SATURDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2015
We wanted to leave around 8, but we ended up leaving the hostel closer to 8:30am. We grabbed breakfast at a nearby shop and then took a cab to Yuan Heng Temple. It’s really a beautiful temple and very large. The parking lot also offers a great view of the city. On the right side of the temple, there is a hiking trail and goes up the mountain.
We went to the mountain intended to see monkeys. But there’s no designated spot where monkeys are guaranteed to be. Tracy had been there before, so we kept walking up the trail and tried to find our way to the spot where Tracy had spotted a bunch last time at Four Banyons. So, we followed the signs that pointed toward Four Bayons.
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| Photo taken along the way, before we saw monkeys. |
Note: This attraction involves a lot of walking. We passed experience hikers and there are a lot of off beaten trails to walk that we got lost in.
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| Some monkeys we spotted when we got lost. |
We brought water with us and kept it in a backpack. On the way up, we did encounter a small group of monkeys. Luckily, none of them attacked our backpack for water, but they didn’t take a liking to Josh’s black self stick.
We walked a lot of trails. The signs are not the best. They don’t tell you when you’ve arrived at the attraction. For instance, we wanted to get to Monkey rock. I’m not exactly sure what it was. Maybe it would be a rock that’s in the shape of a monkey or maybe it’s just a rock that monkeys hang around on. We kept walking to the next sign, but that sign no longer pointed towards monkey rock, which suggested that we passed it on the way. Without a local, it can be difficult to point out things.
Along the way, there were points of pretty scenery, either of the trees or the city view if the trail was along the edge of the mountain.
At certain points at the top of the mountain there is free tea. Most of the tea is hot, so if that interests you, bring a thermos.
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| There were a few monkeys in the tea area as well. |
We started walking around 9am and by the time we reached the bottom of the mountain (next to the zoo entrance) at 2pm, we were starving. I suppose if you’re going to be hiking a while, it might be good to bring a snack, but that’s also a risk because these monkeys are not afraid of humans. They are aggressive and it wouldn’t surprise me if they took your snack from your bag before you got a chance to eat it.
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| Look at this baby monkey! Okay, the eyes are a little creepy, but otherwise he’s very cute. |
From the zoo, we took a bus back to our hostel.
We found a western cafe, called MARS, near our hostel and ate lunch there. The food was very good and they had free wifi. I ordered a chicken salad sandwich and the three of us shared a waffle with ice cream and yogurt for dessert. Considering we hiked for 5 hours, I think we deserved it. hehe.
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| Chicken Salad Sandwich |
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| Yogurt, Ice cream, and Waffles |
I don’t know if every KMRT station has lockers, but we found ourselves needing a place to store our bags. Luckily we found some lockers at the nearest KMRT stop. We shared a big locker which cost I think 30 NTD.
Afterwards, we went back to Pier 2 Art Center to see it during the day. It’s like a big park. The area used to be train tracks. They filled in the tracks in some areas, so it’s a little more leveled. There’s also different displays of art. I don’t know if those pieces change, but at the time there was a container theme, so there were these “rooms” made from shipping containers. I thought that was kind of neat. Several vendors in the area were also selling kites and bubbles. We rented bikes near the area and rode our bikes around. The bike rental also supplied us with a basket and locks, so when we stopped at the park, we could park our bikes, lock it, and walk around. I want to say it cost 100NTD to rent the bike for the whole day.
We rode our bikes all the way to National Sun Yat Sen University and followed the edge of the ocean for 10 minutes. Unfortunately, the beach was closed by the time we got there. We then rode our bikes back, picked up our stuff from the KMRT station and got on the train. Well, I got on the train and Tracy and Josh got on the high speed rail. They went back to Hsinchu and I headed to Pingtung.
