On the way back from Guam, we had the same transit at Taiwan, so some of us took the opportunity to visit the Taipei International Flower Expo. Although it was a huge area, I must say that the place was a little disappointing, mind you the expo had been going on for almost 3 months and only had about a month to go, so perhaps, the flowers were a little tired of visitors. Haha. We also met up with one of our old friends GAPet who is now working in Taipei and we had dinner together with other Taiwanese colleagues as well. After spending one night at a budget hotel there, we took the train to Taichung and our journey really began.


After a little fiddling with the GPS, it was time to go. It was very sunny and we took quite a while navigating through tiny rural roads and then twisting mountain roads. Boy I was glad that I had experience driving on the right side in Guam because driving in Taiwan is also on the right side. But the view when we were up in the mountains of Taichung was great. It reminded me a little of Camerons Highlands as many many hostels or hotels here were intentionally built in a Western style so you would find cottages, or Bavarian castles like in the picture above all around the mountain. We had high tea at that castle and stayed at another cottage higher up the mountain.

The mountain itself was famous for livestock so we went to this tourist farm, which allowed visitors to ride horses, pet sheep, see dogs running around and herding sheep and other 'farmy' stuff. The next day we also went to the Sun Moon Lake which was famous for its beauty in the mountains. And true enough driving around the lake was a great experience and very relaxing. There we also took the cable car up to this theme park in the mountains. It was a park built around the 9 kinds of indigenous people living in the mountains of Taichung but also had the mechanical rides as well as huge flower gardens. Walking in the crisp air, with flowers everywhere, it seemed like a dreamland. It was a good transit !

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