The mere recalling of how SL LLG did it with consumption king in their last trip to Taiwan where they scaled 1000 km still brought a shudder to him. That said, since we had a limitation of time, we knew that we had to finish the mountain of 陽明 before moving on to 北投.
So we cheated.
Well sort of. First we climbed quite a bit to the information centre where the kind lady immediately smelt the Singaporeanness in us and advised us to take a bus to a few poplar destinations and then climbed from there. After realizing that the bus was perpetually crowded, we decided to climb a bit of our own (still that "a bit" took us 45 min) before we took a bus from a more favourable location.
When we alighted, what greeted SL LLG sent a chill down his spine. "Yes" he muttered. This was the one consumption king and I climbed for 4 hours.
Determined not to repeat history, we decided to climb only a bit and then take some pictures
Take bus (#230 across 7-11) straight to 北投. Alighting, we went striaght to Hell Valley. According to the Guide Book, after a man fell in and scalded to death from the 90+ degrees celsius water, they have fenced up the whole place. Essentially, it was a lake but a boiling one at that
After that, we were on our hunt for our hot spring. There are many hot spring hotels there and were were ready to settle for a more atas one when something told me there are better deals up the slope. So we climbed a bit and entered this hotel which is beside a lovely quaint looking Catholic church. We were happy to hear that each of us only have to pay NT250 for 1.5 h of soak. And the best was yet to come. We were told we have the WHOLE area for ourselves and let me show you the pictures why were almost led to ecstacy when we saw what we had:
There are two pools all designed as if they were outdoors. The inner pool is warmer and the outer one is really nice to sleep in for an hour.
A bamboo hut and washing up area for changing and cleaning.
After that we were on our way to KFC for a quick dinner as were were interested to see if there was any differences in the chicken. SL LLG claimed the chicken is more juicy. I felt there wasn't much.
As we were making our way to the train station to catch our train to meet Serena, our new found Taiwanese friend we met in Wu Lai a day before, we bumped into this poised looking auntie.
"這位同學, could you tell me the direction to this......" Well SL LLG's heart apparently fluttered. Perhaps I had just taken it for granted that people would call me 同學 that I did not realise that, but one could easily imagine how that 稱呼 was most coveted by the decrepit and aged, that obviously SL LLG's ears caught it almost instantly. In an almost dazed manner, he couldn't remember the street name that the auntie was asking for, and I was the one who in a matter of fact manner, fished out the guide book and start figuring out the direction. After which, the auntie was so grateful that she said, 來,我給你們一點東西. SL LLG thought it was some rewards or something but she took out two namecards instead. Ah lish to miooo, she's actually an Member of Parliament for the KMT, and also a lecturer of a university!
After this interesting encounter, we returned to Taipei to meet Serena. She gave SL LLG a Cape 7 original CD and that stunned SL LLG considerably since his friend Bro Ong had asked him to get but the CD is still not yet out in Taiwan. She was kind enough to take us to Taiwan's MOST FAMOUS beef noodle house and I tell you, once you try it, beef noodles will never be the same again!
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