Destination: Taiwan
Duration: 13 Days 13 Nights (Nov 18~Dec 01, 2015)
Day 3: Cingjing -> Sun Moon Lake -> Alishan
Our private guard dog was still there when we left our
room for breakfast in the morning. Breakfast was included and it was a simple
spread with egg with pickled vegetable (chai por egg), lettuce (or was it
cabbage?), porridge and some porridge condiments along with bread for toast.
One thing I noticed about Taiwanese butter – it tasted sweet! I still preferred
my salted butter. =P
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| Our Loyal Companion! |
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| A View from Breakfast Area |
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| Breakfast Spread |
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| Porridge |
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| Porridge Condiments |
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| Breakfasting! |
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| Love the Meat Floss in Taiwan! |
We booked a car today to bring us to Sun Moon Lake then
to our Minsu at Alishan. Our driver which was recommended by Shiyai Taoyuan (事外桃源渡假山莊) arrived
on time at 9.30am and we made a brief stop to Swiss Garden again to take some
daytime pictures.
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| Swiss Garden in the morning! |
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| Windmill & Lavendar |
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| Ducklings |
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| Piano! |
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| Cardboard Train! |
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| Reindeer & Balloon |
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| Water Fountain |
Sun Moon Lake is really big and our driver just stopped at Wen Wu temple (日月潭文武廟) briefly and seemed to be in a rush. Another random driver there told us to see the “Year of Steps”. Since my birthday is in December, I just had to descend like 10 steps to see the famous people who shared the same birthday as me. Didn’t know who they were though. LOL!
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| Wen Wu Temple |
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| Red & Grey |
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| A View of Sun Moon Lake from Wen Wu Temple |
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| Monster!!! |
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| Let's be an Obnoxious Tourist and take picture of the sign! |
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| Pagoda on top of the hill |
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| A View at the Lake |
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| Year of Steps! |
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| Thank Goodness my birthday is in December! |
Our driver told us he would drop us at one of the jetty (Ito
Thao Jetty) so that we could take the ferry to cross the lake. However, we
ended up at Xuanguang Temple (玄光寺) to
buy the famous “Ah Ma Tea Egg” (金盆阿嬷香菇茶葉蛋).
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| A view from Xuanguang Temple |
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| Tons of tourists queuing up for this sign! |
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| Going to the Pier |
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| Tea Egg!!! |
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| The Ah Ma! |
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| Yummy Tea Egg! |
Due to some miscommunication, our driver
continued on to Alishan without taking us to the main Sun Moon Lake Jetty!
*facepalm*Apparently the driver was so exhausted since he was up since 3am in
the morning to take other people for sunrise. We ended up reaching Alishan
early at around 3pm. There were fog and rain during our whole ride there so we
were not able to see anything even when our driver stopped at some lookout
area. This trip from Cingjing to Alishan cost TWD5500 which I think is
expensive especially when there were only 2 of us.
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| Sammy trying to activate the SIM card! |
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| On the Way to Alishan - Couple Tree |
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| Birdies! |
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| The Fog is getting thicker! |
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| Real THICK!!! |
We checked in to our hotel of the night – Alishan Shermuh
Hotel (阿里山神木賓館)
which we booked through Booking.com for TWD2880 a night. This was the most
expensive hotel in our entire Taiwan trip. The hotel is located inside the
Alishan Forest Recreational Area and we had to pay TWD200 per pax just to get
in the area. However, we were eligible for TWD50/pax rebate by the hotel. The
receptionists there gave us a map and tips on how to explore the area.
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| Getting inside the area |
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| Our Hotel |
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| Small Room |
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| Bathroom! |
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| Ginger Tea! |
Per the receptionist’s suggestion, we headed to the
Alishan train station (about 5-10 mins walk away) to get our train tickets for
tomorrow sunrise session at Jushan (柷山). After that, we went to the
Alishan Forest Recreational Area Bus station to get ticket to JauPing Station (沼平車站) to start explore the forest area per the
receptionist direction.
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| The Alishan Main Area |
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| Lots of Stairs to get to the train station! |
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| Sunrise & train timing! |
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| Going back to get bus ticket |
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| Our Bus is here! |
We started at the Chaoping Park (沼平公园) and
continued on to Sisters Pond (姐妹潭) and Shoujen Temple (受鎮宫).
One thing we noticed was the path was not clearly labeled! We were kind of lost
and ended up the sky was getting dark since sunset was at 5pm! *facepalm* We
were not the only one getting lost though as another group of tourists were at
our back and ended up giving up to follow the railway instead.
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| Sammy at Chaoping park |
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| Cloudy Sky |
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| Nice View |
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| At the Railroad |
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| Lots of Trees & Stairs! |
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| Nonstop Walking! |
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| More Stairs! |
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| Now this is just getting repetitive! |
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| Younger Sister Pond |
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| Elder Sister Pond! |
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| Look at the Red Leaves!!! |
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| Shoujen Temple |
I think we ended up skipping many places of interest
especially the Sacred Tree (神木) - the Main draw for Alishan since
we were too tired after all the walking. We did come across Chiyun Temple (慈雲寺),
three generation tree (三代木) and elephant nose tree (象鼻木) but
were too tired to continue on to Sacred Tree (神木) since
it was at the other direction. We continued walking to our hotel area which was
like 1-2km away but thankfully one of the hotel shuttle buses picked us up when
we reached Alishan House Hotel (阿里山賓館) near Chaoping Station (沼平車站).
The hotel bus belonged to Alishan House Hotel but the driver was kind enough to
fetch few of us who were walking in the dark cold night even though we were not
patrons of the hotel.
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| More Trees! |
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| Oh no! Stairs AGAIN?! |
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| I think we are LOST! |
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| Where are we?! |
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| Hmm.. Giant Tree? |
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| Getting Dark! |
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| Found the Sacred Tree Railway Station but no one was there! |
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| I'm too SAD TO WALK!!! |
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| The Sun is setting!!! HELP!!!! |
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| Chiyun Temple in the DARK! |
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| Perhaps it's time to enjoy the Sunset?! |
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| It's really getting DARK!!! |
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| Now the Trees just seem the same for us.. >.< |
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| Finally some SIGN!!! |
Once we were back to the main area, we went right to 7-11
(where else?) to get our fill of Oden again! *facepalm* The Oden Soup here was
kind of watery though – I think perhaps they kept adding plain water into it. After
our dinner, we simply walked back to our hotel for an early rest since we would
need to wake up at 4am the next day for Sunrise! Whose idea was it to enjoy
sunrise? What a “Brilliant” idea! *Rolleyes* We had our supper of Yam &
Sweet Potato Crisps that we bought from Fengjia Night Market (逢甲夜市) with some beers and called it
a night. Our hotel was kind enough to call up and told us they will do a
morning call for us on 4am without prompting. Nice service!
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| Highest 7-11 ever? |
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| Let's get some ODEN! |
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| Promotion!!! |
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| Dinner! |
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| Supper + Breakfast tomorrow! |
Next Day (Alishan -> Fenchihu -> Kaohsiung)
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