Day 8: Kaohsiung > Kenting 墾丁(Fu An Temple 福安宮 > Eternal Flame 出火特別景觀區(恆春出火) > Jialeshuei Scenic Area 佳樂水風景區 > Longpan Park 龍磐公園 > Eluanbi Lighthouse 鵝鑾鼻灯塔> Shadao Ecological Reserve 砂岛贝壳砂展示馆 > Chuanfanshih 船帆石 > White Sand Bay 白沙灣)
Day 2: Taipei (Maokong > Taipei Main Underground Shopping Street > Qsquare)
Day 4: Taipei > Taichung (Taichung Train Station > Miyahara Ophthalmology Department > Fengjia Night Market)
Day 5: Taichung (Rainbow Military Dependents` Village > Great Buddha of Baguashan > Lukang Old Street > Taiwan Glass Gallery & Glass Temple > Gao Mei Wetlands)
Day 5: Taichung (Rainbow Military Dependents` Village > Great Buddha of Baguashan > Lukang Old Street > Taiwan Glass Gallery & Glass Temple > Gao Mei Wetlands)
Day 6: Taichung (Stock 20 > Taichung Park > Yizhong Shopping Street)
Day 7: Taichung > Kaohsiung (Formosa Boulevard > Dream Mall > Ruifeng Night Market > Hanshin Departmental Store > Liuhe Night Market)
Day 8: Kaohsiung > Kenting 墾丁(Fu An Temple 福安宮 > Eternal Flame 出火特別景觀區(恆春出火) > Jialeshuei Scenic Area 佳樂水風景區 > Longpan Park 龍磐公園 > Eluanbi Lighthouse 鵝鑾鼻灯塔> ShaDao Eco-Protection Area 砂島生態保護區> Chuanfanshih 船帆石 > White Sand Bay 白沙灣)
Day 9: Kaohsiung (Cijin Island > The British Consulate at Takao > 壽山LOVE情人觀景台 > Kaohsiung Martyrs' Shrine > Takao Railway Museum > The Pier-2 Art Center > Love River Ai He > Lotus Pond > Kaohsiung Airport)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Although from my booking, Gwawa Hotel stay supposed to have breakfast, but they currently don't cater breakfast. Instead, they substitute the breakfast with a NT$50 card for 7-11 purchase per person per day.There is a 7-11 store at level 1 and opposite the streets are breakfast eateries. Be amazed with the amount-quality-quantity they served.
Impromptu trip - We took our cab driver, Mr Lin, recommendation and hired him for a full day trip to Kenting 墾丁.
It was a long trip (10 hours in total but 4 hours' just to get to Kenting and back). We started our journey around 10am and reach Kaohsiung at 7pm. There were few routes to choose from (but we were not familiar with the area, Mr Lin took the lead).
Nice weather (on the way to Kenting)
Onions! Mr Lin told us their onions aren't like the usual ones. Cultivated in Taiwan, their onion won't make us shed tears when cutting it and it is sweet in taste.
First place of interest we visited - Fu An Temple 福安宮
Didn't spent much time here after praying. We headed back to the cab. Mr Lin must be surprised how fast we were. LOL.. Continued our journey and just an hour into our journey...
.... Gloomy WEATHER
Despite the gloomy weather, we continued on to Kenting. We passed by Heng Chun Xian Cheng 恒春县城 - Dong Men 東門 and Nan Men 南門. Laziness got us. We stayed in the car while Mr Lin provided us some background information on the place.
A structure outside of Nan Men used for an annual event
Continued on to our journey and although we didn't do much.. it was already time for lunch!!
Bento for lunch @ Hengchun
Eternal Flame 出火特別景觀區(恆春出火)
Natural gases emits from the ground and fire keeps burning as long as there is gas.
Reflection in the pool of water from the rain
We spent roughly 20 minutes. From the signboard to the place, it was less than 5 minutes walk. The Eternal Flame were circled up with the chain to indicate the gas emission area. The area can be viewed with a glance. Nearby were bushes and few birds joined in to seek for leftover food. There was a notice board to warn of BBQ and vendor peddling are illegal activities but (hearsay) at night these activities still can be spotted.
The entrance/exit path
We left right before a tour group came. Next stop - Jialeshuei Scenic Area 佳樂水風景區
If you are into surfing and water sports, you can go to the beach. We were there for the view so Mr Lin brought us to the Scenic Area for the unusual rock formations, such as the Chessboard Rocks, Honeycomb Rocks, Frog Rocks and Sea Horse Rocks.
View at the entrance of Jialeshuei Scenic Area 佳樂水風景區
There were guided tour shuttle to and for priced @ NT$70 (for adult) which took approximately 20 minutes per way and seats were based on first come first served.
The ride was a bit bumpy. Hold on tight or you might end up falling and don't be holding on to many things at hand because of the bumpiness.
We were at the last row of seats and wasn't able to hear clearly. Rely on the intermittent stops to know that there was a shaped rock.
Shape 1
Shape 2
Shape 3
Shape 4
Shape 5
Shape 6
Shape 7
Shape 8
Shape 9
Shape 10
Are you able to identify the shapes? There is also shape of Taiwan but it was WAYYY too big to be photographed.
There was a short break of 10 minutes before we can take the shuttle back. (Side track - If need to go for toilet break, don't worry. There are toilets at the entrance and at the end stop)
View at the end of the ride 1
View at the end of the ride 2
Spent around an hour at Jialeshuei Scenic Area.
And it was time for our next destination - Longpan Park 龍磐公園 . Do expect - a lot of people (tourists) BUT with the spacious area, it wasn't that bad. Didn't feel very crowded.
Longpan Park 龍磐公園 1
Longpan Park 龍磐公園 2
Longpan Park 龍磐公園 3
It was windy and will be best to be able to spend time to sit down, relax, chit chat.... We wanted to cover more places so around 20 minutes later (after we enjoyed the view and took photos), we headed for Eluanbi Park 鵝鑾鼻公园
Entrance fee for Eluanbi Park 鵝鑾鼻公园 costed NT$40 per adult. This is a large area and Eluanbi Lighthouse 鵝鑾鼻灯塔 is one of the main attraction. We chose to go directly to the Eluanbi Lighthouse before exploring other areas.
Eluanbi Lighthouse 鵝鑾鼻灯塔
Eluanbi Park 鵝鑾鼻公园 -
To go to the beach, one will have to walk through this field. We didn't go there BECAUSE of SNAKES! Yes.. there were notices about SNAKES in the bushes. I shuddered at the thought of SNAKES.. so after the lighthouse visit, we hurriedly left.
"This place was closed to be a reservation area due to the fact that there is a large amount of sand being excavated and sold to Hawaii and Japan. Many tourists and aquariums also took the sand back, so the government decided to close the beach for some time for the beach to recover" - source: roundTaiwanround
There is the exhibition hall where they provided samples of the beach (sand and corals) in front of ShaDao Eco-Protection Area 砂島生態保護區. Do check it out for more information about the sand content of ShaDao.
Next up was a quick stop to see the rock that looked like Nixon's head.
Chuanfanshih 船帆石 (aka Sail Rock aka Nixon's Head)
Very colorful homestay structures
Moving one.. we went to the centre on Nuclear Power Plant. I forgot to take photo as I was too emo by Mr Lin's insistence for me to experience an earthquake via the centre's simulation. Luckily... The simulation facility closed at 4pm and I was "spared". The tour felt like an educational trip, focused on the information related to nuclear power plant (information overload for me).
Last stop for Kenting - Kenting White Sand Bay 白沙灣. The sand looked fine and soft BUT I worn shoes. Mr Lin volunteered to help us look after our footwear but we were worn out. Took us approx 20 minutes, took some photos and we left.
Kenting White Sand Bay 白沙灣 -
Some scenes for Life of Pi was filmed in.
I can't help but took a photo of this advertisement before we left..
If we only read the first 3 words in Chinese, it mean "Most unpleasant to drink..."
But it actually meant "difficult to find"
At the end of our Kenting trip, we were starving despite we were chartered around. Back in Kaohsiung (approx. 2 hours ride with traffic jam), Mr Lin recommended us to this steamboat place for Liu Family Suan Cai Bai Rou Guo - 劉家酸菜白肉鍋 - 二館 . There are set menus for the steamboat with raw ingredients and an ala carte cooked item with 2 side dishes of our choice.
2 side dishes of our choice + chicken wrap -
The chicken wrap is nice and we regretted not ordering more of that. (If we had check-in via FB, there will be a free serving for this too. The staff failed to share this information with us. We were the only table at level 2 when we went in. Yet the subsequent guests who visited were given this information...)
(Loosely translated) Pickled Vegetable White Meat Steamboat - 酸菜白肉鍋 -
This is a good recommendation at a BAD timing. As we were really starving for quite sometime (due to the long ride) after a few mouthful of the soup, we feel nauseous. I need to emphasize it's NOT the fault of this steamboat but because our stomach wasn't in the right condition. We quickly cooked the remaining ingredients and finished it.
By foot, we walked around 20-30 minutes to our hotel passing by Liuhe Night Market.
To end our day, we filled out stomach with the quality and quantity snacks at the same shop! Yum yum yum..
8,600 steps accomplished once again!!
And luggage packing again for tomorrow's flight.
Comments