Day 2 – yangmingshan national park 阳明山国家公园 – Taipei underground shopping 台北地下街
The day started rather well
Sun was out, minimal wind and everyone has rested well…
chinese-looking nice building in the back is 圆山饭店, 5-star hotel. brick building is the hostel we were staying. hmm, maybe YQ wasn't as well rested as i thought...
Breakfast was more western than Taiwanese style, but tasted yummy anyway.
tea with toast and hard-boiled egg for breakfast....
that's my waffles (which was stated as 'pancakes' on the menu) and YQ peeling her hardboiled egg in the background
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After making sure we had a full stomach, we set off to take the bus to go to yangmingshan national park. The bus ride up was surprisingly smooth...even though we didn't get seats, it was a fairly comfortable, and fast, ride...
Yangmingshan National park is located north of Taipei city 台北市, about an hour’s bus ride away. Arrived at the park in mid-late morning, and hence were caught at the start of the crowd build-up.
food food! 烤地瓜 is steamed sweet potato. they have purple and yellow sweet potatoes, very YUMMY!
beautiful day for a walk in Mother Nature
overlooking Taipei city in the distance. too foggy to see the buildings though...
mummy enjoying 地瓜. the rocks in the background is whitish-green colour, probably from sulphur build-up from the water (which i think comes from a hot spring...??)
The national park is renowned for its flora during spring, especially the cherry blossom. Unfortunately, we went in too early in spring.
Nonetheless, we still enjoyed looking at whatever flowers that had bloomed.
As it was the beginning of spring, not many flowers/cherry blossoms have bloomed fully yet.
mummy isn't too happy that the flowers are not bloomed :(
album cover of the latest 'pop' group 母女兵团....
So we 花痴 for about an hour in 阳明公园, enduring bits of drizzling here and there...
then strolled to visit Da Tun Waterfalls 大屯瀑布.
The view to the falls was 10-15mins walk away… a fairly easy walk along the road. i kinda stopped taking photos to enjoy the walk...
part of the waterfalls...
another part of the waterfalls...
back to nature with mummy
And then we thought, why not trek higher up to get a better view?
So we did…
母女兵团 album pic #2
On the way up, we met this mother-son pair, who told us that the trek upwards is fairly steep and difficult, probably suitable for the younger people.
My mummy and Dinnie’s mum gave up after climbing another minute or so…
Leaving the 3 young ones and yq’s mum to conquer the steps…
Up and up we went… the steps were covered in moss, and it got curvier, steeper…
ok, we didn't take these steps cos its obviously unused for a long time. but believe me, the alternative wasn't much better. just imagine same steepness, less leaves...
Finally we reached the top!
fixing my arms so i can use my accessory muscles to breathe, panting panting!!
this view made the climb worth the effort...
Then, everything kinda went downhill, literally and figuratively.
Why?
Because, well, we had to go back down…so literally downhill
And figuratively?
Because it started to rain again…
actually it started to pour, then diminished to a light drizzle
I’m telling you, it wasn’t fun going down on those steps when it’s raining…
And I was super-extra careful. Don’t want a repeat of Mt Ophir
On our way down, we finally found a sign that told us the name of the ‘hill’ we conquered (青春岭). So I guess, we’ve conquered youth…which means we are on our way to becoming geriatric…..?
not this sign, it was a bigger one along the way down.took this one cos of the waterfalls in the background
The rain kept up throughout our descent from the top to midway (where we picked up my mummy and Dinnie’s mum), and all the way until we reached the bottom of the waterfalls.
In fact, the rain got heavier as we descended…until we had to hide in a semi shelter for the rain to stop…
obviously Mdm Yap is not bothered by the rain...
But the rain never stopped…
Or rather, the rain stopped and tricked us into walking to the bus terminus..
the last pic i took before the downpour...can see the clouds hovering above the mountains?
BUT the rain became heavier and heavier when we are walking
Strong winds + wispy rain= useless umbrellas
We got wet…and then we got hungry…finally we got to the bus terminus and onto the bus…
The nightmare began – the bus ride down was ARGH!!!!
Crammed with people holding onto wet umbrellas/wearing wet raincoats…
A bus driver who obviously doesn’t care if any of his passengers gets carsick…
Winding road down a mountain…
You get a busload of wet, hungry and tired tourists...
Holding onto poorly designed handgrips...
For our dear lives...
It was still manageable (well, just barely)…
Until this bunch of kids boarded the bus at the bottom of the mountain…
Kids who obviously have no regards for their own safety,
Or the safety of other people
They were slapping each other, and then trying to hide from each other…
On a MOVING bus crammed with already-very-tired-and-slightly carsick passengers,
Without holding onto anything...
So when that heck-care bus driver slams the brakes
Kids fly, grabs onto innocent passengers, knocks into others etc etc etc
At that point, I wanted to scream at the kids…
But I was too intent on trying to hold the other passengers upright
(FYI, one of the falling passenger was the kids' mum -_-)
When the kids alighted, I nearly wanted to open a bottle of champagne (if I had one)
At this point, the 3 mummies were super exhausted…
And all 6 of us are seriously hypoglycaemic and cold and wet…
And our legs are about to give way…
Finally, after what seem like hours, we alighted at taipei railway station
And head into the nearest restaurant that sells hot soupy noodles
Mummy looking happy, i was looking rather envious cos my noodles hasn't arrived
That bowl of noodles tasted like heaven…
Or maybe I did die, went to heaven and then got kicked out and back onto earth…
Lunch was a fantastic break from the physical activity
(as well as vestibular and balance training on the bus)
after which, yq and I spilt off from the group to settle our train tickets for later on in the trip, while the rest went shopping
Getting train tickets was another ‘adventure’ altogether…
Let’s just say we were kinda running around like 2 headless chickens…
Greatly appreciate the customer service staff for helping us…
What could have been done in 5 mins took us…30mins
And then, with both of us remembering clearly that we saw a ‘luggage deposit’ sign,
We set off on an unguided tour of Taipei railway station…
Conclusion?
We only found lockers…and we never found that sign we thought we saw…
Kinda creepy…but I guess our brains were not working too well after that bus ride *shrug*
Met up with the rest after settling train tickets…
Unfortunately, rain kept falling…so all the places I wanna go see (Taipei 101, 中正纪念堂 or whatever it’s called now, 国父纪念馆 etc) cannot be seen in the rain…
The solution is to stay indoors…stay dry…stay warm
And what better place to be than to be underground?
didn't manage to get a good picture of the underground streets. but just imagine CityLink, then multiply the length and area by 10...
Therefore, we spent the next 3-4 hours shopping in the underground shopping mall
stopped for dessert somewhere. this is 烧仙草. Hot version of the cold chin-chow..taste...ok la, warm and chinchow-ish :P
Well, the rest shopped…
I was just trying to stay awake… and alive…
Because yours truly fears shopping…
Yes, I don’t hate it, I don’t love it…
I FEAR IT!
By the end of it, I admit I have whined for about half the time.
I couldn’t stand up straight; I had backache, knee pain and ankle pain.
The rain continued to pour onto Taipei.
Dinner was a simple affair of 打包-ing back to our accoms…
had 卤肉饭 for dinner, tasted GREAT probably cos i was super hungry.
the 打包 containers in taiwan are super cute, but too tired to take a pic of it though...
Everyone was knackered by the time we got back…and the mummies made us do laundry!
Lying down and sliding in between the freezing sheets was like dying a second time, went to heaven then got sent back down again…
There was no sweet dream that night…
In fact, it was a dreamless sleep…
All the way till sunlight streamed into the room on day 3…
To be continued...
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