Taiwan 2011 Trip Overview

This was my planned itinerary for the Taiwan vacation from December 13 to December 22, 2011.

Day 1  (13 December 2011)

Travel from home to Taiwan by air.

Upon arrival at Taoyuan airport, travel to Taichung either by bus/taxi, taxi or combination of shuttle bus/HSR/taxi.

* Actual – we took the limousine bus from airport to Taichung. Cheapest and quite fast too.

Visit Feng Chia Night Market.

Where I stayed: Le Parker Hotel at Taichung. This hotel is ideal for visiting Feng Chia Market as it is located about 5 minutes walk away from the night market.

Day 2  (14 December 2011)

Charter a taxi to take us from Taichung to Sun Moon Lake to visit the following places (Wenwu Temple, Ita Thao, Syuanguang temple and Shueishe) .

Then stopover at Puli before going to Cingjing where we planned to stay for 2 nights.

Where I stayed: Misty Villa Minsu at Cingjing.

Day 3  (15 December 2011)

Free and easy day around Cingjing.

Visit Green Green Grassland and take the scenic walking trails around Cingjing.

Where I stayed: Misty Villa Minsu at Cingjing.

Day 4  (16 December 2011)

Charter a taxi to take us from Cingjing to Hualien.

Along the way, visit the following attractions:

HeHuanShan.

Swallow Grotto at Taroko Gorge National Park.

Taroko National Park (Bilu Sacred Tree, Tian Xiang, Cimu Bridge, Swallow Grotto, Eternal Spring Shrine)

Cingshui Cliff, QiXingtan.

Where I stayed:  Oceanbnb Minsu at Hualien town. The minsu is near the Hua Lien town center.

Day 5  (17 December 2011)

Charter a taxi for the whole day to take us explore the East Coast of Taiwan stretching from Hualien to Sansantai.

Eight arch bridge at Sansiantai.

Visit the following attractions:

Hualien Visitor Center, Farglory Hotel, Henan Temple, Forest of Braves, Baqi Viewing Platform, Shihtiping, Sansantai, Basiantong, Tropic of Cancer Marker and ChangHong Bridge.

Where I stayed:  Oceanbnb Minsu at Hualien town. The minsu is near the Hua Lien town center.

 

Day 6  (18 December 2011)

Travel by Train (Taroko Express) from Hua Lien to Taipei.

Rest of day in Taipei to visit one attraction (National Palace Museum) in Taipei and one night market (Shilin).

Where I stayed:  Caesar Park Hotel at Taipei. I chose this hotel for its excellent location; right on top of the Taipei Main Station, Railway Station, HSR station and Bus Station.

Day 7  (19 December 2011)

Explore Taipei by MRT - Beitou Hot Spring. Book a private room at Villa32 to enjoy 1.5 hours of hot spring at Beitou).

Visit Tamsui and Ximending.

Where I stayed:  Caesar Park Hotel at Taipei. I chose this hotel for its excellent location; right on top of the Taipei Main Station, Railway Station, HSR station and Bus Station.

Day 8 (20 December 2011)

Charter a taxi for the whole to make a day trip outside Taipei. The plan was to visit the following places around the northern part of Taipei.

Yehliu (野柳) Geopark --> Shifen (十分) - launch sky lantern –> Jiufen (九份) --> Jinguashi (金瓜石) – visit Gold Ecological Park, see Golden Waterfall (黄金瀑布), see Yinyang Sea (阴阳海). --> Keelung MiaoKou Night Market (廟口夜市) for dinner.

Where I stayed:  Caesar Park Hotel at Taipei. I chose this hotel for its excellent location; right on top of the Taipei Main Station, Railway Station, HSR station and Bus Station.

Day 9  (21 December 2011)

Explore Taipei by MRT - Taipei 101, Wufenpu, Raohe Night Market.

*  Actual – we skipped Raohe (too much shopping at Wufenpu , so head back to hotel to unload our shopping bags). Went to Ximending again for dinner.

Where I stayed:  Caesar Park Hotel at Taipei. I chose this hotel for its excellent location; right on top of the Taipei Main Station, Railway Station, HSR station and Bus Station.

Day 10  (22 December 2011)

Travel home.

Being on a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) trip, we had the freedom to make changes to our plan and itinerary along the way. I love it when a plan comes together. Overall, almost everything that was planned turned out well, although I was a bit ambitious on the places to visit versus time that we had.

Taiwan and the above places are worth another visit in the future. If I were to do this again, I may made the following changes:

1. Stay one or two nights at a nice minsu around Sun Moon Lake to enjoy the beautiful scenery and take walks on the various hiking trails around the lake. Also, it would be nice to photograph the mornings and dusk scenes there.

2. Stay at Starry Minsu if I were to go to Cingjing again. Misty Villa was good and met my expectations but if I were to visit Cingjing again, I would like to try another minsu and Starry Minsu would be on my list. It is located higher up in the township and I believe offers better views of the mountains and “sea of cloud”. Or splurge and stay at one of the more luxurious hotel or minsu for a romantic getaway.

3. The Oceanbnb Minsu at Hualien also met my expectations but I think there are better minsu in the Hualien town for the price we paid for a room with the sea view. The sea view is actually the harbour view.

4. Go to Beitou on any weekday, except Monday as the Beitou museum,  Thermal (Hell) Valley are closed on Monday. Don’t go on weekends unless you like crowds or like to pay more for a soak in one of the hot spring resorts.

5. Allocate more time at the National Palace Museum. 2 hours was just enough to see the main highlights. There are many more interesting exhibits and could easily take one whole day for those interested in art and Chinese history and culture.

6. Extend the trip and one or two more days in Taipei. For shopping and also to visit the many other places of interests.

7. Allocate more time in Juifen or stay one night in northern Taipei. I think Juifen and Jinguashi area have a lot more to offer. Get a local guide who can share the history of these places.

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Taiwan Day 1 – Taichung Feng Chia Market

13 Dec 2011

Our first day in Taiwan was spent in the city of Tai-Chung, located in the central part of Taiwan island. The only place of interest we planned to visit in Tai-Chung was the Feng Chia Night Market. Around 1 kilometre wide, Feng-Chia Night Market is the premiere night market experience in Taiwan. This is the place to experience Taiwan’s delicious and value for money street food and cool shops. During the weekend, as much as 30,000 people can pass through the market.

Earlier in the day, we had taken flight SQ878 from Singapore  and arrived slightly after 5 PM. By the time we cleared immigration and got out it was about 6 PM. The plan was to stay in Taichung upon arrival, instead of going into Taipei.  I had booked a hotel (Le Parker) which is just 5 minutes’ walk away from Feng Chia Night Market.

There are 3 ways to get to Taichung.

Option 1: Shuttle bus to High Speed Rail (HSR) station, then take the HSR to Tai-Chung HSR Station, and then take a taxi to our hotel. This would probably take 20 minutes + 40 minutes + 13 minutes respectively (excluding waiting time). And we would need to lug the luggage all over the places, hence not so ideal.

Option 2: Taxi directly to our hotel. Most expensive (cost approximately 3500 NT) but most convenient.

Option 3: Bus to Tai-Chung (240 NT), then taxi to hotel. This will probably take 2 hours on the bus + 10 minutes on the taxi.

We were leaning towards option 1 and 2 before arrival at the Taiwan’s Taoyuan airport. Upon arrival and checking with the girl manning the information counter at the airport, we chose option 3 instead and I think it was a good choice. There were many operators and we chose one that has the next bus leaving the soonest. We boarded the 6.30pm bus from Ubus company.

The bus arrived at Chaoma bus stop at about 8 PM. The bus ride was comfortable, and faster than expected (1.5 hours) as Chaoma was the first stop in Taichung city. Le Parker Hotel was just 5 minutes’ by taxi from Chaoma bus stop. There were taxis waiting at Chaoma and it costs 95 NT for a Toyota Wish cab to take us to our hotel.

After check-in is done at the Le Parker Hotel, we immediately head to Feng Chia market for dinner, followed by shopping. It was drizzling slightly, so the place was not too crowded. Thankfully the drizzle did not last too long.

First stop was at the stall selling deep fried chicken chop. Then grilled squid, grilled live prawns, grilled mushrooms, BBQ chicken chop, washed down with strawberry milk tea and lime juice. We liked the grilled prawns so much that we went for a second round even though a queue was beginning to form. The prawns were so sweet and we ate the whole prawn - heads and shell included!

I saw this stall displaying nice cream-colour bitter gourds. I have only seen green coloured bitter gourds in my home country. It seems that the white bitter gourd is blended and laced with honey to make a bitter and sweet drink. I did not try this.

Instead we bought cut slices of green (half ripe) mango with sugar and spice from this Hulk for dessert.
Note: he looks green because of the reflected light from his green fruits!

Once our tummy is satisfied, it was time for some shopping for the boys. I like visiting markets as you can get a sense of what is popular in the country and culture from the goods offered. 

Taiwanese loves their dogs and dresses them up too (like this cute little “Police Dog”).

Taiwanese also loves scooters with nice, cute designs for the helmets.

We bought a pair of sneakers for S and a pullover for D. And some fake eye lashes for J to use while doing dance performances in school. I noticed almost 50% of the young Taiwanese girls enhance their eyes with this!

I also made contact with the taxi driver that would take us to Sun Moon Lake, Puli and then to Cingjing the next day. The driver spoke only Mandarin. I realised that my spoken Mandarin was better than I thought. He understood me. 

That night, I suffered a slight tummy upset from what I ate. The rest of the family were OK. So maybe I ate one prawn that was not too well cooked. Or it could be the milk tea with the ice.

Tip: Maybe it is better not to eat the heads of the prawns.

Despite my slight misadventure, Feng Chia Night Market is not to be missed!

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Taiwan Day 2 (Part 1) – Sun Moon Lake, Wenwu temple

14 Dec 2011

I had booked a private taxi to take us from Tai-Chung to Cingjing with stopovers at Sun Moon Lake and Puli for sigthseeing. After a decent breakfast at the Le Parker Hotel, we loaded our luggage onto Mr Lim’s Toyota Wish taxi for the one hour journey to Sun Moon Lake. Sun Moon Lake is Taiwan’s largest fresh water lake and is known for its natural scenic beauty as well as aboriginal Thao tribe that live around the lake.

Along the way, Mr Lim pointed out a section of a hill on the left of the highway that looked like it was butter sliced with a hot knife. He explained that this was due to landslide and upheaval of the mountain from the 921 earthquake that happened 12 years ago. He also pointed out the many “ping lang” (betel nut palm) plantations along the way and how the government is discouraging planting of these trees nowadays as these trees have shallow roots and hence such plantations on a hill slope has a high risk of erosion and landslides.

Our first stop was the Wenwu temple, located at the northern part of Sun Moon Lake.  The area in front of the temple offers a panoramic view of Sun Moon Lake. Although it was about 10 AM, the morning mist could still be seen in the distant mountains. Beautiful.

Before going into the temple, we stopped to look at the “Stairway to Heaven” located at the side of the car park opposite the temple. Before the round-the-lake road was built, the only way to get to Wenwu Temple was to take a boat to the pier below the temple and climb up this steep flight of steps.  There are 366 steps symbolizing the 366 days in a year (including an extra day in leap year).

There are also wind chimes along the steps, which are used by devotees to ask for blessings. These wind chimes are bought inside the Wenwu temple, wishes and names written on them and then hung here by devotees.

After viewing the stairway to Heaven, we crossed the road and entered the Wenwu temple.

We were welcomed by two large red lions, flanking the stairs that leads to the first hall.

This temple honours First Ancestor Kaiji and the God of Literature, Guan Gong, the God of War, and the warrior-god Yue Fei and Confucius. Going past the first hall, there are large carvings of stone dragons by the steps leading to the second hall.

More wishing bells and chimes are hung inside the Wenwu temple.

The second hall honours the legendary historical figure Guan Yu. His famous weapon is the Blue Dragon Falchion that is supposed to weigh 175 kg.

How to fight with such a heavy weapon?

The next level of the temple honours Confucius.

After paying respect to Confucius and making a small donation to the temple, we passed through this archway go into a courtyard with a water feature (below).

The temple is located on a slope of the hill surrounding SML. Going further upwards, we admired the decorations within the temple and stone carvings on the walls.

At the top, we could get a nice overview of the temple, with the lake in the background.

After visiting the temple, our next destination was Ita Thao, which used to be main aboriginal settlement by the Sun Moon Lake.

Next post:  Taiwan Day 2 (Part 2) – Sun Moon Lake cruise, Ita Thao, Syuanguang temple and Shueishe

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Taiwan Day 2 (Part 2) – Sun Moon Lake cruise, Ita Thao, Syuanguang temple and Shueishe

14 Dec 2011

There are 12 aboriginal tribes in Taiwan, with the Thao tribe being the one found in Sun Moon Lake area.  Ita Thao is a settlement for the Thao aboriginal people and is also now a shopping area cum a place to board the boats for a cruise on the lake. The picture below shows the 12 aboriginal tribes of Taiwan, with their native dress.

From Wenwu Temple, our taxi took us to Ita Thao. My original plan was to have the taxi bring us round the lake to visit various points of interest around Sun Moon Lake. Noticing the speed limit on the round-the-lake road, I think this was not feasible given the time limitation and our plan to reach Cingjing before dark.

So, we took the shuttle boat which runs on a 30 to 45 minutes schedule and makes stops at popular attractions round the lake, namely Syuanguang temple, Shueishe Pier directly across the lake and then back to Ita Shao.  Taking the shuttle boat also gave us a chance to enjoy a cruise on Sun Moon Lake. The boat cruise cost 300NT per person. There were many operators all offering similar or the same deals.  We bought our tickets with the help of our taxi driver. The next boat was scheduled to depart Ita Thao at 1.30 PM, so I took some photos at the pier while waiting for the boat.

A tour guide on the boat told us that the Tea Boiled egg is a “must try” at the Syuanguang Temple Pier which was our next stop. There is only one stall selling the eggs, so it was impossible to get it wrong. In any case, the photo below shows the name of the stall.

Everyone in the family had an egg (10 NT per egg served in a plastic bag). The eggs came straight out from the boiling pot and were too hot to de-shell and eat immediately. With the eggs in the plastic bag, we walked up the steps towards the temple. At the halfway mark, we stopped at a rest point to consume the eggs. They were nicely flavoured and delicious.

Syuanguang Temple is to honour a famous Tang Dynasty Buddhist monk. By order of the Tang emperor, he was sent to India to seek Buddhist scriptures. His relics are enshrined here.

If the figure above looks familiar, it is because this is the monk featured in the “Journey to the West” Chinese classic literature. There was also a stone figure of the travelling monk near the pier.

This is the place where a good view of Sun Moon Lake, Shueishe Dam, Lalu island and Shueishe Pier could be seen. A stone sign with the 3 Chinese words “Sun Moon Lake” is a popular photo-stop and one would normally need to queue to have a photo taken with the stone. But no queues today (probably because similar stones are now erected all over the lake).

There is a trail that leads up to the Xuanzang Temple and then Cien Pagoda. We did not take a hike on the trail since our taxi driver told us it is faster for him to drive us to the Pagoda when we come back to Ita Thao.

We then made our way down to the pier to wait for the next scheduled shuttle boat. We bought another 2 eggs to share and some drinks. A busker was playing popular Taiwanese or Chinese pop songs by the pier. His white Pomeranian was friendly and photogenic too.

Our next destination on the shuttle boat cruise was the Shueishe Pier, located directly across Sun Moon Lake. The shuttle boat passed by close to Lalu Island for us to get a close-up look at it. The island is reserved for aboriginal religious practices. Therefore the public is not allowed to visit the island.

Shueishe Pier

Shueishe Pier seemed busier compared to the Ita Thao Pier. Many vendors were selling tickets for cruises around Sun Moon Lake. There were several restaurants, souvenir shops and hotels. After walking around the town which was quite small, we had lunch at a restaurant in the Harbour Resort Hotel, located next to the pier.

The restaurant offered a nice view of the lake, pier and featured tables with black marble table tops and chairs covered with black croc-skin leather. The restaurant serves traditional Thao style dishes.

The featured set meal was well presented and included a rice millet wine, wild boar meat, and side dishes comprising crispy shrimps, bamboo shoots and dessert.

We also ordered other set meals with ostrich meat, stewed beef and cod fish as the main items. Food quality was average but I must give them a high score for presentation. The set meals included hot red tea which was served in bamboo cups carved with traditional Thao tribesman’s face.

The black marble table surface provides an opportunity to take a creative photo below.

 

After lunch, we bought some souvenirs and then board the shuttle boat back to Ita Thao. On the way back, we could see the Xuanzang Temple and Cien Pagoda, against the backdrop of the mountains, from the boat. 

Back at Ita Thao, we walked around the town to look at the various stalls and shops selling food, snacks and souvenirs. We realised that the same souvenirs we bought at Shueishe were sold cheaper here. 

Street at Ita Thao.

Interesting souvenir items sold include large seed pods from a local tree upon which were carved with meaningful Chinese words. The picture above shows the giant brown seed pods at one of the stalls in Ita Thao.

Once we had enough of walking around Ita Thao, we linked up with our taxi driver again.  Puli is a town that we would be passing by on our way to Cingjing, where we would stay for 2 nights.  We consult our driver on interesting places to visit in Puli. He suggested the chocolate factory and the winery.

After a time check, we decided to skip the Cien Pagoda and told our taxi driver to take us straight to Puli instead. We had enough of temple visits in one day and the Puli winery would be more interesting for the boys.

Next Post: Puli Wine Brewery and 18 °C Chocolate factory.

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