Home Sweet Home!

We all arrived home safely and we will put some posts on the final few days shortly.

Team UK - Murray the bagpiping Genius

NZ has a long history of getting on well with the UK team. Its probably the fact that they can talk about our similar place names, foods, have a laugh and understand there accents. This the understanding the team has been 50:50 - with two lads from Scotland in the team Callum and Murray.

Murray though was a bag piping genius and we wanted to share his talents with you all. Hope you and your agents - Dave and Mark don't mind Murray.

Freedom

Hey, Andy here to fill you in on more of our busy day. With the closing ceremony finished, we had our first unplanned afternoon of the trip so far, and there were plenty of choices of activity on offer. While many teams headed to the nearest beach, we decided to commute into Taipei's CBD to find some markets and places to eat, and also just to experience downtown Taipei, which, surprisingly, we have had little opportunity to do thus far. We visited the 'Taipei centre for Promoting Taiwanese Handcrafts' which was essentially three storeys of relatively cheap, handmade goods typical of the region. After numerous purchases, we caught the MRT to the Shilin night Market, which we had briefly visited on our first day in Taipei. After dark, the market came alive and we made the most of it: attempted bartering, tasting some new foods and just soaking up the general atmosphere of Taipei's renowned nightlife. As I'm writing this it feels really late, despite being only 9 30, so to me this almost felt like our busiest day yet.

The Closing Ceremony

The 8th iGeo Olympiad came to a close this morning with another interesting and entertaining ceremony. We started it off by watching a very well-made film about the olympiad this year, made by one of the Taiwanese volunteers. As a testament to the dedication of the volunteers, she was up until 6.30 this morning working on the video! It was great to see a reflection of all that we've experienced the last week, becuase it's sometime a little hard to take everything in at once.
We then had some closing remarks from the President of the Chinese Geographical Society Located in Taipei. Then the founder of the Sacred Heart High School spoke to us. When she was the first principal of the school 50 years ago, there was nothing but a small fishing village with a tiny well and a dirt road. Since then, the city has grown so much around her, and she had a great sense of humour and excellent English.
Then came the medal presentation. As Anna already said, this year New Zealand performed the best they ever have, with 2 silver medals, a bronze, and a certificate. This just shows how much work Anna, Annete and Lex have put into the team, and how important geography is in New Zealand.
The final activity of the official olympiad was a Chinese buffet-style lunch about half an hour away from the school. We spent the meal sitting with our volunteer Fiona, and out new friends from the United Kingdom who we spent a bit of time with this week, and most of the meals. Unfortunately, they won't be joining us for the post-iGeo trip and headed back to Britain this afternoon. It was a nice way to say goodbye to them, promising to keep in touch on Facebook, along with all the other people we've met this week from all over the globe, united by our passion for understanding the world we live in, and how we interact with it.

Medal Tally - Best ever!

Just a quick note to let you know how proud I am of the team. The boys have done extremely well in the competitions.

Connor - Silver
Andy - Silver
Nat - Bronze
Callum - Certificate

We are just off to the city for a few hours and when we get back with update you with footage of the medal ceremony

Anna"very proud" Wilson

Connor's first post - Geo Park and Taipei 101

Yesterday we did a lot of sightseeing, we went to Yehliu Geopark in the morning and then Taipei 101 in the afternoon. Sadly on this of all days iI forgot my camera but the others have taken pictures and added them up here.

The geopark was really cool; we had to name a new rock formation and reach the lighthouse. We used GPS to prove we had been to the sites and we named our rocks 'grandfather's teeth'. We had lunch at a local restaurant and had sandwiches and muffins along with a million other random drinks and some nice asian dishes.

Taipei 101 wasd quite a distance away but well worth the trip. It definitely lived up to all the hype, with views of all of Taipei and great architecture both inside and out. In the evening we had the second part of the cultural presentations, that was fun and we spent a while hanging out with the other teams. Iwent to bed the earliest at about 3 am, some people were still up at 6.30.

Not very long left now which is a shame but we have all had a great time.

Watch the video below and see Lex eat a bug! The boys dared him $100 Taiwanese Dollars about $4 NZ

Last test done, time to relax

Callum blogging it up here, this morning we did the final marked part of the trip, the multimedia test. We were assigned a computer to work through the questions. All the native english speakers finished pretty fast, i dont think the others had the joy of quick understanding. After picking A B C or D for 40 questions we were done. That means an end to the competition and time to really enjoy Taiwan.

Day Trip to Central Taiwan - EQ Museum

Sunday: We started the day on the bus at 7am as we had a busy day ahead. We were treated to a tasty breakfast box - sushi, sandwich, banana, roll and juice. We travelled for 3 hours to the an Earthquake museum. This was an amazing place as it was build in a former school where a 7.3 earthquake had hit at about 1am on the 9th of Sept 1994. Over 2,400 people were injured. We all took some great photos and saw a 3D show about the earthquake.

Callum and I were impressed by the signage there - some was in Maori!

Wow wow wow - we have been busy

We have just arrived back from the center of Taipei and obviously have a few things to update you on. I will get the boys on to this when they have free time in the morning after they have their last test - Multimedia :)