All posts tagged: Taiwan

Taiwan: Taroko National Park 太魯閣國家公園 Lodging/Hotel – Leader Village 立德布洛灣山月村 (Taiwan Travel Review Series)

Published by Beatrice

We tried 2 different hotels within Taroko National Park 太魯閣國家公園. The first night was spent at Leader Village 立德布洛灣山月村. From the stay, I learnt that there are mainly 2 types of tribes – 1 in the mountains and 1 on flat lands/sea (like Amei tribe), and Bruwan (布洛灣), meaning “echo,” used to be a tribal village of the Taroko mountain tribe aborigines. The rooms were fairly basic, reflective of its tribal village roots and did not have heating. However, thankfully, they had a heating pad on bed so we didn’t freeze in the wintry mountains. Leader Village 立德布洛灣山月村 gives a good flavour of traditional tribal village experience, with nightly cultural dance shows. Also, one wakes to an amazing mountaineous view with Taroko National Park. Tip: to eat breakfast, you have to greet the staff with “Maluku”, which means good morning in their tribal language! Full sets of posts that might be useful for your Taipei planning: Wu Fen Pu (五分埔) Shopping and Rao He Night Market (饒河街觀光夜市) Xi Men Ding (西門町) Shi Lin Night Market (士林夜市) Taipei 101, Christmas Illuminations, 大佳河濱公園 …

Taiwan: Taroko National Park 太魯閣國家公園 Taroko Gorge (Taiwan Travel Review Series)

Published by Beatrice

While Mr Lu does the cross Taiwan mountain tours, his friend, Mr Li does 1 day tours within Taroko National Park which we decided to engage after the good experience with Mr Lu.  Mr Li, a 65-year-old retiree, is a photography enthusiast and will tell you the best angles/light to get the best scenic shots in the National Park. If I had to rank the attractions within Taroko National Park, this would be the must-see order in case you had limited time within the park. 1) My favourite has to be the Swallow Grotto Trail. When we were planning the trip, I had problem locating THE “Taroko Gorge” because I thought it could only be viewed from 1 location. Only after I experienced the whole park, I realized the gorge runs through the whole National Park. Having said that, I think the view of the Taroko Gorge from the Swallow Grotto Trail is the most majestic. The mountain slopes plunge sharply into a V at the gorge, which has clear blue waters flowing through. The limestone …

Taiwan: Alishan 阿里山 – Fen Qi Hu 奮起湖 and 53.1 Homestay Min Su 民宿 (Taiwan Travel Review Series)

Published by Beatrice

From Taipei, we took the High Speed Rail (HSR) to Chiayi to get to Alishan (阿里山). We chose 53.1 Homestay Min Su (民宿) from very good online reviews on its location, friendliness of hosts and cleanliness.  53.1 Homestay Min Su (民宿) arranged a taxi for us (NTD$2000, SGD80+) which picked us up from the Chiayi HSR station to bring us to Fen Qi Hu (奮起湖, also spelled at Fen Chi Hu) and then drive us to 53.1 at Alishan. Including the stop at Fen Qi Hu, the total journey was ~3.5 hours. For those we are prone to motion sickness like me, tip: I highly recommend you to take motion sickness pills and sit at the front of the taxi. The ride is windy and quite bumpy! Fenqihu (奮起湖) has a long history that can be traced back to 100+ years before the opening of the Alishan Forest Railways in 1912.  As I learnt from the official Alishan site, Fenqihu is surrounded by mountains on three sides and with the ground low and flat, it looks like a bamboo …

Taiwan: Alishan 阿里山, Sun Moon Lake 日月潭 , Cing Jing 清境, Taroko National Park 太魯閣國家公園 (Taiwan Travel Review Series)

Published by Beatrice

After 2 good days at 53.1 Min Su in Alishan, it was time to do the long 8 hour route to Taroko National Park. If you ever want to take this route, we highly recommend our driver, Mr Lu (Contact number:  +886928569081), who is a robust, healthy 68-year-old grandfather retiree. He is enthusiastic and friendly, suggests locations for us to take photos, suggests and helps us take “jumping” shots, feeds us fruits and slows down because I am car sick and tells me his life stories to distract me from my motion sickness. He is also very knowledgable about Taiwan’s history, economy and details of the various tourist sites so he made the entire day tour much more educational. First up, after leaving Alishan at 830am, 2 hours later, we stopped by the Sun Moon Lake (日月潭) to take the obligatory shot with the “Sun Moon Lake” Stone Carving.  The lake view against the mountains and clouds is beautiful but I felt the entire Sun Moon Lake area has become quite commercial and touristy, with a lot …

Taiwan: Alishan Main Attraction – Alishan National Scenic Area 阿里山國家風景區 (Taiwan Travel Review Series)

Published by Beatrice

The very first tip before I start on the attractions is that up this peak at Alishan’s Main attraction – Alishan National Scenic Area (阿里山國家風景區)is much colder than the base of the mountain. We dressed for the 10 to 15 degC we were experiencing at 53.1 Minsu, which is just 1 hour away from the peak, but the temperature was only 4 degC up at the peak, so do pad up before heading up! Good thing there are a lot of good hotpot stalls so we ate our fill to fuel up, and walked around a lot to warm ourselves up!   The traditional train ride at Alishan was slow, historic and enjoyable. Tip: take to Zhaoping Station (Rather than the more popular Sacred Tree station 神木車站 ) and walk from Zhaoping 沼平車站 because there will be a lot more downslope walking than an uphill climb! The most popular site is the Sacred Tree, which has since collapsed. But the trunk remains, giving a glimpse of the tree’s majestic breadth when it was still alive.

Taiwan: Taipei – Taipei 101, Christmas Illuminations, 大佳河濱公園 Park for 2014 Countdown (Taiwan Travel Review Series)

Published by Beatrice

Taipei 101 is the pride of many Taiwanese. It is modeled after a bamboo, and is extremely stable despite strong winds and typhoons that hit Taipei due to its unique design and sound foundation and architecture. Taipei 101 holds the Guinness record of being the fastest elevator in the world to bring people from ground level to 88 floors. The 360 degree view of Taipei from Taipei 101 is stunning: The walk around Taipei 101 during this Christmas season is also very enjoyable with the Christmas illuminations at 16 degreeC nights:

Taiwan: Taipei – Hope Hotel 全家歡商務旅店 and Cosmos Hotel 天成大飯店 (Taiwan Travel Review Series)

Published by Beatrice

As we had 2 legs of our tour in Taipei, we spent 2 nights in Hope Hotel (全家歡商務旅店) and 1 night in Cosmos Hotel. Hope Hotel (全家歡商務旅店 ) was very affordable at around NTD$1500 (SGD$60) per night. It looks sleazy but it isn’t. It is a very simple no frills room with basic bedding, 1 pillow each, clean toilets and heating. But for city visits, where we usually spend very little time in the hotel rooms but outside exploring the city, I think Hope Hotel meets our needs and is very centrally located at exit Z6 from the Taipei Main Station.   Hope Hotel (全家歡商務旅店) Address: 台北市中正區忠孝西路一段72號4樓 Phone 預約電話: 02-23814755 Site: http://www.hopehotel.com.tw/ — Cosmos Hotel (天成大飯店) was relatively expensive but that is because we booked it at very last minute on Dec 30 for Dec 31 stay, when we did a slight tweak to the itinerary. Like Hope Hotel, it is extremely convenient from Taipei Main Station (Exit M3), but it has a lot of nice facilities that Hope Hotel lacks – entry only by security card at lift for added security, …

Taiwan: Taipei – Shi Lin Night Market 士林夜市 (Taiwan Travel Review Series)

Published by Beatrice

Shi Lin Night Market (士林夜市) is the ultimate Taiwan night market experience with overload of our senses: smells, noises, huge selection yummylicious food – oyster egg, steak, innards, teppanyaki. Shi Lin was very enjoyable for us in December as we could enjoy the walk and food without the rain or humidity. For this post, we must apologize for some poor res photos as we focused only on eating so all shots are shot on camera! On Level 1, we tried: Chicken Chop – loads of MSG, Pepper and Oil. Much better than any I have tried in Singapore though it is the same “Hao Da Da” brand. Big Intestine Wrap Small Intestine (大腸包小腸) with garlic – very strong meaty flavor. This is Taiwanese version of hot dog, which is a pork sausage wrapped in a glutinous rice sausage. Must have for all who love sausages but be prepared to queue! Right outside the Ci Qian temple in the heart of Shilin Night Market. Ah Liang Mian Xian (阿亮麵線),  also near Ci Qian Temple. Strong seafood …

Taiwan: Taipei – Xi Men Ding 西門町 (Taiwan Travel Review Series)

Published by Beatrice

Xi Men Ding (西門町) is hailed as Taiwan’s version of Harajuku/Shibuya and it does not disappoint in delivering the same city energy, glitzy lights and ads, and crowds in the shops and restaurants. I believe the shopping will be great in summer, but most of the shops were selling winter wear, which I will hardly wear in Singapore. Even the name Xi Men Ding (西門町) has Japanese roots – the character 町 means cho in Japanese, which means a part of a municipal ward, a term commonly used in Japanese addresses. We tried a random stop for breakfast, Tian Tian Li, which turned out really good! We tried a few famous food places in Xi Men Ding. First up, famous Ya Rou Bian (鸭肉扁) coffee shop, which has been opened for 63 years now. The shop name is called duck, but they actually sell goose meat! We shared a quarter of a goose and liver. Goose are usually tough but this meat was soft and tender. N enjoyed the flavourful liver very much and managed to finish it despite …

Taiwan: Taipei – L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon Restaurant 侯布雄法式餐廳 (Taiwan Travel Review Series)

Published by Beatrice

L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon (侯布雄法式餐廳) is one of the best meal experiences I ever had, joining the ranks of Restaurant Gordon Ramsay @ Hospital Road in London, and Saito Sushi in Tokyo. Taiwan does not have Michelin Star ratings, but Robuchon is acclaimed by many local Taiwan reviews as one of the best French food in Taiwan and it is not hard to see why after this experience! Joël Robuchon is a French chef who operates a dozen restaurants in Hong Kong, Las Vegas, London, Monaco, Paris, Singapore and Tokyo, with a total of 28 Michelin Guide stars among them – the most of any chef in the world, so L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon is one of his restaurants in Taipei. L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon’s décor is dark, red, modern with dim lighting. As we made a reservation pretty early on, they put us at the counter seats right in front of the open kitchen so we could see all the action. Highly recommend to ask for these counter seats if you reserve early! We tried …