YowCH & Grace

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Day 4 – 21 March 2013

Today is the highlight, the sheep farm. The morning temperature is rather low, at 15°C to 18°C. We had very sumptous hotel breakfast.


Then we drove out and reached Qing Qing Grassland at 9:25.


Esther, David and Joseph immediately took to the hills and pastures, climbing the steep slopes.


We bought some animal feed to feed the sheep. The dumb animals will eat the food and the paper bags, too.

But the sheep are docile and very tame.

At 10:30, we walked over to the horse-show area to enjoy the exciting horsemanship demonstrations.




During the horse show, the fog came in and rained. the temprature dropped to 15°C.

We got our cars and drove over for lunch at the Cingjing Farm Restaurant. Lunch was from 12:30 to 13:30. During lunch, the temprature dropped further to 12°C.



The Phans drove back to Taichung and took HSR back to Taipei after lunch. We returned to the hotel, as it was too cold to do anything outdoors.

At 17:15, we saw the sun come up and the temprature rose to 20°C again, so we set out to explore the area further.

We visited the central 7-eleven of Cingjing (there are 7 outlets of 7-eleven within Cingjing!) and bought some snacks to bring home.

Then we visited The Little Swiss Garden, next to the central 7-eleven.






The musical light-show fountain was the highlight of Little Swiss Garden, but we have seen better ones elsewhere.

The Carton King is also situated here.


We bought some souvenirs and gifts, and had dinner upstairs. All the furniture and ‘crockery’ are made of paper cardboxes.


The food is rather good.

Then we returned to hotel, had evening tea and slept at 22:00.

Day 5 – 22 March 2013

We had arranged for the sunrise viewing at Hehuanshan and we woke at 4:00 to catch the van pick-up at 4:30. The van arrived a little late at 4:40, and another young couple in our hotel (also from Singapore) joined us on the tour. The driver stopped for a while at the highest altitude 7-eleven in Taiwan. The temperature is about 15°C.

By 5:35, we reached the sunrise viewing area up on Hehuanshan. The temprature was very low, proabbly around 5°C, and the wind was strong and biting.



Here’s a panoramic view of the area, click to enlarge.

All came out of the car except David who found it way too cold. In truth, while we have worn extra clothing, we did not prepare for 5°C. Gloves would have been helpful.





Ah, the sun rises.

Photos and videos can’t do justice to the beauty of God’s wonders. Need to see with our own naked eyes to enjoy fully. It doesn’t help that YowCH’s eyes are still teary due to the viral infection.

After a while, we descended to Wuling.


This is Hehuan peak viewed from Wuling.

As of all mountain roads, very narrow and windy.

Next stop, Toroko National Park marker stone.

Beautiful sun-rays.

We returned to hotel at 7:30 for breakfast, then rested for a while.

We checked out and drove to Puli and Riyuetan at 10:00.

After a nice drive, with the GPS as guide, we were greeted at Riyuetan with this beautiful scene. Temperature 28°C, hot.

We just drove around and stopped at several points for photos.

This is the reconstructed artificial Lalu Island. The original and natural sank in the large earthquake of 1999.


We all touched the lake water.

At 12:15, we visited the Riyuetan Visitor Centre, a very nicely designed complex of a visitor centre and an administrative centre. Click on this photo to enlarge the panoramic view.

After driving through the hills, we reached a small town and ate lunch at the local chain San-Ma.



Warning, the drinks shown here tastes terrible. But the food was great tasting and cheap.

This is the Wenwu temple exterior, we did not go in.

We left Riyuetan at 14:40 and headed back to Taichung HSR Station, reaching at 15:40.

While YowCH settle the car accounts (including overtime and damages for the scrathes), Grace bought the HSR tickets. We boarded the 16:19 train and reached Banqiao at 17:10.


The train did get very clsoe to 300km/h.

From the HSR, we took a cab back to the hotel and then took MRT out to Dongmen for dinner with the Phans at 19:00 at Lao Zhang Beef Noodles. Nice.

After dinner, we went to Guting MRT to seek specialist treatment for YowCH’s eyes. The doctor at He-ping Da-ai Ophthalmologist Clinic confirm that it is a viral infection and the infection shall clear in another week. She prescribed some eye-drops and cream (on left side of photo, those on right side was given by Wei Lian for eye and sime pills for fever/flu).

We then visited Gongguan area to pack some bao and pearly milk, then returned to Dapinglin and took cab to Phans’ place at 21:30.


After downloading photos for the Phans, Wei Lian drove us back to hotel. We slept at 23:15.

Day 6 – 23 March 2013

This is the last day. We woke up at 7:00, had hotel breakfast and took train to Taipei City Hall to visit Taipei 101. We reached 101 at 9:05 and there was no crowd yet.







The children with damper-baby:

We went up to the open deck, too.


Then we visited the big steel ball (wind damper).


At 10:40, we bought some gift snacks at the basement.

Then, Grace wisely suggested that we rush over to SYS Memorial Hall to see the guard change at 11:00. So we took a cab and got there on time to see the guard changing ceremony.

There was already a very big crowd.

After SYS Memorial Hall, we took train back to hotel, checked out and took a cab (pre-booked, same guy as our previous trip to Taipei) to the airport.

There was a large crowd at the airport, and we just bought Burger King for lunch.

Here you get to see the scary red of YowCHs eyes:

We boarded the plane quite on time and took off at 15:45. David took these nice sunset photos on the plane:

We reached Singapore at 20:15. Collecting the checked-in luggage, now 5 pieces instead of 3, was really slow (more than 15 minutes). At 21:00, dad picked us up and drove us home. Here are the goodies we brought back:

We thank God for this trip, particularly for:
1. Safety of Grace (7 weeks pregnant).
2. YowCH’s flu/fever and infected eyes.
3. Meeting the Phans and to have joint tour, fellowship and meals together.
4. Children behaving very well.
5. Good weather.
6. No set-backs or disasterous problems.
7. Eye-opening experiences during the tour.

Taiwan is very nice, full of history and lots of natural wonders. Also very tourist-friendly and family-friendly. Most of all, the people are courteous and helpful. Certainly a nice place to enjoy holidays.

For this trip, we spent a total of about $6,100, of which $3,100 goes to the airline.

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