Here’s the second part of my Itinerary Summary, and covering Days 7 to 12. Do click here for the earlier part that covers Days 1 to 6. The final itinerary for our trip first:
Day 7 (Taroko National Park)
Taroko National Park (4+ hrs): Blog Post Here. This is absolutely a must-do, and worth the additional expense and overheads you incur especially if you’re making your way down from Taipei just to visit Taroko Gorge. There are no admission charges into the general area itself. You’ll also really want to take your time with this site, and 4 hours is the bare minimum you need to do just half of the one of the most popular trails – Shakadang – and you rush through a few of the other key spots too, i.e. Swallow Grotto, and Eternal Spring Shrine. Keep in mind too that you’ll need to start-off your visit to Taroko Gorge early if you want to avoid the tourist hordes. For photography enthusiasts, make sure you bring a wide-angle lens if you have it – 24mm on the widest end at least, and ideally 16mm or wider. The Gorge and National Forest area is large and there are several other trails that been blogged elsewhere before too, so we’ll likely do on a return trip to check these other places out when H and P are older and better able to meet the physical demands of trekking.
Qingshui Cliff and Beach (1+ hr): Blog Post here. This is an optional activity to do if you’re Hualien county. Though with the benefit of hindsight now, we shouldn’t have included this side-trip at the expense of the time we could spend at Taroko Gorge. The latter is just that much more impressive as the cliffs here weren’t particularly different in a general visual sense to what we’ve seen on other recent family trips, particularly to the coast near Margaret River in Western Australia, the Great Ocean Road during our Melbourne trip, or in Bali.
Shuangcheng Night Market (1+ hr): I liked this night market least. But since it was practically next door to our Taipei place of stay, we had to pass by it every evening to forage for food anyway. And as deliciously as the street food looked, the place looked just too cramped for us delicate types. The night market though is really popular with locals, and the nearest MRT station – Zhongshan Elementary School – isn’t near any significant tourist-attraction, the market doesn’t seem as congested as the other popular ones in Taiwan.
Overnight in Zhongshan District apartment (Taipei)
Day 8 (Yehliu/Shifen/Jiufen)
Yehliu Geo Park (1+ hr) (NTD80): Blog Post here. This was a major let-down for me. The cape that the Geo Park sits on is uniquely shaped, and the rock formations do look special to for social media enthusiasts to do their vanity poses. The bad weather aside, the challenges are that the Geo Park is finally a very small park and the rock formation areas tiny, relative to the hundreds of tourists descending on this small park every day hour. You’d need to go on a day where there are less crowds about, and also be creative about your shooting angles if you don’t want other humans disrupting your perfect Instagram shot. Queuing is also needed to take photos with for the most popular rock formations, e.g. the ‘Queen’s Head. Finally, keep your feet firmly on the ground and do not put a foot anywhere against the rock formations, unless you want to be shouted at by the super-alert park wardens stationed at each area. For us though, we’re not coming back here. Once, even in bad weather and crowd congestion, is quite enough!
Shifen Waterfall (0.5 hr): Blog Post here. Small but wide waterfall, and a standard stop-point for visitors on the day tour too. Unlike some other waterfalls where you’re really looking at it at stand-off distance, you can come fairly close to this one: maybe just 3 meters or so from the edge of the flowing waters. But the viewing platform and specific spot where you can get good pictures is rather small, so on a crowded day, everyone will be jostling to get to that spot.
Shifen Old Town (2+ hrs): Blog Post here. The small town is lively, and there are several eateries and street food sellers, though I think most day trippers won’t stay here for long to have meals. They come, prepare then send off their sky lanterns, hang around for a further look-see, then move onto the more interesting Jiufen. Numerous shops will sell Sky Lanterns, and I don’t think there’s much service differentiation between shops. The inscription process is simple, and the physics involved in launching is also straight-forward. So, I reckon you’ll be fine just going for the shop that doesn’t look like it’s too congested. The prices for the Sky Lantern look pretty standard: about NTD150, and you’re guided through the entire process. Finally, get your cameras especially ready at the point of launch and set to drive mode, as your shooting window is mere seconds only. You’d enjoy this activity!
Yin Yang Sea (0.5 hrs): Blog Post here. this stop is in the general vicinity of Shifen and Jiufen, and given its accessibility and also that the area has a long history behind, it can be included in your itinerary if you’re with a private driver who can talk about the area. The story of the long-closed Coal Mining factory that you can see up in the hills is particularly sad.
Golden Waterfall (0.5 hrs): Blog Post here. Unusual though somewhat small set of cascading waterfalls. The rainfall caused a good amount of water flow on the day we checked this out, making for a pretty if typical pictures that you’ve seen in postcards.
Jiufen Old Town (2+ hrs): Blog Post here. This one’s a bit complicated. The visual styling and architecture of the old road is pretty special, and one look at A-Mei Teahouse at night and you’ll immediately see the inspiration for Hayao Miyazaki‘s Spirited Away. However, the place can get awfully congested, especially because the alleys and walkways are narrow. And it gets even worse on rainy days, i.e. winter months, and you might just need to wear goggles to avoid your eyes getting poked out by the rib tips of the many umbrellas! My advice: use ponchos and help the others around you. Also, if you’re in Jiufen for night photography like I was, then seriously consider staying overnight. It’s just that much easier to compose a good picture when there are less people about at 7:30PM onwards, and past 10PM, there is an incredibly quiet serenity to the place.
Overnight in Jiufen minsu
Day 9 (Yangmingshan/Tamsui)
Yangmingshan (4+ hrs): Blog Post here. There are several spots of note here, and we included three in our itinerary: Qingtiangang, Lengshueikeng, and Xiaoyoukeng. We got really unlucky here with a thick layer of fog the morning we ascended the mountain, so we could see practically nothing in each. But on a clear day, you can easily spend a day here walking one of the many trails on this mountain.
Beitou Thermal Valley (0.5 hrs): Blog Post here. A pretty unique site: a large pond in which steam rises from its hot waters. The viewing gallery is wide enough so that there’s sufficient space for everyone to get a good look at the waters and steams, but there isn’t much else to do otherwise – the admission fees-free version that is at least. If you want a more exhaustive experience involving hot spring baths, you’d need to fork out cash to stay in one of the pricey hotels in this area.
Tamsui Fisherman’s Wharf (3+ hrs): Blog Post here. What a lovely seaside area this is! The Valentine’s bridge is wide enough to hold crowds, with both sides of the bridge offering very different views of the wharf: one of the harbor with its docked boats, and the other that looks out to the open sea. There are several eateries and also street food stalls that line the wharf, and also street performers for you to watch while you enjoy the snacks. Highly recommended for you to spend a few hours just chilling.
Tamsui Old Street (2+ hrs): Blog Post here. Not too unlike the other street markets in Taiwan, but this one is on a waterfront, and with plenty of seaside facing cafes and restaurants. There are also street performers, including the young violonist and also beach painter.
Overnight in Zhongshan District apartment (Taipei)
Day 10 (Taipei)
Maokong Gondola (1.5+ hr) (NTD120): Blog Post here. This is a really cool cable car system, and will bring you up to several hundred meters elevation. Ticket prices are very low compared to the length of the ride itself – around 20 minutes for the outbound trip. I didn’t find the Crystal Cabins to be quite as scary as others have made it out to be, and I’m a person with acute acrophobia even! Go early too unless you enjoy queues, more so if you want to go up in the more popular Crystal Cabins. Do research too of the Maokong hill-top area itself too to see how long you’re stay at the top. We didn’t find anything that would interest the kids in the immediate vicinity, and we didn’t have time for a hike either, so didn’t stay long.
Huashan 1914 Creative Park (4+ hrs): Blog Post here. A visit to this park turned out, surprisingly, to be one of the most memorable experiences I’ve had on any vacation anywhere, and it’s because of the passionate street performances I saw. One blog site I read said though said that the performances are only on the weekend, but this page here for artiste applications says that there are performance slots on weekday evenings too. There are several restaurants and also cafes in the Park, and we lunched at a restaurant called Daylight and loved the food there. The dishes are hearty and exquisitely presented – especially considering its reasonable prices.
Taipei 101 Observation Deck (NTD600): Blog Post here. If you’re not going up the observatory for photography and just to see the city at night, and you haven’t done this often before, then a visit up the Taipei 101 Observation Deck will be a good inclusion into your itinerary. There’s always an incredible rush to see a city lit up, and – in this case – whether from the 89th indoor observation deck or at the 91st floor outdoor deck. The skyscraper is just as beautiful to look at from the outside too, and you can get interesting and varied perspectives just walking around the Xinyi district and seeing how the Taipei 101 juxtaposes against the less tall buildings in the area. Remember to include sufficient buffer time for queuing if you’re intent on a sunset shoot, and there seems to be no time limit to how long you can stay on the Observation Deck. If you’re going up for serious photography, then I have mixed feelings about this experience. The technical challenges are real: too many ambient light reflections, and aside from one facing, there are really more visually spectacular cities elsewhere.
Overnight in Zhongshan District apartment (Taipei)
Day 11 (Taipei)
Da’an Forest Park (2+ hrs): Blog Post here. Laid back park of decent size, and again, free of tourist hordes – what tour companies would bring their bus loads to what is essentially a park designed for locals and birding enthusiasts? There’s again visible energy in this park, with lots of children at the playground, joggers, the elderly taking morning strolls, and – of course – that ecological pond for birding enthusiasts. The specimens on the pond bank are accessible enough using standard zoom lenses. But if you’re trying to reach the birds that are nesting in the small island within the pond, you’d need reach of 200mm then and ideally more.
Yong Kang Street (2+ hrs): Blog Post here. Chic shops, restaurants, (a lot of) coffee cafes, and eateries, and on streets and not narrow alley-ways, also with a small park nested in the middle of the area where a lot of local school children are at play. This area gave us positive vibes, and was relatively congestion free the lunch time we visited.
Eslite Xinyi Store (3+ hrs): Blog Post here. A multi-level store with an interesting concept: several floors are filled with small little shops offering different types of items, including handmade craft, toys, and classic music artifacts – including collector editions of classical music on vinyl record format! Wow – haven’t seen those for 20 years now. On the children’s books and toys floor, there are also seating areas for parents to rest their feet while their kids go nuts. The place feels upmarket, beautifully decorated, and it was just a pleasure to go from floor to floor to explore. There is a basement foodcourt comprising a number of restaurants offering Japanese cuisine.
Evening Exploration in Xinyi (1 hr): Blog Post here. Eslite Xinyi Store sits in a swanky district with other equally large department stores and also 5 star hotels. The lights come up in the evening, making for terrific photo opportunities of the tall buildings against a dark blue backdrop. Taipei 101 can also be seen down the main road, and there are a few vantage points to get different interesting perspectives of the skyscraper too. And oh yes, we got to see the fiery red cloud layer again at 5:18PM!
Overnight in Zhongshan District apartment (Taipei)
Day 12 (Taipei)
Return to Singapore.
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