well, i would expect it to be better seeing that i'm paying 4 times more.

You should do Opt 1: YehLiu - JiuFen - ShiFen (release lantern in the early evening) - Keelung-JiuFen(for the night view)

This post has been edited by zstan: Nov 25 2012, 01:02 PM

Peacock garden (孔雀園) & Cable Car

The next stop of the day was the peacock garden which was a 5 minute cycle away from the Wen Wu Temple.



Basically this place houses a lot peacocks and its a good opportunity to see them close up, though its still not as close as what you can see at the Langkawi Wildlife Park. However, there are a lot more white peacocks here and they certainly look much more elegant compared to their colourful counterparts.






And that's pretty much about this park as I moved to my next stop which was the cable car station. To be honest I have no idea where does this cable car lead to so I just cycled on without knowing where it will bring me too.


The roads, as usual, were really steep and I have to cycle a good 15-20 minutes before I reached this stop. It was such a relief to see buildings after an exhausting journey!





Bicycle parking area

I soon found out AFTER the cable car ride that it actually leads to the Formosa Aboriginal Village, which is a culture village as well as a theme park!! The costs for the car is 250NTD and the system will operate between 10:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. weekdays and between 10:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. on holidays. So plan the trip properly if you intend to take the ride back!






Though to be honest it's nothing to shout about comparing to Genting Highlands and Langkawi's cable car though xD That's why the more the places that I travel, the more I feel Malaysia seems slightly better. After a 10 minute ride, what greeted me at the other really opened my eyes!

why do u wanna risk the warranty? just buy at malaysia lor.

well if you think its worth to lose the warranty then go ahead and buy lor

t-shirts are always the best souvenirs to keep

Formosa Aboriginal Village ( 九族文化村) & Theme park @ Sun Moon Lake

The 10-15 minute cable car ride brings you here, the Formosa Aboriginal Village.





I didn't do much visiting around here as my attention was caught by another cable car entrance leading to another place. Little did I know that it was a theme park at the other end. I couldn't forget the look the ticket seller lady gave me when I told her I wanted to enter even when she repeatedly told me that the cable car closes at 4pm (it was around 2.50pm when I was there). Anyway, she must be pretty amused and charged me children's price instead for the entrance ticket LOL (330NTD), normal price would be around double of that amount.



The cultural village. Performances by the aborigines can be watched here at different timeslots .





The theme park has One Piece theme all over it. This explains the abundance of the anime's poster & banting all over the cable car station. It seems like this anime is a really big hit in Taiwan that they even build a whole theme park based on the anime's characters.

After fully comprehending the whole situation I decided to attempt as many rides as I could under one hour. And I made a dash for the space shot first.



To be honest I feel Genting's space shot is better as this ride only bounces once after it ascends to maximum height and drops. My next ride was the corkscrews roller coaster or the Mayan Adventure in this context. This was when things started to go wrong when there's too much adrenaline rushing to your brain. Prior to the ride, I kept my camera into the locker. However, after the ride which was really intense, a lot of tight curves and corkscrews and loops which my head gone spinning for awhile, I mixed up the locker key and my bicycle lock key. I was frantically running all over the theme park looking for help to open my locker and to only realise I used to wrong key -_____- this wasted a lot of my energy and time and I had to settle for only 2 rides before leaving this place :/





After all that frantic running I even dropped my return cable car ticket. Luckily the guy manning the ticket booth allowed me to pass through without reproducing a ticket. @_@ I will definitely be back here the next time. There are many more attractions that I've yet to try and it looks like fun. But having said that, I doubt there will be special discounted price for me anymore

there's a roller coaster in the picture what. yeah just dry theme park. you can take bus or cable car to the theme park.

haha yes. or you can buy owls from Sun Moon Lake.

Not applicable. It's damn hard to find money changer in Taiwan. And unless you are changing a lot of money you don't really lose much.

You can but some places are a bit far. You might have to rush back in case you are visiting the night market.

Cih-en Pagoda (慈恩塔) @ Sun Moon Lake



And finally, I have reached the last destination of the day which is the Cih-en Pagoda which is located at the highest peak of Sun Moon Lake. It was built by Chiang Kai-Shek in memory of his mother in 1971. By the time I cycled to the foot of the peak, I was almost completely exhausted and I didn't expect to climb another 700 metres uphill before I could reach the pagoda. I was contemplating on whether to continue or not but I pressed on, since I have cycled more than half of the lake to reach this place, it's a bit stupid to pull out now.





After parking my bicycle I then started my ascend. It was about 4.30pm then and the sun was still half way setting. Time was still on my side. The good thing about these steps is that they have distance markers, telling you how many metres more to go before you reach the pagoda.



The climb took approximately 15 minutes and it was a huge relief to finally see the magnificent pagoda. It's amazing how those workers manage to build this.



At 9 storeys high, it was another long climb for me to get to the best spot to capture the sunset. The view of the scenery from atop was indeed breath taking. The scene of the lake at one corner, and rows of mountains at the back of the pagoda. The weather on top was also quite refreshing, a good escape from the scorching Taiwan summer heat.







And so, I found nice to place to sit down and waited for the sun to slowly set over the horizon.........

hmm not sure about that. i got it for free from a symposium i was attending in Taipei. sorry

since you mentioned it... between 5.30-6.00pm

Sun Moon Lake Sunset Series @ Cih-En Pagoda

While waiting for the sun to slowly set, I was beginning to get worried as heavy mists were starting to materialise which clouded the entire area, including the sun





Thankfully about 5 minutes later the mist subsided and I was able to take pictures of the sunset.









I guess its pretty worth it after all to miss my ride back to my hotel and to witness this beautiful scenery and capture it on film/memory

what help do u need?

January is winter right? maybe the sun cant be seen so clearly i think and it wil be very foggy

Sun Moon Lake Miscellaneous

As I mentioned earlier in this post, the last boat left and everything was closed when I arrived at the pier around 6pm (or maybe I was at the wrong pier to begin with).







As you can see, from the location that I was, I had to cycle a great deal of distance to get back to my hotel (red arrow). I thought it would be relatively straight forward but boy I was wrong as it was another long and gruesome journey back. Anyway I finally arrived at my hotel area at around 8p.m and the first thing I did was to return my bicycle back to the shop owner to get my deposit and passport back. Unfortunately the shop was already closed so I handed it back to the tea shop next it (same owner).



The owner was really nice and offered to try the various Chinese teas on offer, mainly Red Tea (紅茶) and Oolong Tea (烏龍茶). I really liked the Li Shan Tea (梨山茶), which is a type of high mountain Oolong. The price on offer was NTD800 but I told her I was a student and I got it for NTD500 instead. On top of that she also gave me a free bottle of Red tea. It was a really nice and warm experience after almost getting lost in a foreign land. For that I highly recommend her tea shop if you happen to stop by at Sun Moon Lake.



Upon settling my bike I then headed back to my hotel room and enjoyed the comfort of my bed for a moment before I had a shower and headed downstairs to hunt for dinner. As I didn't do much research about the food here so I randomly went into a restaurant for dinner, did some souvenir shopping, chilled by the lake, which brings my last night at Taiwan to an end.


Dumpling noodles. Not really recommended. NTD70


Plum wine, haven't tried it yet as of today 500NTD


Taro green milk tea. A MUST try. One of the best drinks I've tasted so far in Taiwan. NTD70

After being so exhausted for the day, I've cancelled all my plans for my last day in Taiwan (actually planned to head to Puli to see the wine brewery) and took my time to enjoy the last moments at Sun Moon Lake before departing back to Taichung High Speed Rail station to board the train to Taoyuan HSR station.

more or less the same stuff...jiu fen is not exactly a night market.. can see the night scenery if you are free.. shilin more on to food as there's a dedicated food court underground.. shopping can be quite unpleasant with all the crowd squeezing around.. yeh liu is not a night market @@.. feng jia have unique foods and the things are slightly cheaper than taipei..

that seems very rushed. what kind of recommendations do you want?

if u wanna save time then take bullet train to taizhung. there are a few places to visit around but not very sure can google. from there u head to qing jing and spend a night and then move to sun moon lake before going back to taipei.

i would spend my first day in taipei then head to yi lan, hua lien and then back to taipei.

Taoyuan International Airport

This post finally brings an end to my Taiwan series. It has been a good four months since I came back and I still miss the place once in awhile. This airport had undergone an impressive upgrade since the last time I've been here about 7-8 years ago. Almost couldn't recognise this place when I first touched down.



Anyway, from Taoyuan High Speed Rail station (ticket from Taichung HSR to Taoyuan costed NTD550) I boarded a public bus which took me to the airport. There are two terminals now after the new terminal completion in 2000 so be sure to take the bus to the right one! The bus fare was relatively cheap but be sure to prepare some small change for this final trip. There isn't much luggage space on the bus so its pretty cramped up with other passengers. Anyway there's always the more luxurious option ---> taxi.



Since I cancelled my Puli trip I had a lot of time to burn at the airport hence I did some shopping around and visited most of the stores here.






Final picture of Taiwan as the plane departed for Malaysian skies.

Looking forward to the next time when I am back at this place again. Will cover mostly the southern and middle region the next time as well as a few spots which I missed out at Taipei!

er not worth lah. since when seat selection need to pay one? unless u travel from taipei to gao xiong and back to taipei within 3 days then its worth ah.

no such thing lah i go the counter buy directly can choose where ever i want without paying. unless u wanna travel during peak office hours there shouldn't be a problem getting tickets. even in 7-11 also can buy tickets if you can read mandarin.