Time for Taiwan! (Day 1)

Ever thought of having weekend in Taiwan?

Funny.

We had our flight to Taiwan on the eve of May 26, 2012. It was a 2-hour turbulence-filled flight via Cebu Pacific. Gosh I hate turbulence but it was a rough night with thick clouds surrounding the plane.

We arrived in Taiwan at around 3am and easily passed the immigration. We are fetched by the hotel car we rented prior to our visit. Upon arrival in Hotel Riverview, we decided to get some sleep as our call time for the city tour is 8am.

May 26, 2012 - The van is waiting outside the hotel as we are about to start our Taiwan City tour. We availed the tour for around P2400 per person. Our day 1 consists of the following:

1. Keelung City Harbour

2. Yehliu Geopark 

3. Queen's Head 

4. Lunch at Brunch and Cafe 

5. Presidential Office 

6. Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall 

7. Martyrs' Shrine 

8. Chinese Temple at Chenggong Li 

9. National Palace Museum 

10. Ximending Market 

11. Dinner at Modern Toilet Restaurant 

12. Shilin Night Market 

Yeah, it is just the day 1!

So, from Hotel Riverside, we boarded our van for the 45-minute drive to Keelung City. From the city proper, our van drove up a hill to Chung Cheng Park. On the first level is a historic cannon fort. On the second level is a Buddhist library, Chung Lieh Temple and Chu Pu Tan Temple.  

 

We then saw the Kuan Hai Pavilion, on the third level. Here, we  had a scenic view of Keelung City and luxury passenger ships, smaller commercial craft,  naval and coast guard vessels, and the azure Pacific Ocean from afar. Also here is the white smiling statue of Guan Yin (the Buddhist message of compassion and peace), the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy. It is the biggest goddess statue in Southeast Asia. 

We next proceeded down the hill and out of the city proper to Yehliu Geological Park.  
When we arrived at the Visitor’s Center (Yehliu Nature Center), the parking lot was filled with tourist buses loaded with tourists bound for either Ocean World, Yehliu Geopark or both. We were just here for the Geopark.  

 

I can see there are so many tourists from mainland China. It was totally chaos! It was so hot at around 10am. I'm really sweating as you need to walk up the hill to see the Queen's Head. Anyway, glad that we saw the sandstone seashore after a long walk. When seen from the air, the place looks like a giant turtle sinking into the sea, thus it is also called “Yehliu Turtle." I am amazed with the rock formations. I saw some mushroom and ginger rock formations such as the “Ice Cream Rock” and the “Candle." 

 By this time, I really want to go back because I am hungry, irrate with other tourists, and really sweating hard under the heat of the sun. But because I wanted to see the Queen's head, we moved on. Finally, we saw the iconic “Queen’s Head”  where you need to fall in line to take a picture. I though is is big but is is just like a 5-ft rock formation. We also saw the  ”Bean Curd” , “Dragon Head", the "Elephant Rock", and ”the “Fairy’s Shoe", all maybe are results from sea erosion.

We also noticed a statue dedicated to Lian Tian Zhen, a local fisherman who, on March 18, 1964,  jumped into the sea to save student Chang Guoquan who fell into the sea by accident. Unfortunately, both of them drowned.

So finally, we are done with the GeoPark and we stopped by a convenient store to buy our super late breakfast. We then head back to the city and dropped off to eat our lunch somewhere near our meeting place for the afternoon City Tour.

We chose to have lunch at  O2 Brunch and Cafe. We had some pasta and milk tea of course.

We then head back to our meeting place and boarded the tourist coach bus. We started the afternoon tour at the Presidential Office. We didn't have the time to walk inside the Office so we just took pictures outside of it. 

Next stop is the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall. I like the place because of the garden with beautiful flowers, miniature hills and plants, ponds, ornamental bridge and waterfalls as well as green grass presents scenery beauty. It has some similiarities to the Korea's Gyeongbokyeung Palace.  

As you reach the memorial hall, bronze statue of Mr Chiang and his guards will be waiting for you. We are lucky to witness the changing of guards at around 2pm.

Afterwards, we visited the Martyrs' Shrine. I leaned that it is a special place dedicated to the soldiers of Taiwan who died for their country in past wars. It's a solemn place so some parts prohibits the use of camera. Unfortunately, we didn't witness the changing of Military Soldiers Officers.

Also part of our tour is the Chinese Temple at Chenggong. Nothing really much here if your not new to Chinese Temples. We didn't took so long and we head straight to our last stop, the National Palace Museum.

I learned that The National Palace Museum has the most significant collection of Chinese artifacts in the world. This explains why the word palace is included in the name rather than just National Museum. Unfortunately, we could not take photos inside. But needless to say, the collection was awe-inspiring. Some pieces were so intricate and detailed, one would simply wonder how they were made. Some are very simple like the cabbage and pork but people are falling in line just to see it. I am not Chinese so I really don;t appreciate it but still I know it is important in their history and culture so we move forward to see it. Honestly, I am not a fan of visiting museums when touring, I thought this could be different but one thing I liked is that you will wear the headphone to hear your tour guide. Instead of him shouting, he will just use the small microphone that we all can hear. Cool! This place was huge! 

This concludes our day one tour! 

By around 5pm, we head back to our hotel to refresh and decided to go shopping!!!

From our hotel, we walk towards Ximending Market in the Wanhua District where the lights shine bright and every other person was kinda riding a bike or skate board.  It is modern and definitely seemed to be catering to a younger crowd. As always I loved looking at all the neon signs glowing at night. It reminded me a lot of Seoul particularly Myeongdong area.  

The difference is that it is more expensive here than in Seoul. I was quite disappointed because I am really expecting to get some cheap clothes and stuff. In the middle of going to the shops of Ximending, we decided to take our dinner at the famous Modern Toilet  Restaurant. What can I say? It's a different feeling to be here. Very unique! The food, even though served in a mini toilet bowl, tastes delicious and price is just worth it. We decided to go to other night market because we want to shop on the cheapest night market in Taiwan.

Our last stop is the biggest night market in Taipei - the Shilin Market. This place has been mentioned repeatedly in travel guide books and internet blogs as a must-see place in Taiwan. We entered the main Shilin Market and came face to face with rows after rows of food stalls. There were lines forming everywhere. 

From milk teas to fruit stalls to noodle soup stalls. Unfortunately it started to rain while we are bwosing the shops but still my friends were determined to check Shilin out even if this means walking under the rain and getting our feet wet. It was a good thing we decided to brave the rain and spend our evening at Shilin Night Market. 

Aside from this one where it's covered, we tried walking around the area and we saw more stalls selling food, clothes and pasalubongs. Truly, a visit to Taiwan is not complete without going to Shilin. 

So there you go, our super packed day one is over. We all had our much needed rest at around 2am in our hotel. Whew.