Taiwan Trip (Day 3) 9th April 2007, Monday

Good morning......mommy and daddy!! Today we wake up around 5:30am and get ready for our tour today. By 6:30am, we are ready to go for our breakfast. Today, I have some porridge with some chicken shred, meat floss and egg. Yummy..... but it's too early, I don't really have the appetite. At the end, daddy has it all.

After the breakfast, we go on the bus and continue our first destination of the day.

First Destination: Taroko National Park(太魯閣國家公園)

From our tour guide, we know that Taroko became a national park in 1986. It is the second largest national park in Taiwan. Taroko is famous for its spectacular mountains and marble canyons. Cliffs and canyons stretch along Li Wu River.

Second Destination: The Atayal Culturer Centre

From there we go to The Buluowan Tourist Center are a beautiful sight, which continually amaze and attract visitors. Buluowan is divided into upper and lower platform areas, and the most singular sight in the scenic walkway in the upper platform area. When the hanging tendrils of the banyan trees come into contact with the earth, it automatically curls around objects, creating the curious scene of vines embracing stones. But this does not include in our tour because it take more time and we have only 7 days to tour around Taiwan.

The Atayal Cutural Center is a specially designed tourist area in Buluowan. It has an administration center, an Atayal culture exhibition area, a multimedia presentation center, and a circular theater. We are invited to watch a short documentary about their history and some beautiful views in their park. In the exhibition area, there are elderly Atayals demonstrating how they weave cloth and rushes in the traditional method. Mommy buy me one of their weave cloth. Do you see I wearing it??? Thanks for the Po Po for allowing me to take a photo with her.

She is so gentle and caring.

Third Destination: Chang Chun Temple

Yen Tze Kou and Chiu Chu Tung are the most impressive natural scenes in Taroko and the canyons here are the narrowest. Tourists can appreciate the natural beauty along the tour track. Swallows nest on the cliff, chirping and flying back forth. The Taroko monumental is designed in Chinese style and Chang Chun Temple is to remember those who sacrificed their lives for building the central highway. We don't go for the track as well. But we stop by the side of the road to enjoy the scene. There's a staircase to walk down to the cafeteria with a closer view. Everyone go down to have either coffee, tea, burger or sandwich.

Fourth Destination: National LingTzi Centre

Before we continue our tour to Chihpen Hotspring, we are brought to the National Lingtzi Centre. There's we are given a short lecture about where they find the lingtzi and the benefits of the lingtzi to our body. We are served with the lingtzi tea. I have it as well plus a yummy lollipop. Hehehe.... I know they just want me to keep quiet while all of the others listening to the lecture about the lingtzi. Daddy buy quite a lot of lingtzi because buy more free more and the price is cheaper compare to the price in either malaysia or singapore. They do show us how to know which one is the real lingtzi.

One more thing they introduce to us is taiwan deer's fetus. Oh.... my god!! It's really scary. But they claim that it has some benefits like asthma and joints pain. If you buy, they will help you to grind it into powder on the spot. So, you don't have to worry you will get the fake one.

This is one of the way the tour guide earn some money by getting some commision of the things that the tourists buy from the centre.

Okay....it's time to move on. Chihpen hotspring..... I'm coming.

Fifth Destination: Chihpen Hotspring

We pass the Chihpen town and come to a small village where our hotel located. It's not a very big a classy hotel but they have everything the big hotel have like a good restaurant, in room hotspring, outdoor hotspring and an one whole stretch of shoplots selling swimming suits, souvenirs, 24 hours convenience shop (like 7 eleven in local).

After we get our key, we go back to our own hotel to take a bath and head to buy mommy's swimming suit. After that we go back to the hotel's restaurant to have our dinner together with the other tourmates. The dinner tonight is really good. We have chicken soup, fish, meat, and veggie. Okay.... now is time to go back to get a change and go for the hotspring!!

The outdoor hotspring is really great but daddy and mommy don't allow me to try. So, I can only go to the swimming pool where their water is warm. Beside the swimming pool, there's 2 small pools for does who need some treatments. One is for skin rejuvenating and anti aging which contain lingtzi, rose and some other herbs. The other one is for body pain which contain ginger, tumeric and the others.

After the hotspring, we go to meet our tour guide, uncle wei. He promise to bring us to eat some special foods. Can you guess what??!! The special foods are snails with veggie, fried worms, frog legs with peanuts, crickets salad and fried crabs. Yukkk!!! Daddy said it taste weird..... but it just for a try. But the crab is nice but not much meat inside. That's the special of the crab. But daddy and mommy still prefer the one with a lot of meat.