The Tour Islanded On: Day 1

All last week I went on an island tour of Taiwan and it was so much fun and the sights were incredible.  I got to see so much cool stuff, by way of bus, and meet lots of awesome people from around the world.  On the tour alone we had people from Australia, Poland, The Netherlands, Indonesia, China, Germany, San Diego and Wisconsin.

The bus picked us up at 7:30 in Taipei and we were on our way to the first stop:

Sun Moon Lake.

First we had lunch on the patio with the view of the above two photos.  The lake is amazing.  The water is greenish teal and looks like kool-aid.  Unfortunately, this is not a lake you swim in.

After lunch we got on our own tour boat and took a half hour trip on the boat.

On the left is our tour guide.  His name was Samson.  He was a lot of fun.

There was a pagoda sitting on top of the hills which I thought was awesome.  Little did I know that later on in the day we would be climbing that very pagoda seen above.

We made a stop on one side of the lake to go up and see the Holy Monk Shrine at the top of a hill.  Along the path there were people meditating on the side, completely motionless.

Outside the shrine.

View from the top of the hill.

Not my boat above but a cool looking one.

By the time we got back to our boat on the dock the clouds were taking over and it began to rain all over across the lake.

When we reached the dock on the far side of the lake there was no hope of staying dry.  We stopped at Dehua Village, which is an Aborigine village.  Unfortunately, because of the rain everyone was in a hurry to just make it to the bus so we didn't get to see too much of it.  It was tiny anyway.

But we did get ponchos which were pointless as we were already wet.

And, naturally, the rain stopped and the sun came back out immediately upon purchasing them.

Next we were dropped off at the bottom of a hill where we were to climb over 200 stairs to reach the Tse-en Pagoda at the top of the hill that I mentioned earlier above.

At the bottom before the ascent.

View of the lake from the trail.

Made it!

I thought it was so cool looking.  

Our tour guide told us we could climb the extra 100+ stairs to go to the top and ring the gong.

Didn't hesitate.

View from the top of the inside.

View from the top of the outside.

Views of the lake and mountains surrounding the pagoda.

I rang the gong and it was super loud.

After we climbed back down we got back on the bus and on our way to see the Wenwu Temple, which was beautiful and gigantic.

After the temple it was time to go check-in at the hotel!  I thought we would be staying at a Marriot-type place at best, but noooo!  It was a legit 5-star hotel, called Fluer De Chine Hotel, directly on the edge of the lake.  It was super luxurious and ritzy, especially after figuring this out:

One normal night in this hotel: $483

Price of the entire tour: $500

Reaction to this discovery: Priceless

(2 pictures above taken from google)

Each level had its own lobby with a gigantic window overlooking the entire lake, so we thought it would be fun to take Asian inspired shadowed photos with the backdrop to end the day off (in the kimono pajamas provided by the hotel, of course.)

And that was only Monday.

Taipei Maokong Gondola

The day before the tour started we took a gondola over the Taipei forest in the Maokong mountains just east of the city.  It was such a great experience that I wasn't expecting to be all that great at all.  The great thing about modern technology is you can just google "Things to do in _______", pick an activity or location, and be there within thirty minutes.

The gondola took off from the entry of the Taipei zoo.

My friend Katie and I on the MRT (train) to the zoo entrance.

This is where the cabins come down from out of the sky and you get on.

Got my ticket.

Within ten seconds of taking off you could instantly see the Taipei 101 building hovering over the top of the mountains.  It was such an awesome sight.  Eventually the entire city was visible the higher you go.

Also...

We paid a little extra to have a glass bottom cabin where you can have an even better view of everything around you and below you.  It was awesome!

The gondola takes you on about a 20 minute ride up to the Maokong village.  It was mainly a tourist trap for tea sampling and obscure restaurants.

So we decided to just start walking along the road to see where it led us.  After a few minutes there was a sign that said "Zhinan Temple" with an arrow pointing forward so we thought it couldn't be that far and might as well see a temple while we're up here.

A view from the road of the Taipei 101 and some of the city.

Seriously that thing could probably be seen from outer space.

After a while the walk started to feel semi-long and we began questioning the distance.  But the signs kept saying the temple was ahead of us so we just kept going.

Oh yes, and above us between all the phone wires for the entire duration of this walk were these beauties...

Honestly, I have never in my life seen spiders this size.  Pictures do them no justice just as how big they were.  They were monstrous.  I wasn't scared or creeped out, just fascinated.  Good thing we didn't see any move...then there would have been issues.

There was a point after about 45 minutes where we thought "This walk is getting ridiculous!  How far away is this temple!?"  Cars passed us and slowly the strangers who were walking around and with us slowly started to fade until it was just us.  We had reached the point (at least in our minds) to where it would have made more sense to keep going than to turn around and go back.

Well, the walk ended up being THREE MILES LONG!...as highlighted by the blue line below.  We had no clue when we started it would be this long.  And while 3 miles doesn't seem thaaat bad, remember this is August in Taiwan, and much of it was uphill.  I actually felt great during and after...but the friends I was with...well, poor things.

We walked from the purple dot to the red dot.  The red dot is where the temple was and by the time we reached it, we didn't even care to see it!  Luckily, there was a gondola station there as well so we were able to catch that and take it back to where we got on the first time.

Come visit me and we'll be sure to take the gondola trip.

Minus the walk and spiders.