Early this morning my mom woke me up and said we were going to play at Taipingshan in Yilan. Originally we’d agreed to go on Saturday so we could stay overnight, but Saturday’s weather still wasn’t good enough = = it was drizzling a bit and the sun never came out, so we had no choice but to go for just one day on Sunday. Otherwise, besides staying a night, we could have seen the sea of clouds. My mom also said that if we were lucky, it would snow on Taipingshan. As it turned out, Taipingshan didn’t get any snow this year — it was Nanhu Mountain next door that had snow, but it’s too far away with mountains in between, so we couldn’t go @@ and I heard the traffic jam over there was really bad. But today’s weather was really nice too — the weather bureau finally got the forecast right XD. First time I’ve seen the sun since Chinese New Year.
I’d thought getting to Taipingshan would be quick — after all, the Hsuehshan Tunnel is open and there weren’t many people heading to Yilan today, so there were no traffic jams along the way. But once we got to Yilan I realized it actually takes a long time to get there, because Taipingshan is really high….. The car drove for 2 hours just to get from Sanjiao to our destination — the entrance to the Taipingshan National Forest Recreation Area. For a full three hours my brother and I were basically in a coma, because the mountain road up Taipingshan has so many turns, winding and winding and winding….. By the end, even someone like me who’s never gotten carsick (only seasick) couldn’t take it anymore. The photos from Taipingshan helped me update my blog’s layout, but I didn’t capture any of the scenery along the road — in the end I only took pictures once I was on the Bong Bong Train.
▼▼The Bong Bong Train
▼▼The front of the Bong Bong Train
Speaking of which, today I really learned what “there’s always someone better, and a sky beyond the sky” means, because two people actually rode bicycles all the way up Taipingshan. They said they’d been riding for 5 hours — all I can say is their stamina is amazing. There were also a few people who came up Taipingshan on little 50cc scooters. That’s pretty impressive too, I’d say~
▼▼Close-up of the Taipingshan Visitor Center (it smells of wood inside)
▼▼Taipingshan Villa from a distance
While we were on Taipingshan we also went to ride some little train called the Bong Bong Train. At first I thought it was the bumper cars at an amusement park, but later I found out it was a little train. I still don’t know why it’s called the Bong Bong Train — all I know is that there was a black dog next to it that kept running after the train XD. You’ll see in the photos below. The staff there said that black dog runs after the train almost every day, on every trip. My mom even fed it a zongzi. After the train reached the station we went walking on the forest trail, and we could see snow on Nanhu Mountain next door.
▼▼The tickets are pretty cheap
▼▼The back of the Bong Bong Train
▼▼My brother
▼▼The black dog~
▼▼My mom feeding it. There was also a kid next to it who kept poking it with his “important part” = =
▼▼The dog racing the train again XD
The drive back was probably the most intense part of the whole day, because the fog going down the mountain was incredibly thick. At first the fog wasn’t too bad, so we went to Cuifeng Lake. But by the time we got there, the whole of Taipingshan had taken on that hazy, Shangri-la feel, and the fog was really heavy, so we had to hurry and drive back down — otherwise if we’d kept playing around we might not have been able to get down at all = = Even though we left early it was still scary, because the fog was so thick you couldn’t even see the road clearly. What surprised me was that at a time like that there were still people wanting to drive up……. I don’t know whether to call that reckless or what. Maybe they were going to stay at Taipingshan Villa! That’s where my memory ends ~~~~ because I was so dizzy I couldn’t stand it and automatically went into sleep mode. I didn’t come back to normal until we reached flat ground.
▼▼This house with its rustic charm is………a restroom
▼▼The train’s journey home (not mine)
▼▼The fog is really thick. This one in front is…. (guess for yourself)
▼▼In the end there was a car accident inside the tunnel, so we got stuck in a jam
Also, this trip to Taipingshan finally let me imagine the power of Typhoon Morakot (the August 8 flood). The provincial highway on the way to Taipingshan was almost completely destroyed; the current road is newly built, one wall was washed away, and even the bridge for the Bong Bong Train has some soil erosion.
See more photos on my Picasa! http://goo.gl/dO3Y