Travel around Taiwan Island Impressions of Taiwan Part 4
Taiwan's five-day round-the-island tour is neither a group tour nor an independent tour, nor is it an innovative form of tourism. I traveled to the Philippines more than ten years ago and arranged a three-day tour with a South Korean travel agency in the Philippines. This is also the format. The biggest advantage of this form of tourism is that it saves you from the trouble of finding shops and cars that you may encounter after arriving in a strange place. Another advantage is that it saves time and allows you to visit more of your favorite attractions in a short period of time. There is no tour guide in this form, and every time you arrive at a site, there must be a welcome and a send-off. Yiyou.com's arrangement is very thoughtful and meticulous. For five days and four nights, except for departing from Taipei to Taipei Railway Station by yourself, the five pick-ups and drop-offs are all seamless. There is a car waiting for the train when it arrives at the station, and there is a car when you check out and leave the hotel. Car transfer. The so-called semi-free travel means that the scope of major attractions is framed for you in advance, and how to arrange the attractions after reaching this large scale is entirely up to you. The first day at Hualien Beach was the model for the following days.
At 8:00 in the morning, take the float around the island belonging to the Taiwan Railway at Taipei Main Station, and arrive at Hualien Station at about 11:00. Driver Li was waiting at the station exit with a name plate. CMB and ten people stopped by the beach of Chihsingtan Scenic Spot in Hualien and accidentally bought a colorful vase in Hualien. They knew that Hualien is a place where jade and stone are produced.
Chihsingtan Beach in Hualien
Colorful bottles in Hualien
The ordinary journey also has its amazing features. At 12:00 noon, the driver took a group of ten of us into the Pacific Restaurant on the way to share a local special group meal. During the free conversation at the meeting, I found out that the six Taiwanese elderly who accompanied the group were all over 80, and two of them were born in 1927, both retired military officers, over 90 years old. But the body is tough, walking freely, refreshed. People in their 80s and 90s travel alone without the company of their juniors, which is admirable, and the two young Beijing donkey friends at the same table are also full of emotion. After Xi Bi, the driver drove through Taroko National Park in Hualien, and there was a short break. From this short observation, he learned that Taroko is one of the six national forest parks in Taiwan.
A group photo of Hualien group members in Taroko National Park
At 5:00 p.m., check into Meilun Hotel in Hualien. At 10 o'clock the next day, take the hotel shuttle bus to the train station, and then take a sightseeing float around the island to Kaohsiung, a seaport city in southern Taiwan, and check into Howard Plaza Hotel Kaohsiung at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. This is a long journey along the east coast, traveling south along the east coast of Taiwan Island, passing through Taitung, then west to Fangliao, and then north to Kaohsiung on the west coast, about a six-hour drive.
At Taitung Station on the way, we shook hands with the six healthy Taiwanese elderly and said goodbye. What they were going to was a scenic spot in Taitung where the water flows upwards. We took the high-speed train from southern Taiwan to Chiayi via Kaohsiung, and went straight to the Alishan scenic spot in central Taiwan. Also at 10 am, at Chiayi High Speed Rail Station, driver Xie was waiting at the exit, and another group of six donkey friends headed to Alishan in the same car. Today's tourism is the continuous gathering and dispersal of people and places with destiny. There is a time to meet, and there is regret in parting. There are often some unexpected gatherings, and there are also some regrets about missing information. The mountain scenery of Alishan is certainly good, but the most impressive thing is the inter-mountain railway built in Taiwan for logging and transportation in the early years, leaving many railway relics in the mountains. Now the railway transportation of timber has become a history, and the logging transportation railway has evolved into a tourist route. It was only after I went that I realized that this railway was able to drive slowly from Chiayi to the entrance of Alishan Scenic Area. If there is a chance to go to Alishan again, this mountaineering railway must be experienced.
Shenmu Hotel
Alishan Shenmu
Alishan Railway Station built with wooden materials
Alishan railway map
forest railway carriages
Quaint Shenmu Station
History of Shenmu Station
Alishan Sister Lake
Alishan morning glow
Alishan gate night scene
The next day, the car traveled northward for three hours from Alishan along the mountain road between Yushan Mountains and Alishan Mountains, and arrived at Sun Moon Lake, a tourist attraction in Nantou County, the largest freshwater lake in Taiwan. Alishan is 2,700 meters above sea level, and Sun Moon Lake is about 700 meters above sea level, and it goes down 2,000 meters. After that, it also becomes hotter and hotter.
The hotel is right next to Sun Moon Lake. One boat ticket is valid for one day. You can get off and on at the three piers of Sun Moon Lake respectively. It is already dusk and it is time to go back to the hotel to rest. There are many scenic spots in Sun Moon Lake, and we focused on watching the Man Mo Temple which is the closest to the hotel. A temple built near a pond, dedicated to Confucius in literature and Guan Gong in martial arts, is neither a Buddhist nor a Taoist temple.
Wen Mo Temple in Sun Moon Lake
Confucius Seat in Dacheng Hall
Guan Gongwei
I appreciate the Nian Dao in front of the Man Mo Temple the most, a very creative design. 365 steps, one celebrity per step. Unexpectedly, the three celebrities who play logic, Russell from England, Frege from Germany, and Yin Haiguang from Taiwan are all within Nianti. From the trail along the lake to the top step by step, the Man Mo Temple is right in front of you. The country needs to emphasize culture, but also respect martial arts, which is the purpose of Man Mo Temple. This seems to be the general knowledge of the world at present, and I always feel a little pimple. Human beings move from barbarism to civilization, which should be a process of constantly weakening violence and advocating civilization. Chongwu is just an excuse for the arms race. Even if armaments are needed, it should be advocating literature and martial arts, not the other way around. After comparing the photos, I found that I had misunderstood the purpose of the Man Mo Temple. It is not about worshiping martial arts but also respecting martial arts.
Nian Road in front of Man Mo Temple
british logician russell rungs
german logician frege rung
Taiwanese logician Yin Haiguang Ladder
It was already past 11:00 noon when we returned to the hotel from the Man Mo Temple. It was time to check out the hotel and end the trip.
With a feeling of reluctance, at 12:00 noon, we boarded the sightseeing car of driver Zhang. Started the last itinerary of this tour, went to Taichung, and took the high-speed train back to Taipei at 6 pm. Unexpectedly, there are still more than 3 hours to share two important scenic spots in Taiwan, which belong to the branch line tour of Taiwan Railway, two branch line stations of Checheng and Jiji in central Taiwan. Let me recount this journey in the next article. 2018/09/29
