Back From Taiwan: Updates Part 1

Came back from Taiwan a couple of days ago. A lousy start when my N6600 self destructed 30mins before I was supposed to get to the airport... 2 frantic calls later and I finally got a replacement phone for use over in Taiwan... Thanks bro ;)

Its not too bad a place, some interesting scenery, makan, and stuff. I guess the weather was quite cool... Which makes for a nice contrast compared to Singapore :)

There were many interesting and funny events that happened throughout the trip... From K's romantic interludes, to A's hyperactivity disorder, ending with me chatting up a Hirosue Ryoko lookalike, hahaha! Suffice to say that I will try my best to touch on the highlights :)

Anyway, 14 days was abit long, probably because I went over budget. Somehow, a holiday is not as fun when you are constantly reminded of budget constraints... Especially when one is shopping around in XiMenDing... Though I had fun :p

Anyway, just like to post a few highlights of the 14 day trip:

1) Ri Yue Tan or Sun-Moon Lake

Its quite an interesting place, so named because there are '2' lakes situated side by side, one round, and the other a crescent, though it takes a short stretch of the imagination to make it so ;)

We took a day trip for like NT1000. The scenery was quite good... Mountains, Lake, and with cool weather to boot, viviting 2 temples, the pagoda Chiang Kai Shek built for his mum, as well as various other locales of interest dotted around the lake. You can see the underground source of the lakewaters in the picture above. It was unlucky though that the weather was rather misty throughout our day tour because a cloud front had moved in, according to the taxi driver cum guide. Therefore, a large number of our photos turned out rather... Blurred... :p

We stayed in a partially renovated hotel, the Honeymoon Hotel. Quite a nice place. The owner of the hotel owns the 24hr convenience stall next door as well, so it was literally both a family owned establishment as well as a monopoly.

The beds were the best throughout the whole 14 day trip. One queen sized bed each for K and I. Best of all, it costs just NT1000, which is slightly over S$25 each for a night's stay... Sweet ;)

2) Alishan

Went up the mountain via Chiayi. K and I were extremely disappointed by the accomodation. The queen sized bed alone took up 70% of the room space. There was barely enough space for our luggage, much less room for stretching. Its one heck of a huge difference from the promotional brochures we were shown at the railway station... Bleargh!

This was the coldest part of the trip so far. Temperature was hovering around 6 degrees the whole time, and thats like during the day! I did not even bother going out at night to check out how cold it was though I know K did... Haha... The things people do in the name of... Heehehe ;)

Anyway, we spent day one wandering around the park. The whole place was one huge natural reserve. Basically, we spent our time walking from place to place, exploring Sisters' Pond (JieMei Tan), Thousand Year Holy Wood (Qien Nian ShenMu), along with various interesting shaped trees.

Yup... Thats how poor we were... Living on instant noodles... Sigh ;)

Day two was spent waking up at 4.30am, just to catch the sunrise. The tour guide was pretty good at his business. We were introduced to various constellations, like Sorpio and Libra... Absolutely beautiful up in the mountains...

The sunrise was quite a sight... And I love it when the sunlight warmed me up. a few minutes after it rises. There's really no words to describe the feeling. One minute you're shivering in the cold morning air, and the next, you are feeling so warm, caressed by the light from the sun... :)

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I guess this post was a long time in coming... Working on a number of posts concurrently... So I will back date and put them up each time I am done... Please bear with me :p