Wednesday, March 13, 2013

台中 (阿里山- 清境)- Day 3

We woke up super super early, 4.30 am, it's like mid night to me during normal day.. But that day was different because we were going to take a train to the peak of Alishan to watch sun rise :) 
super cold, super early ! Waiting to board for our train at 5am
森林小火车(translated to Little Forest Train) :)
Hiking up to the observatory point

Waited for quite a while there but too cloudy :(
My breakfast~ Yummy! such a breathtaking view makes my food more appetizing :)
Nice !
The train ( The Little Forest Train 森林小火车)was originally built during Japanese ruling time, before WW II for them to transport logs from the mountain but now it was only used to transport tourist from foot of the  hill to the peak. However, the train was well maintain and it really showed how good of Japanese technology even then...

interior of. the train, narrower compared to MRT, lol
Looked like toy train here right? But It was moving downhill at considerable fast speed
Hiked from mid hill down to the foot of hill, It was mystical yet refreshing in the forest

This tree cute right? Love Forever Tree!
Aww~~ very lovey dovey couple !

I wish my school is this pretty as well ~
The Super Tree at Alishan because it's the oldest, at about 3000 years old
 
But too bad, it got stuck by lighting some years back and now lying on the ground besides the train station


Before depart to Qing Jing
The sun rise hiking trail took us abour 3 hours but it was totally worth it because the scenery and the flowers were so breathtakingly beautiful and the fresh air sort of made us felt refreshed instead of tiring.. From there on, we departed to Qing Jing (清境)and en route we went to SunMoon Lake (日月潭),tried on the famous President Fish (总统鱼),  纸教堂 (The Paper Dome) and etc

Our driver,  Mr Zhang, feeding monkey 
The rope bridge was erected to enable the monkey to cross to the other side of jungle safely
The company that we engaged to ferry us around Tai Zhong
Land slides is one of the common natural disaster in this country

The President Fish - one of the favourite dish of President (but I forgot to ask : which president?) lol..

The interior & chair was made of paper (originally built by Japanese)
I really could stayed here all day to read and enjoy the view <3
Well, it was another long day for us and we only managed to reach our hotel at Qing Jing in the evening... Poor Mr Zhang for driving  almost 10 hours and the road condition was nothing like Singapore or even Malaysia, it was all bending curvy snaky mountain road... I really respect them !

Thanks for reading ! Stay tuned for Day 4 !

Monday, March 11, 2013

TaiZhong - Day 2

After a night of not too good rest (the bed was not as good as my last stay at that hotel) , we woke up bright and early to start our road trip to the infamous Alishan (阿里山), of coz we hired a driver to bring us around in TaiZhong, Alishan and Qing Jing before sending us back to Taipei for the remaining trip. The driver was really quite good and he's actually the BOSS ! ( I will mention more about him in the later posts).

Taiwan's driving direction is different from ours, nearly went to the wrong door when we got on the van :P
Spring had just begun :) new leaves and flowers blossomed !
on our way to see natural hot gas spring, can't resist the colourful pumpkin
one of the nature's wonder : Fire and Water exist together , 水火胶融
The journey from Tai Zhong to Alishan is about 3 hours but we visited some other tourist spots along the way, for example : 台影文化城,嘉义火鸡肉饭,天长地久桥,奋起湖(旧火车站)so we reached our destinations in late afternoon :)

现代新娘,古代轿
movie scenes
火鸡肉饭
Finally reached AliShan! The temperature was only freaking 12 deg C !
It's Spring time! Nice!
There's nothing to beat a warm hotpot in cold moutain night!! *yumyum*
 It was too freaking cold up on the mountain because Alishan is one of the tallest mountain in Taiwan, over 3000m above sea level. The temperature that night was around 7 - 9 deg c but being a night owl, we still hang out at 7-11 til late, hehe...



Sunday, March 10, 2013

Second visit to Taipei and Tai Zhong - Day 1

Second visit to this beautiful country but different feeling because I was going with different group of people. My last visit was with my friends so actually I thought it was more fun :P  Anyway, we added some destinations which we missed the last visit so we had some new experience.

I checked the weather forecast prior to the trip and it showed temperature around : 20~25 deg C so I assumed it's something like Genting Highland or Cameron Highland and I packed some long sleeve shirts, cardigans and jeans only. It didn't occurred to me that there would be wind and the temperature was only 15 deg C, I was shaking from cold when I stepped out from the airport, lol...




our  room at 台中,比梭溪民宿, 4 person sharing
night market, biggest in Tai Zhong, 逢甲夜市
Shoe! very cheap!
we stayed just beside Feng Jia University
I like this chair! Too bad I've got no time to sit and read there :(