Taiwan Travel - Hualien – – Ilan– Chuifen to Taipei Part 4

We went down from the rocky mountain which had very steep slope and the way down the mountain from Taroko Gorge was a "vomitting " experience as some of my tour group members actually throwed up as the steep winding road was making all of us unwell. It was nauseous experience for all of us

At IIan, we went to Ilan National Centre for Traditional Arts. This folk arts park is a multi-functional park that helps promote traditional folk craftsmanship, arts, music, drama, and dance and is also a multi-functional, resting place for cultural and educational purposes.

This is like the recorder I used to play in school except this is Porcelain. This is for my girl

This is bought for my son and it comes with a score and teaches us how to play music

We continue our journey by crossing through Hsueshan Tunnel, the longest tunnel in Taiwan to Chiufen, a prosperous village with many teahouses and shops selling famous local dishes, snacks and crafts. The tour guide asked us to look for the place where the film Bei Qing Chen shi was filmed. But there were so much things to eat and try out that after 2 hours when we were back to the bus, no one actually went to take a look at the filmed site.

After a long drive, we arrived at Taipei where we visited the National Palace Museum.

Next, we proceeded to Martyrs Shrine to observe the changing of guards’ procession ceremony. The whole ceremony took about half an hour.

                 

                                              

   

After which ,we went for dinner at Five Cent Driftwood Restaurant. The food was good and the restaurant looks like a rock castle and the interior walls, furniture and stairs are made from unfinished driftwood, rocks and seashells.

We also went to Taipei 101 shopping mall , Shihlin Night Market and Ximenting. There was a lot of local snacks and we tried the local omelette, coffin bread and deep fried chicken  chop as big as a man's face.

Ximenting

The famous shop in Ximenting and a must try

That was the end of my 8 day trip and I hope that I may visit Taiwan especially Taipei in the near future. I will definitely opt for Free & easy the next time round as there are still many things which I have yet to see and I hope I may be able to explore Taipei more in depth

Taiwan Travel - TaiTung to Hualien Part 3

We arrived at Taitung and stayed in a hot spring hotel. We went to a restaurant for dinner nearby the Hot spring hotel and the tour guide decided to let us try to release the Heavenly Lantern. Our goup of 24 people are split into 3 groups. Each group will have 1 lantern which need at least 8 people to hold the lantern straight and it was shaped like a hot air balloon. We wrote our wishes and blessing on the lantern and once ready, the staff of the restaurant will light the lantern and we had to hold the lantern with our hands, bearing with the heat from the flame. Once the lantern was filled with air, we released on the count of 3 and watched the lantern rose steadily. It was such a great sight and our release was a success which means our wishes were heard. Our tour guide told us that the success rate of releasing the Heavenly Lantern were very low and we were lucky.Another group of the Singaporean tourists from the same travel agent were not lucky. They were there 3 hours before us and they burnt the lantern and had to redo the 2nd one which still were not successful. I am sure if it was the Heavenly Lantern or what , all I do know is that one of the wishes I have written on the Lantern has come true.

The Lantern rose with great speed that I only managed to capture the below

The 3 Red Lanterns in the sky

                                         

We proceeded to check in to our hotel. As my girl was still feeling very sick, so the tour guide arranged with the hotel to bring us to the clinic about 15 drive from the hot spring hotel. It was another kind of experience to see how the clinic operate and the small town where the clinic was located was Lu Ye. I must say my girl actually felt better after taking the western medication.

Taken from the balcony of the hotel room

We took a scenic train ride from Taitung to Hualien to see the Taroko Gorge.

The marvelous geological features the craggy cliff & cave in Swallow Caves. We had to wear safety helmets as loose rocks as big boulders would come crashing down the cliff and we had to stick as close as to the side of the cliff as possible to prevent being hurt by the tumbling rocks.

Taiwan Travel - TaiNan and Kenting Part 2

Next we moved on to Kenting to see the Maobitous which is located at the southern tip of Taiwan. Maobitou which means "Cat's Nose" which was said to resemble a crouching cat and the rocky cliff. It was very windy and we had to be very careful when we climbed up the stairs as the strong wind could cause us to fall

Tainan Leisure Farm stay. It was beautiful and there was a lot of fun in releasing fireworks. The fireworks were a mini version of the national day fireworks. There were a lot of beautiful flowers in the farm

On the farm, we were being shown around by a farm tour guide. At one part of the farm, the air was filled the smell of  pig droppings. We had to cover our mouths and surprisingly there were no pigs on the farms. The pungent smell came from the flowers of the this tree.

This tree below looked as if rats were being hung upside down

We stayed for a night on the farm. The resort or farm houses were built on silts and below us were actually big ponds with ducks and geese resting below.

 

The next morning we took a “bullet train” ride on Taiwan’s high speed rail to Kaohsiung.

Taiwan Travel - TaiChung Part 1

I brought my girl for a 8 day trip (from 26th March 2010 to 2nd April 2010) to whole of Taiwan together   with my parents and my mother in law.   The weather was very cold with temperature ranging between 15 to 16 degress and it was blowing strong icy wind. Before my trip, everyone who just came back from Taiwan told us that it was very hot in Taiwan. I had not brought enough warm clothings and my girl was down with fever from the 1st day and only recovered on the 6th day. We went to the famous Ximenting at night to experience the atmosphere and it was there when my girl caught a cold. We stayed  a night in Taipei before starting our round trip in Taiwan.

We went to Formosan Aboriginal Culture village where there are Aboriginal performances . There were many heart -stopping rides  UFO Gyro Drop etc and we only went for the milder rides like merry go round, choo choo train rides.

Opposite Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village was the Lavender Garden where the filming of the drama serial"The Little Princess " was filmed. It was spring time close to Summer  when we visted the garden and Lavenders were  blooming everywhere. It was so beautiful that it almost took my breath away

At night time, we went to Fengjia Night Market to sample a wide variety of traditional local snacks and shopping. The interesting part of this Fengjia Night Market is the University in the centre of the Night Market.

The next morning,we also went to Sun Moon Lake which is a scenic spot and there is a small island in the middle of the lake. This island was a sacred place and we were only allowed to step on the man-made wooden platform and no further                                                                                                                                                  

                                    

The greenery behind the man made platform is the sacred place. This greenery was actually a mountain top. When the Japanese occupied Taiwan, they built a dam which raised the water level and flood the moutain range. Sun Moon Lake was thus formed.                                                                                              

Sceneries around Sun Moon Lake

We stayed for a night at Sun Moon Lake and the next day morning,  we went to Peacock Garden which was a mini-zoo and there were more than 200 peacocks and other valuable birds.