotel. As this area is very near to the Zhongli train station, it was quite happening. They treat me to glass noodles with oyster and also the famous pearl milk tea. The next day, we had breakfast at the hotel before leaving at 8, heading towards our first destination of the day, the Cihu Mausoleum. It was where the previous late president of Taiwan, Ching Kai-shek's tomb was at. I went in, took a look and did a small bow to show my respect for him. I got really curious when I noticed that the two soldiers on each side of the entrance are able to keep their eyes open without blinking whenever there are any tourists around. I watched them closely but still did not see any of their eyes closing for even just a split second. Second stop of the day was at Dasi. There were lots of people especially since it was a Sunday, making the place even merrier. They also had a procession when we were there which had fireworks, statues of the gods and traditional instruments etc. Throughout the entire street, there were many stores selling different types of food and drinks such as tofu pudding (tau hua), thick sausages, glass noodles with oyster and a variety of ice cream flavours which the school students kept buying at every place we stop. One hour later, we went back onto the bus to have lunch at the same restaurant where we had our dinner the day before. The dishes this time looked different, but there wasn’t much difference essentially. We still had the same fish and vegetables. Then, we had a few more stops before going to a place in Hankou where we get to see people fishing. Walking across a bridge over to a swamp, we saw kids catching small crabs using a bait tied to a string that is attached to fishing nets. It was interesting watching them catch the crabs. As that was the last place to visit in our 2-day itinerary, we then began to head back to school. Some of the kids sang throughout the whole journey back, both Mandarin and Taiwanese songs. And so, that was how I spent my last weekend. I look forward to the upcoming weekends and the places and activities that I would be doing.