[Travel Log] Day 3: In the vicinity of Sun Moon Lake

Click here to read from the first post of this travel log!😊

Day 3: In the vicinity of Sun Moon Lake

6 October 2023, Friday

For hotel guests staying >2 nights (over the weekdays), they provided a 3rd option for selection - Fried rice with chicken (and so we ordered 2 sets of this new variation & 1 vegetarian set to fill our greens for the day). 

With Typhoon Koinu out of Taiwan, everything was back in operations & we could finally take the ferry out to the opposite pier, Shuishe Pier. 

How cute are these frogs!! 📷

The pier & accompanying views. 

Alighted at Shuishe Pier and went back to the terminal stop to catch a bus to our 1st stop of the day - Hohocha!

Hohocha 喝喝茶

Map: No. 443-36號, Yuchi St, Yuchi Township, Nantou County, Taiwan 555

We actually bought these tickets in advance online (via KKday) and they came with the admission + drinking tea experience + drink/ice-cream vouchers. 

So on the 2nd level, we had to walk through the gift shop to the end of it to get to the 3rd floor for this tea drinking experience. Each ticket holder is entitled to 1 Tea Egg, 1 cup of tea and a tea biscuit. 😋

The tea eggs were so good... we had to get one more each for later in the day. We were stuffed at this point - I mean, think about it, having such a hearty breakfast then having all these snacks within the hour or so. ROFL. 

Take a walk around the area and you'll spot tea plantations everywhere. 

Its such a tea town, that you'll see tea-related information/shops everywhere. 

Moving off from Hohocha's bus-stop, we took a bus to 桃米坑. 

After a short walk, we found one of our planned itinerary places. 

Nina Chocolate Dream Castle 娜巧克力夢想城堡

Map: No. 32號, Taomi Rd, Puli Township, Nantou County, Taiwan 545

Was quite excited for this one, the exterior is really pretty. Definitely a pretty good picture place. 📷

They even have a costume rental section (unsure if its a paid service) but cool. 

There were some interactive machines at the exhibition floor which required you to scan your admission tickets for free chocolate - but it was likely that the machines were a little faulty - in the sense that the machines can't read the barcode (it keeps saying that it had been used). Bi's ticket managed to work at one of the machines after a couple of tries but mine didn't. Eventually, the staff just gave the chocolates to us in place of the machine. 😂

We didn't get to do much there since we couldn't catch the guided tour (due to the timing availability) and we didn't want to buy chocolates - but we did get a cooler bag each for free. 😂

Paper Dome 紙教堂

Map: 545, Taiwan, Nantou County, Puli Township, 桃米巷52-12號

Just a couple of minutes away lies another small attraction known as Paper Dome. 

According to the official website (link), this church is "held up by 58 paper columns and even the bench chairs in the church are made using paper". 

Not too sure if it was the impact of covid on tourism, but the place looked like it lacked maintenance - especially the pond area. 

After much walking, we finally had some space in our tummies for lunch. 

七里香甕仔雞-埔里店

Map: No. 23-11號, Taomi Rd, Puli Township, Nantou County, Taiwan 545

After lunch, we decided to make our way back to Shuishe Pier since the buses here end their operations pretty early. While waiting for the bus in the drizzle, we were checking out the bus timetable and realised, we were in fact, waiting for the last bus that stops at 桃米坑 to get back to Sun Moon Lake (it was only 3 p.m).

When we reached Shuishe, we somehow just decided that we would just take the earlier ferry back to Itathao - I guess we didn't want to be in the last bus/ferry situation again, so might as well just go back earlier. 

While we alighted from the ferry, the captain was handing out ice-cream discount coupons - so why not grab yet another ice-cream for the day. One thing I love about this place is, their tea products are really good. 

We also got the fried chicken that we spotted the day before (but had no tummy space to fill) and had it together with our mochi from day 1. 

Since we ended the day so early, I completed the other Bandai Pokemon figurine while we watched Taiwanese tv. 

Next post: [Travel Log] Day 4 - From Sun Moon Lake to Taichung

Previous post: [Travel Log] Day 2 - Unpredictable circumstances

[Travel Log] Day 2 - Unpredictable circumstances

Click here to read from the first post of this travel log!😊

Day 2: Unpredictable circumstances

5 October 2023, Thursday

And woohoo, our 1st full day in Sun Moon Lake! I stepped out of the hotel with my reversible parka wrapped around my hips, in long pants (because it was cycling day) into the unexpected heat (no kidding, its almost the feeling of a heatwave, realising later on from the news that it was 37-38 degrees). 

Decided to do a quick camera-route to capture the sights before breakfast since there weren't many people around, and super peaceful.

Remember I said there was more things to rave about the hotel? 

We were staying at <The Crystal Inn> which has a main hotel named <The Crystal Resort> which overlooks the entire lake and obviously at a higher price point because of the view. 

So, what is great about being at the <The Crystal Inn> is, although it is a more budget-friendly option without a view, the main reception desk, the breakfast are all located at the main hotel - which means you get pretty much the same service as folks staying at the main hotel!   

And us, who got the quad room, were entitled to 4 portions of breakfast - it did not matter that we were just 2 occupants in a quad room. I believe this is a weekday (prob Sun-Thu) thing where the hotel reception would actually request for you to select your set for the next morning and we were given 3 options to choose from: (1) the western style, (2) the regular style & (3) the vegetarian (which is basically (2) just replacing the meat with more veg). 

Since we had the privilege of up to 4 sets of breakfast, we decided to go with 2 western & 1 vegetarian set - and hell yeah, the breakfast was frigging awesome. That egg roll you see wrapped with half green, crabstick and cucumber... super impressed. We learnt much later on that the veg is called 龙须菜 which is native to Taiwan. 

After an amazing breakfast to start our day, we decided to check out their rooftop view as well as their gym (which was fully cardio - no weights). 

Just check out the howling winds... 

We decided to check out the nearest bus-stop to us, just to have a feel and grabbed a Tea Egg from one of the convenience stores, before heading back to our hotel for a quick stop. 

Completely empty, no signs of being in operation... no announcements that they were not either.

The winds were so strong, heavy metal barriers cannot stand. Not sure if its visible from the picture, but walkways also had a plastic barrier, but there were still people walking the trails so we did too. 

Walked to the end of the trail and was forced to turn back because the metal gate (that actually links to the ropeway) was shut and locked - which also meant, the ropeway was not in operations for the day. 

Did many jump shots at this particular spot (below) and really liked one of them - it became one of my profile pictures on socials. 😆

Landed back where we started, we decided to head back to the hotel reception to ask about the current situation - basically, there were no publicly accessible transport (no ferries, no buses, may or may not have taxis) because the nation had declared it a typhoon public holiday for the likely-affected areas, our only viable option was to rent a bike (manual/motorised) . 

And so we decided, yes, lets rent a motorised bike so we can get to the other side of Sun Moon Lake and still go on as we had planned (despite my anxiety over the safety because I have zero trust in myself). 

So we went to the bike store that the hotel has an alliance to and tried to rent a bike, to which the store owners suggested not to, due to safety concerns (as the uncertainties surrounding the extent of the typhoon were still unknown). To which, we felt so warm in our hearts because how many store owners would reject business because its might not be safe to do so? (of course, there's also the other train of thought that businesses will also suffer if anything negative happen to us while on their bike - but we choose to believe its the former. 😂)

Since now, the only transport we had left was our legs, we decided this was going to be a chill-lax day to unwind from our day-to-day lives back in Singapore.

Found this family-friendly cafe with pretty looking cakes. 

(They had a playground for the kids at the 2nd floor, and parents can just watch their kids through the surveillance cameras from the 1st floor.)

Following a long tea break, we decided to embark on our long walk to Ci En Pagoda which was recommended by the hotel reception staff. 

Along the way, we found Xuan Zhang Temple which had a Guan Yin Statue right at the top of the temple. 

(p.s. the video is really taken to showcase the intermittent strong winds we faced throughout the day.)

 

A rainbow! 🌈

Not too long after we passed by Xuan Zhang Temple, we found the entrance to Ci En Pagoda! - except that we were greeted by a plastic barrier (the same one they used to block entry to the walking trails) at the base of the stairway to the pagoda. 

And so, we decided to simply call it a day and head back before nightfall. 

Being back at Ita Thao pier, we grabbed our dinner items from the stalls around. 

It was really too early to end the night, so we decided, after all that we ate, lets go out and grab ice-cream and thinking back, I was so glad we did. We hung around the pier with our speedily melting ice-cream and found a guy with his guitar and mic, singing.  

Guy was pretty funny, as he asked where his audience were from and the songs we would like to listen to. I suppose he mistook us as Taiwanese, cause he wondered why we would make life so hard for a 自己人 (jokingly) by choosing a hard song by Beyond (Hong Kong) named 海阔天空 - which he still did anyway. 

Later on, he asked a couple to pick and song, and the lady chose Weibird 韦礼安's song - to which he said he really couldn't (even though he really tried to listen on the spot and actually sing it, so cute). 

While all these were happening, there was a stray dog (or maybe owned since he had a collar I think) just going around for pats - to which I was a little fearful, but Bi is great with them so phew. 

After the mini concert vibes, we headed back to rest and I started to piece this Eevee I bought at 7-eleven. I previously bought a Jigglypuff set from Osaka (earlier this year), and thought how rare to see other designs - so I got an Eevee & a Mimikyu (I will later find out back in Singapore that we have these Bandai pop-ups that pretty much sold the entire series, but that story is for another day).

Ended the night feeling pretty thankful because in my memories, typhoon was associated with strong gusts of wind & heavy rain, and though we got the occasional scary gusts of wind, there was no rain, and in fact we still had pretty blue skies and even a rainbow after the weather cleared up. ✌

Next post: [Travel Log] Day 3: In the vicinity of Sun Moon Lake

Previous post: [Travel Log] Day 1: Bijin in Taiwan

[Travel Log] Day 1 - Bijin in Taiwan

Day 1: Bijin travels to Taiwan

4 October 2023, Wednesday

Waited 6 whole months (since we purchased the air tickets) for this trip to happen, + the anxiety we felt - wondering if the friendship (that birthed through MaplestoryM) was going to make it out alive from spending 24/7 together over 11 days - after all, it is not uncommon for friends to turn foes after going on a trip together right? 😂

Started the day at 6 a.m. at Changi Airport Terminal 3, with half-filled baggage and excitement. 

The entire flight was pretty smooth-sailing and even arrived ahead of schedule - which was fantastic for us because we did consider the possibility of shifting the THSR timing to an earlier slot than originally planned. [I used the inflight WiFi for the first ever time and its great, you can keep in contact with family & friends while on flight now which is mind-blowing for me (note: requires KrisFlyer membership no. to be included in the flight booking to have complimentary usage)]

First things on the checklist to get done for the day was 1. collect SIM cards (which we purchased from Klook) and 2. to try our luck on the Taiwan Lucky Draw!

Quick note on collecting SIM cards: there are two booths side-by-side that seem to do the exact same things, you might want to do a quick check before queueing to see if you're at the correct one because when we tried to collect our SIM cards at the below booth (where the queue was), they directed us to the other booth (which had no queue), so we were pretty confused because both booths had some Klook advertisement in their spaces and no clear differentiation between them.

 

Sadly, neither of us had any luck with these. 

After getting our connectivity up and running, we proceeded to take the MRT to Taoyuan HSR station. (P.s. Were they always this convenient all along - I don't remember it being this seamless to get to the respective transfer stations but heck yeah!)

Managed to switch our original HSR tickets at the collection counter (again, bought through Klook) to an earlier timeslot! By then we were also a little hungry, so we decided to do a quick convenience store meal while we waited for our HSR train to Taichung. 

After arriving in Taichung, we had to find the shuttle service that would bring us to Sun Moon Lake, but we kind of got a little lost with the directions - and found Mister Donut. They were having a promotion of 6 donuts for 200TWD which is like 8.50SGD so why not?! (If you know, the queues in SG for Mister Donut is just crazy at the moment, but there's no queue here so YAY). 

We checked back our itinerary plan and rerouted ourselves back to Exit 5 to get to the shuttle service and bought the bus tickets from the Sun Moon Lake/Nantou counter staff (only to realise later that we could have just used our iPass / EasyCard (our EzLink equivalent) in Taiwan to pay for the ride instead 😂)

While on the bus, we were getting uncertain about how we would get from the terminal stop (Shuishe Pier) to our accommodation which was at the opposite end of Sun Moon Lake (Itathao Pier) because shuttle and ferry services between the two have already ended for the day. 

Funny story: at some point in the bus ride, we saw that there was a bus stop named Crystal Resort & we thought we struck a pot of gold, only to be told by our instincts & GPS that it couldn't be right. 

True enough, we reached Shuishe pier (the terminal stop) around 6 p.m. in front of a Police Station... STRANDED 😂. Bi had downloaded Uber in anticipation for such a situation and we were prepared to call for a taxi. In fact, we saw one stationary taxi opposite us, but because we were waiting for a response from Uber and hesitant to approach, we saw him drive off eventually with other travellers. 

So, two ladies with their suitcases standing in front of the Police Station opposite the 7-Eleven 😂. We decided to reach out to the hotel to call for assistance. After a while, the hotel managed to find a driver for us (at 600TWD one-way flat rate) and we got to our final destination - The Crystal Inn where we would be staying at for 3 nights. 

According to the hotel staff that helped us with our check-in, we should take a short break and come back out to settle dinner as soon as possible as the stores would all be closing around 8 p.m., so we did. 

H.K. Style Dim Sum (日月潭台湾第一名卤肉饭)

Map: No. 76號, Yiyong St, Yuchi Township, Nantou County, Taiwan 555

We decided that we wanted something warm after such a long day of travelling (literally from Singapore - Taoyuan - Taichung - Sun Moon Lake) so we settled for this store. 

No, we did not look at the google reviews prior to this, but I suppose that was also a good thing - because their vegetarian lu wei (卤味) was actually memorable for me. I don't know if I was just too hungry, or too tired, but it was really good in that very moment. The tofu, tofu skins, whatever they used were all very fresh and what was even more amazing was actually their sauces that we could take to go with it. 

The rest of the Dim Sum were so-so to me, but the braised pork rice was pretty nice (though portion was on the smaller side). 

The Crystal Inn, Sun Moon Lake

Map: No. 110號, Wenhua St, Yuchi Township, Nantou County, Taiwan 555

Is it time now to rave about the hotel room?! 

We got a Quad room so naturally the room was pretty spacious for two (we were comparing prices and for the price range, this made a lot more sense than many others). To be very honest, I don't think we were expecting much from this hotel (because of the reviews) and maybe even a tad worried about the toilet layout/design, but oh my, look at that tatami corner over there. 

This was nothing like the pictures I saw when I did the booking? 

Yes, no doubt, there are some privacy issues (like curtains that don't block entirely because its against a one piece mirror that spans across the whole vanity/basin area), but if you're travelling with people mature enough to know when to look away - then this is perfect (for the price & space).  

There's more to rave about this hotel - in the next post. 

Next post: [Travel Log] Day 2 - Unpredictable circumstances

ROX Juno Update (Sep 2023)

JUNO - the update that we have all been waiting for... is finally here! 

Source: https://www.ragnarokx.com/main/news_detail?id=7240035009610980097 

MVP/MINI Bonus reset is one that most players will not miss - because it is the time where every boss is guaranteed to drop at least a card or an equipment. 

First up, the new MINIs... 

Prior to this, Zero already received 2 rare drops from Mysteltainn (he got the reflect talisman that I needed 😹 and a card!). Tsk... hahaha. 

Then the new MVPs... 

And woohoo!!! Sold all my loots today.🎉

Such a happy day - would have been perfect if wolf got something too... but its okay, this is just the beginning, he'll eventually get one too right?? 😎