Day 5 Chin Jing Farm

Initial plan is to take public bus from Sun Moon Lake to ChinJing Farm, but at the end we ask the taxi driver to drive us to Ching Jing as he charged us only NT1,500 (per car) and we consider it is ok as we not need to waste time and wait for the public transportation.

We start to tour CJ with Green Green Glass land but did not manage to visit Small Swiss Garden, only pass by this garden as it is located some where down the hill side. In brief, CJ has sheep area, cow area, fruit area & flower area to visit. Also, there are 6 trails inside CJ and require a lot of walking. We are going during winter month and able to see snow in some of the area/trail.

Then, before we depart back to Taipei, I wanted to drop by at this starbucks because it was once the highest starbucks in the world at high of 1500m above sea level. While, nothing special about the coffee as it was almost similar like in Malaysia.

We shall depart from CJ to TaiZhong HSR by private van (NT300 per person) and arrived around 620pm. Alternatively, cheaper way is take bus to Taizhong (reached around 640pm) and then take big bus to Taipei cost only NT180 but 2 hours travel and last bus is 12.30pm. Take train from Taichung HSR Station to THSR Taipei Main Station (about 1 hour).

Day 4 Sun Moon Lake

Day 4 - Sun Moon Lake

After check-out from Allishan, we engaged our van driver to drove us to Sun Moon Lake with NT1,000 (plus) unlimited boat ride (whole day) around the lake area. We reached SML around 12.00pm and reach our hotel across the harbor around 12.30pm. Put our beg in the room and start touring the area. It is more to free and easy. SML has WenWu Temple 文武廟, peacock garden 孔雀園, Lalu island in SML 拉魯島, Songbolun trail, etc.

Then, all of us feel lazy to walk and bus or public transportation is quite low here, thus, we ask a taxi driver to drive us around the tourist places. Actually most taxi driver here does offer such tour package, example NT1,500 per trip around 5-6 hours. We finish our day at Chi En Pagoda with the view of the sunset.

It is quite funny because we have enjoyed the sunrise and sunset of the same sun on the same day but in different location.

Day 3 Tour Around Allishan

Day 3 - Tour At Allishan

Upon arrive at Allishan, we can take forest train from Allisan sation to SheMu station Alishan Forest Recreation Area & Scenic Area. Attraction including Recreation area many famous attractions such as the Sisters Lake, Ciyunsi, pagoda tree, alpine botanical gardens, Tashan cliffs, boulder, three generations of wood, by the town house, three brothers, wooden trunk, the Alishan railway extension and etc. The whole journey takes around 2.5- 3.0 hours with entrance fee (weekends NT200 or weekdays NT150).

We can have some time to clean up & relax. And go for dinner at Allisan’s store street, just go down from our hotel (7-11, store, restaurant etc). For dinner, we can try Allisan local foods like young-bamboo chicken soup, bamboo rice, ming ren leave chicken soup, BBQ, pumpkin rice etc. Native here have this Teto So Mimo drink, just 1 glass and you can drunk for few days. Advise to sleep early because we need to wake up earlier in the next morning around 430am for the sunrise trip. We can choose either Jhuzhan 祝山 or YuZhan 玉山 to view our sunrise. We need to ask the hotel whether they have any sunrise package.

Trip to Jhuzhan – we can take the forest train (450am) up to top from SheMu station to Jhuzhan and we need to walk down after sunrise. If so, we need to buy our ticket when counter open from 2pm to 5pm and cost NT100. Trip to Yuzhan (no train) – we can visit Husband Wife tree, Deer god tree (2800 years old), monkeys etc, usually there will be some sort of package cost NT300 – 3 hours also.

Back to hotel to have breakfast and to check out (advise to pack all things at night so that no need to rush).