clouds and rainbows: Taiwan Trip 2nd Day: Taichung

This time we ventured out of Taipei, took the High Speed Rail (HSR) to Taichung. The HSR tickets weren't cheap.. Return trip tickets were priced around SGD70 per pax. Upon reaching Taichung, we wanted to tour Sun Moon Lake ourselves, but we reached Taichung past noon which was already quite late to complete a comprehensive tour of the entire Sun Moon Lake. So we took the "taxi tour" which brought us to the major tourist spots surrounding the lake. Luckily we did not "topo" on our own because it was a wkday so it was like a dead town with no public buses in view, and it rained heavily halfway through the tour! The driver was so nice to lend us his umbrella for our boat tour. But the tour is quite pricey (around SGD 145 for the tour, so if more ppl it'll be cheaper after dividing across).

Our HSR tickets

Very comfy and spacious cabins

View along the route

Finally arrived after an hr ride

The HSR looks like the bullet train

Larling drawing out his invisible sword

On the taxi!

First stop: That's a church made of paper, flown in from Japan, according to the driver

Peacock garden

The peacocks were suppose to run freely behind but they were kept indoors due to rain

Dazhuhu Trail

Panaromic view

The lake is running out of water.

Cable car station

We didn't take the cable car as we are short of time

Boat tour!

This boat looks so sweet in pink!

Great for weddings

We docked at Shueishe Harbour before moving off.

Gloomy skies..

And sure enough when we reached the next Xuanguang harbour, it poured literally.

And with the strong winds, we were drenched head to toe.

The boat sent us back to Itashao harbour which we boarded at the start and waited for the driver to bring us to the next destination..

Wenwu Temple.

The central hall is devoted to Guan Gong (God of War) and Yue Fei (Warrior God), while the rear and front hall is devoted to Confucious and his disciples, thus the name Wenwu

It's a very beautiful temple

Misty skies after the rain

I love this shot

The temple has 2 such stone fire lions guarding at the front

Wild boar sausages cooked on hot stone.

yummay

Han Bi hotel.. Chiang Kai Shek's fav stayover place.

The driver told us the strip of yellow bar you see in the pic is made of gold, even their toilet bowls are made of gold! How true we don't really know