Romantic Sun Moon Lake

Got up at 5:30 am this morning to get ready to go on the tour. After yet another breakfast buffet, we gathered at the lobby of the hotel and awaited the tour guide. It turns out that this is a small tour group with only six people. A Greek couple, Theo and Sophia - Theo was born in Greece but now lives in San Francisco and Sophia is totally into Chinese foods and can cook up a full Chinese feast. A Chinese couple Shawn and Lily Ho - Originally from Taipei, they have moved to LA for over 30 years and are back in Taipei to celebrate Chinese New Year.

From the hotel, we boarded a small van to the Taipei Main Station where we got on a bullet train to Tai Chung. I have to say the bullet train experience wizzed past me as I was mostly asleep on the ride. The few times I opened my eyes, all I saw was green padi fields zooming past me. However, the ride was damn comfy cos the seats were like plane seats and could recline quite a ways back. The train station in Tai Chung was really nice and modern looking. I can't say the same for the rest of Tai Chung though, cos we kinda went past it rather quickly on our way to Puli for lunch.

Getting into the Taipei Train Station to catch the 9:30 am bullet train

My ticket to Tai Chung

The train departs from platform 1 and we are in the first cabin

Ground Stewardess? At least she reminds me of some of the air crew you see and she was pretty helpful too

My trusty red luggage hanging out with other luggages

Me and Dad on the train before it sets off

An hour later and we've arrived in Tai Chung

In front of the bullet train. That's Sophia in the background, doing her Greek documentary thingee

The brand spanking new Tai Chung station that has been opened for only 3 months

Lunch was in a small town called Puli, which really reminded me of some small Indonesian village. Everything looked run down and sad. The saving grace was that the food was really quite good. It was a 10 course meal for just 6 of us and wow, I ate until I couldn't eat anymore! Yes, I am totally getting fat on this trip from all the food I've been eating...

Restaurant where we stopped for lunch

Touristy display of cooking implements in the restaurant

After lunch, we headed to Sun Moon Lake which is really beautiful. It is an artificial man made lake that is used to generate electricity. There are some resorts that surround it, as well as some places of interests. One of these places is the Ci En Pagoda which was built by Chiang Kai Shek to commorate his mother. The hike up to the pagoda was 570 m worth of stairs. Strangely enough, I was extremely energised by the hike and even bounded up 9 floors up to the top of the Pagoda after that. From the top of the Pagoda, you can see the whole Sun Moon Lake and also the mountains that surround the lake. Truly breath-taking sight that I couldn't really capture with my camera.

570 m to the Pagoda

View from the top of the Pagoda. Simply breathtaking.

Beautiful view behind me

Ringing the bell at the top of the Pagoda. *GooOOooNnnNnG*

Me and Dad in front of the Ci En Pagoda

After the Ci En Pagoda, we headed to Holy Monk Shrine which is built for Tripitaka Master Hsuan Tsang. He is supposed to be responsible for bringing Buddism to China by collecting scriptures from the west ala Journey to the West without the Monkey God and gang. After that we went to the Thao Cultural Village to see some of the local Aboriginal culture. I'll have to say it was a bit boring here as most of it was just pictures and the other stuff was just things they made to sell to tourist which I wasn't really interested in.

Map of where Tripitaka trekked to

Shrine for worship

Me and Dad in front of the Holy Monk Shrine

Thao Cultural Village which was really just a shop with this sign above the doorway

The next stop was the Wen Wu Temple. This temple was actually two temples in the past. When the Japanese wanted to create a dam in Sun Moon Lake, there were two temples in the lower mountains surrounding the lake. So the Japanese offered to rebuilt both temples into just one temple and that's how the Wen Wu Temple came about. Wen represents Knowledge, Wu represents Protection. Basically they worship Confucius for Knowledge and Guan Kong for Protection. While we were there, I decided to get my fortune told from their fortune telling machine. It is actually rather cute, with this little maiden who goes into a temple to get the fortune. The number I got was 69 (how ironic right?) and it was a BAD fortune! I couldn't understand the fortune at first as the Chinese was too chim for me and the English translation just sucked. However, after I got Irene to translate for me, I found out that apparently I will have some friend who may become an enemy! No wonder my dad kept telling me to be careful of who I am friends with

Grand entrance to the Wen Wu Temple

Elaborate carvings that are on the walls that surrounds the temple

Sword of Guan Gong

Apparently a dragon bled on the sword which was why it became blue

Guan Gong with the red face and Yue Fei next to him

Blur photo of Dad and Me holding the Ball of Knowledge

Fortune Telling Vending Machine

Maiden goes into the door

Maiden appears carrying a mini scroll

Maiden drops mini-scroll into hole

Mini-scroll is picked up by me

Mini-scroll is taken out of plastic tube by me

And mini-scroll turns out to be lot 69!

We headed for the hotel after this temple and I must say this is one of the nicer hotels I've stayed at. Although the facilities are a bit backwards, it has really nice big rooms and nice big beds, plus the view is amazing! Hotel Del Lago is right on the lake and the rooms face the lake as well.

 

Entrance of the hotel

They have Haagen-Dazz, but its too cold for ice-cream

Double double beds!

Massage shower facilities

Splendor bath!

Dinner was at Ming Hu restaurant that was apparently opened by a guy who was once the chef for Cheung Kai Shek. Unfortunately, the food was only so-so. Nothing to get excited about and in fact, I didn't eat much, so bought some dark chocolate M&Ms and snacks from the 7-11 in case I got hungry at night. The restaurant itself was kinda old, but was cute to see them have a mini elevator for the food. The kitchen was actually upstairs and when the food was ready, the chef would press the bell and send the food down.

Not so exciting restaurant entrance

Food lift anyone?

The hotel actually provided complimentary drinks, so after dinner, we went to the cafe that was right next to the lake and had drinks. After my lovely honey lemonade, we headed back to enjoy the great hotel room. The plus point was that the hotel had complimentary internet as well. The minus point was that it was laggy and I couldn't upload photos properly. However, the area where I could use the laptop was a nice small corner in the room, which was really nice. As we had an early start the next morning, I slept fairly early, but I did end up taking a nice long bath in the wonderful tub and an invigorating massage shower which was uber good as I had a great night's sleep after.

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