Problem:
Score : 300 points

Problem Statement

You are given an array A of length N.
Your task is to divide it into several contiguous subarrays.
Here, all subarrays obtained must be sorted in either non-decreasing or non-increasing order.
At least how many subarrays do you need to divide A into?

Constraints

1 \leq N \leq 10^5

1 \leq A_i \leq 10^9

Each A_i is an integer.

Input

Input is given from Standard Input in the following format:

N
A_1 A_2 ... A_N

Output

Print the minimum possible number of subarrays after division of A.

Sample Input 1

6
1 2 3 2 2 1

Sample Output 1

2

One optimal solution is to divide the array into [1,2,3] and [2,2,1].

Sample Input 2

9
1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1

Sample Output 2

5

Sample Input 3

7
1 2 3 2 1 999999999 1000000000

Sample Output 3

3

Solution in Python (3.4.3) (judge verdict: Accepted)

N=int(input())
A=[int(i) for i in input().split()]
if N==1:
    print(1)
    exit()
T=[[A[0],A[1]]]
for i in range(2,N):
    if len(T[-1])<=1:
        T[-1].append(A[i])
        continue
    if not((T[-1][0]>=A[i-2]>=A[i-1]>=A[i]) or (T[-1][0]<=A[i-2]<=A[i-1]<=A[i])):
        T.append([A[i]])
    else:
        T[-1].append(A[i])
print(len(T))