Taiwan Day 3: Hualien - Cing Jing

Day 3

On Day 3, we packed our luggage and bidded good bye to our minsu and left for Taroko Gorge. The driver we hired was recommended by Irene. Very friendly and chatty.

If you ever need the contact, I would be happy to provide. :)

We missed some of the spots as we needed to get up to the mountains earlier so that our driver could make it in time back by 5pm before they close the road up in to mountains. Shall not explain much cause I have tons of photos!

As we travelled upwards, it got colder and foggy. It was hovering along 1-2 degrees...

It's quite drastic change in weather because down there, you can still see sunlight so even when wind blows, it's not that freezing.

But once you past that, it dropped all the way to 1-2 degrees. And the fog, super cold. You can feel the fog!

Our pit stop! And we played with snow!!!! The snow here is different (so the driver said), you can hold the ice without feeling pain. I think in western countries, the snow eats into your skin (frost bite) when you hold them, so you gotta wear the correct gloves.

It's a memorable experience because this is the first time we both saw snow, and experience such a cold weather. Being up there, it didn't felt like I was in Taiwan.

 

Our lunch. Even though it's just cup noodles, it was fantastic... Drinking the hot soup in such a cold weather.. You wouldn't feel it's hot in fact! And now I know why people eat so fast when it's so hot. 

1) cause you don't feel it.

2) it gets cold very fast, so better eat fast. haha. 

After that we continued to travel upwards and finally reach He Huan Shan (合歡山)!

Hehuanshan is at 3416m altitude high and has a ski resort there. We saw many kids playing around and gliding on normal grounds! We were definitely not dressed well enough to do that! Our shoes were soaked with all the walking on snow! Luckily mine was that bad because I was wearing boots. Last minute purchase at Charles & Keith! Poor boy was super cold with his sports shoes.

Ultimate weather man...

And the news also was saying this year winter was colder than ever, and one of the longest winter around. So such weather is not common.

We were glad to have experienced it when we didn't expect it!



At Hehuanshan summit, with weather reporting.

  

The Ski Resort

Leaves frozen.



Seriously, I was very cold and hated the wind. The wind was killer. And someone just had to take picture of me like that. lol.  

When we have to go further up the mountains, the driver had to put chains called "xue lian" (snow chain). This is to prevent the skidding of the car when driving up the snow, but with this, driving is extremely slow, like 10km/hr. And this was also why the driver told us to set off early. There are policemen checking to make sure you have the "xue lian" otherwise you will not be allowed to enter.

Next pit stop, Wu ling. It's 3275m above sea, another highest peak accessible to public.

And how to go up? You have to hold the side rope and pull yourself up because the stairs are covered with snow and too slippery. To go down, hold the rope and slowly slide down.

I actually didn't wanna come up and take this photo because I was very cold and just wanted to stay in the car. My nose was very red and I couldn't feel my nose and ears anymore.

But GGH dragged me out of the car.....

This photo was taken when finally we were leaving the super cold place and reaching our next destination, Cing Jing. This trip is super worth it, but also the most expensive. It was additional NT$800 for the xue lian already. But, not gonna complain because it's worth the experience. I didn't expect to expect snow!

Super fresh and huge cabbage!!! In the mountain areas, their fruits and vegetables are especially nice to eat! 

Shortly after we left the mountain area, we arrived at Cing Jing in an hours' time.

Shall pen it down in my next post since this is getting long....

Stay tuned! :)