taipei - yangmingshan national park, danshui, beitou hotspring

i shall continue to blog about the 2nd day of my trip in taiwan. We are still in taipei, and i am so excited because we are going to visit the famous yangmingshan(阳明山), wohoo!!!

so how to get there? we took a bus from taipei main

station (no.126 or 260) which will take us to yangmingshan. However, this bus doesn't take us to the tourist spot, we will need transfer to bus no.9 in order to reach the national park. Unluckily, we missed the bus no.9, and it's going to take 30 minutes (if not mistaken) for the next bus to come, it's so frustrating!! so we asked around to know whether these tourist spots are reachable by walking, but different person giving us different answer. Finally, we met this taxi driver, who approach us to know where we plan to go, we want to go to Siaoyukeng(小油坑), Lengshueikeng(冷水坑), and also Mt. Datun(大屯自然公园). After listen to his explanation, we understand that each of these spots are quite a distance from one another, and it's going to take us whole day if we plan to travel by bus. He charged us $1000 to take us to these places and also other famous spots and i think it's quite reasonable.

He is a very friendly driver, told us a lot of his own stories and explained to us all the places that we are visiting and also recommending nice food that we can buy in taipei. I'm so thankful that we met him. Plan to introduce him to others, but too bad, he is going to retire soon.

One thing i love the most when you travel by taxi, you can

ask the driver to stop by when you saw some beautiful scene.

So, the 1st place that he brought us to is Cingtiangang(擎天岗), this place is just marvellous, we spent a lot of time here taking lots of photos, mainly because of the big field there. There is people taking wedding pics there too. The driver told us that it's been a while since there is such a good weather in taipei, that's why there are a lot of people taking wedding shots.

just loved the view at Cingtiangang

feel like i'm in new zealand

our jump shoot , love the blue sky

Next, we move on to Lengshueikeng(冷水坑), which is also being called as Lake of Milk(牛奶湖) due to the colour of the water.

Lengshueikeng, look at the color of the small lake

After that, we moved on to Siaoyukeng(小油坑), one of the best-known tourist spot, it's quite crowded over here. The view is really breathtaking, a must-visit place if you came to yangmingshan. However, you might find this place quite smelly due to sulfur.

Siaoyukeng

Next station, Mt. Datun Nature Park(大屯自然公园). However, due to time restriction, we didn't get to spend much time over here.

inside Datun Nature Park

Our final station, Chutzuhu(竹子湖), for those who understand mandarin, don't get confused, chutzuhu is not a lake, it was, but it was thousands and thosands of years ago. We were having a really nice lunch over there.

photographed Chutzuhu from top

Chutzuhu is very famous with Calla Lily(海芋), however, something bad happened to me when i try to take picture with it. I stepped into the water where they plant the flower and my shoes get so dirty :(

Calla Lily

Next, we get on bus no.9 which will bring us to B

eitou MRT station. From there, we travel to DanShui station and walk our way to Danshui harbour. It took us about 30 minutes. I have been longing to visit this place for a long time. It is especially famous for its sunset view. The scene is definitely breathtaking. We saw 2 couples taking there wedding shots there too. Again, when i'm taking pictures, the wave came up and my shoes --- get wet again, sigh~~

nothing's more beautiful than the view of Danshui's sunset

after that, we walk towards Danshui Old Street(淡水老街), when you come here, must remember to buy the famous 阿婆铁蛋，we also tried a few foods there such as pepper biscuit(炭烧胡椒饼),a gei(阿给).

炭烧胡椒饼

阿给

After having our dinner, we travel to Xinbeitou(新北投) MRT station, the middle coach of the train has been decorated with hot spring theme, as you can see the hot spring bathtubs with LCD monitors on top which you can find the information for beitou specialties and tourist spots.

nicely decorated MRT

bathtub with LCD monitor, cute~~

We walked our way to QianXiTang(千禧汤), 10 minutes walk from Xinbeitou MRT station. I experienced the hot spring there, wow~ it's so hot!!!~ we were having a hard time to get ourselves into it. people were looking at us due to the noise that we make when we were entering, it's a bit embarrassing, haha... I also tried the cold spring, getting into a cold spring during winter night, it's really freezing!!! but, at least i tried, hehe....

that's all for my day 2 in taipei, shall continue with day 3, 4, 5, 6...... in my next post :)