14 December 2011
From Sun Moon Lake’s Ita Thao, our taxi driver took the round-the-lake road northwards towards Puli. At the Peacock Garden, he left the road and took a shortcut through some narrow single track roads to Puli. We got to see some back-country roads and villages on the way. We left Ita Shao at about 3 PM and arrived at 18 °C chocolate factory in Puli, about 30 minutes later. Here we sampled and bought some handmade chocolates. We also had some delicious ice cream.
We made a stop at the Puli winery where we went through the visitor centre and took some pictures.
The wine is made from rice, fermented in the earthen urns for many years before bottling. We sampled both a 1 year old and a 20 year old wine which was yellowish in colour. The guy who offered us the wine must be quite disappointed by our reaction to the bitter and strange taste of his prized, 20-year old wine.
After the winery, we went to Misty Villa Minsu (Bed and Breakfast) in Cingjing where our host Nita was waiting for us.
Cingjing is a small town high up in the Taiwan Central Mountain, about 1750 metres above sea level and along Taiwan’s Central Cross-Island Highway that connects the west of Taiwan to the east. We planned to stay two nights here before another taxi would bring us across the Central Mountain (about 3700m above sea level), through the Taroko National Park to the seaside town of Hua Lien on the eastern coast of Taiwan.
Misty Villa Minsu provides both breakfast and dinner, in addition to the accommodation. Dinner was served after our check-in and I must say that the food (especially the vegetables) tasted better in the highlands, than in town.
After dinner, D and I went for a walk to check out the surroundings. Misty Villa is located near a plaza with a few restaurants, Starbuck, City Cafe and 7-11 and this is the reason why I choose to stay here, over other similar minsu. There was not much to do after dark in Cingjing, so it was family bonding time watching TV in our room and surfing the internet with our laptops.
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