Wandering Fel

Showing posts with label Taiwan Spring. Show all posts

When is the best time to visit Taiwan?

The best time to visit Taiwan is anytime except from June to October, because the region is often hit by typhoon during those months. =S

But anyway, this is what I experienced during my short stay in Taipei.

Spring (March - April)

The temperature is still cold until early April (below 20 degrees celsius). However, it will not drop until freezing temperature. That's why you seldom find heater in any accommodation or houses in Taiwan. It often rains during this season too.

Flowers start blooming and this is the best season to visit Yangmingshan to see the sakura.

Summer (May - August)

I've already started drinking bubble tea on daily basis when the month changed to May. The weather during summer time is humid and hot. There's no way you can walk outside without sweating. Bubble tea will be your beloved companion in this season. To make matters worse, typhoon is often passing through the island in the summer.

The sunrise at Alishan is nice to view in this season though.

Autumn (September - November)

Typhoon still occasionally visits the island in September and October. But there should be none in November. So if you plan to visit Taiwan when the weather is cooler, November may be the best time since the temperature is hovering around 20 degrees celsius. I have not visited Taiwan in this period yet. But my friends who have travelled there in November all came back with smiles. =)

Winter (December - February)

There is no Christmas holiday in Taiwan, however, the shops will still be decorated with Christmas decorations. If you happen to visit Taiwan in January or February, do take note of the Lunar New Year dates as there will be many restaurants which close for business. Taiwan's winter is usually around 10 degrees celsius so you will not need those winter coat as thick as the ones people wear in Western countries. December is tend to be a dry month although rains can happen practically anytime in Taiwan.

Spring in Taiwan: 2015 Taichung Lantern Festival

Happy year of goat!!! Uhm, what? Is the celebration over yet? I hope you are not sick of the goats yet, because they are still spotted all around in Taichung. Baaaa~~~ (wait, are they sheep or goat? Uhh never mind, they are one family anyway, I guess?)

Superheroes Sheep.

Totoro is here too.

Totoro Lantern Taichung Lantern Festival Taiwan

Kuramon? Olaf? Piglet? Everybody is joining the fun it seems.

Olaf and Piglet Lantern Taichung Lantern Festival Taiwan

Carl and Ellie from Disney's UP has landed in Taichung too. Their house is right behind them.

Disney Up Lantern Taichung Lantern Festival Taiwan

A parade of colorful sheeps.

If you want to see more sheeps, you can go visit Taichung as the festival will run until 15 March 2015.

Spring in Taiwan: Ice Lantern Festival at Taichung, Taiwan

I always want to go to Harbin one day but the ~~cold~~ freezing temperature kinda make me reluctant to go. Hahaha. #tropicalcreature

Well, if you happen to be in Taiwan, you can visit Taichung because they do have ice sculptures exhibition as part of their lantern festival this year.

Colorful ice fort.

Octopus lantern is resting on an ice block.

Octopus lantern Taichung lantern festival Taiwan

Anyone feeling a drink or two?

Ice bar at Taichung Lantern Festival Taiwan

If you have a case of bladder emergency, do note that we only have an icy toilet bowl here. You are warned! =P

Icy toilet bowl at Taichung Lantern Festival

Make sure you wear enough layer as the temperature will be even colder when you are surrounded by ice sculptures. The festival will run until 15 March 2015. Go quickly!

Spring in Taiwan: What to expect during Taiwan Lantern Festival?

Before you decide to pack your bag and head to Taichung to attend Taiwan 2015 Lantern Festival, you may want to know what to expect at the festival. I went to attend one for the year 2013 which happened to be held in Taipei. But since we were lazy to brave the chill spring wind at night, we decided to pop by in the morning instead. The lanterns were of course, not lit up but they are already looking good.

Cute school kids on excursion spotted!

Taiwan Lantern Festival School Excursion

Taipei 101 spotted.

Mix-up of random cartoon characters spotted. I wonder if we ever gonna see Thomas and friends in lantern forms this year. Every kids that I know are obsessed with that train.

Random cartoon characters lantern festival Taiwan

Pretty spring flowers spotted. I love spring!

Online games characters spotted. Is this game famous?

League of Legends Lantern Festival Taiwan

Old Chinese Legend spotted. I used to watch this drama on my telly everyday when I was small (and always wonder why the main male character role is acted by a lady).

The Legend of White Snake Lantern Festival Taiwan

My favourite Journey to the West! The monk looks so cute. H

If you are interested, do check the lantern festival at Taichung city this year. It'll be even more awesome at night I suppose. Full details can be found here.

Spring in Taiwan: Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival

Cute guy. Lanterns. Remember the scene from Disney's movie, Rapunzel? What can be more romantic than that?

Disney Movie Rapunzel Releasing Lanterns

If you think this can only happen in Disney world, do not despair. The scene is actually inspired by the annual sky lantern festival in Pingxi. Each lantern carries hope and wish for the persons who release the lantern. Happiness, wealth, health, safety, prosperity you name it.

The Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival was voted by the Discovery Channel as the second biggest New Year's Eve celebration in the world.

This year, the Festival is held until 5 March 2015. So if you want to join the fun, you can head to Pingxi before 5 March. Be warned that the crowd is expected to be....huge. Like what the picture shows I suppose.

Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival Crowd Taiwan

The Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival will be held at these areas in Pingxi district:

(1) Shifen Sky Lantern Square No. 136, Nanshanping, Nanshan Village

(2) Pingxi Junior High School No. 92, Shihdi Street

(3) Jingtong Elementary School No. 45, Jingtong St.

The easiest one will be no (1) because you can just ride the train to Shifen and follow the crowd there.

May your wishes do come true! =)

Taiwan 2015 Lantern Festival at Taichung City

Every lunar new year calls for a celebration in Taiwan. And to celebrate this event, the country will puts up a lantern festival. This year, the lantern festival is going to be held at Taichung city from 5 March 2015 to 15 March 2015.

The main theme lantern area will be placed at Wuri High Speed Rail Special Zone. By the way, the main theme lantern from the Year of the Ram festival back in 2003 is still preserved at Taichung Park and they will be displayed in tandem with the 2015 lantern. Awesome, right?

Let's enjoy and welcome the year of the ram in Taichung!

Fyi, no entrance fee for this event.

Spring in Taiwan: Bamboo Lake at Yangmingshan

After having fun looking at the pretty cherry blossom at Yangmingshan Flower Clock (see here), we continued our trip to next destination in Yangmingshan which was...you know what, we did not really know where to go next because we did not really take a note prior to our trip. So my friend just look at the Chinese characters plastered in front of the bus' window and try to see which destination looks..okay.

We decided to ride the bus which indicated "竹子湖" (Zhúzi hú) which translates into Bamboo Lake.

So..we kinda had the expectation of looking at a nice pretty lake surrounded with bamboo trees. But, when we arrived at the destination, we saw this scenery instead. Errr...okay where's the lake? Haha.

Zhuzihu is located in the midst of Mt Datun, Mt Qixing and Mt Xianguanyin. It was used to be a lava-dammed lake formed by volcanic eruption. After the lake water receded, Zhuzihu was planted with huge number of bamboo. And hence, the name Zhuzihu.

There's no lake but there's a small river. Hehe.

There's an amazing thing that you can do in Zhuzihu. You can get the feeling of walking through the lilies of the field. So many lilies. <3

Close up look of the pretty lilies. You can buy the lilies at 100NTD for 5 pieces. Personally, I enjoy looking at the lilies when they are not in my room simply because I'm not such a good taker of plants. It'll be such a pity.

You can see the pretty combination of green and pink colors from here too.

We bought colorful steam mantou along the way. We hope they taste different but we could not really taste the difference at all. Oh well.

One thing to take note is the fog came down quite early in this area. This is the view at 4pm. So you better off start queuing for the bus to bring you back to the area near the Flower Clock where you can ride the next bus back to Taipei.

We queued for approximately 45 minutes before we can ride the bus and guess what, we were stuck in the traffic jam because everybody went down the mountain. Thanks goodness we got seats. Phew!

Spring in Taiwan: Yangmingshan Flower Clock Trail

If you like to walk around the mountain while enjoying the natural surroundings, you will love walking in Yangmingshan Trail. There are a lot of trails in Yangmingshan but since I did not really have a lot of time, I just walked around the Flower Clock area. (To read on how to get to Yangmingshan Flower Clock, click here. )

There is a small waterfall along the way.

A field of lavender. They are still small though.

You shall never go hungry in Taiwan. After a few steps into the trail, there's a food market selling tea egg, fried chicken and other stuffs like sausages. Awesome!

We came out from the other side of flower clock. Here is one last shot of another pretty flowers along the way. So pretty!!! I must pay a premium to enjoy this kind of view in Singapore. Hmmph!

We're going to explore another place in Yangmingshan after this. Stay tune! =)

Spring in Taiwan: Viewing Sakura at Yangmingshan

If you never ever see sakura in your life, you may have the chance to do so in Taiwan. Yep, you read that correctly, you do not have to buy your ticket to Japan just to see sakura. You can simply go to Yangmingshan National Park.

There are a number of ways to go to Yangmingshan. You can get the detail here . I opted to go to Jiantan MRT station and ride R5 bus all the way to the last stop, Yangmingshan.

From the last stop, you still need to take a smaller bus to visit the scenic spots at Yangmingshan. To be honest with you, I did not really know which bus I should take after I stepped down the R5 bus. I overheard a bus driver shouting 花鐘 (huā zhōng/ Flower Clock) and simply rode that bus because I read that name before somewhere in the internet. Trust your intuition much, eh? Hehe.

I glad I did, I love this place!! I hereby welcome you to Yangmingshan Flower Clock (陽明山花鐘/ Yángmíngshān huā zhōng). =D

The flowers here are oh-so-pretty. ^^

And there are the cherry blossoms trees. Sakura season is rather unpredictable. I was glad to be able to catch it before all the flowers petal drop to the ground.

Close-up shot of the beautiful flowers. For your information, sakura is called 櫻花 (Yīnghuā) in Chinese.

There are other flowers in the vicinity too. These flowers are pretty-in-pink. Just like the sakura? Hehe.

Another type of flowers, this time in red.

Are you a fan of flowers? If yes, you must go to Yangmingshan in spring. The air is fresh and the flowers are pretty. Make sure you layer up properly though because the weather can be rather cold up here in the mountain. Is sakura your most favourite flower? For me, it surely is. =)

Cingjing Farm Eats: Dinner time at Misty Villa

Helloooo, have you seen this lamb before?

If you feel that these decorations are somewhat familiar, you are not mistaken. Remember this post ? Yes, we are back at Misty Villa.

If you ever wonder what did we eat at Cingjing Farm apart from those food at Carton King (see post), well...we never really went out to another place to eat. Why? Simply because the dinner was served by Misty Villa kitchen. Woot! Another reason to start making your booking here? We'll see what they are serving, shall we?

The weather is quite cold up here and nothing will warm you better than a bowl of egg mushroom soup. Slurrppp~~~

Marinated fish with veggie.

Chicken drumstick. They will give you one piece per person. So don't eat your friend's portion! (unless they are allergic to chicken I guess)

Fresh cabbage with minced pork. Oh, are we eating Korean-style? Hehe.

Misty Villa Cabbage and Minced Pork Dinner

And voila! My favourite dish, eggplant! Yum!

They taste quite yummy. We were really full to the brim. So happy when people serve us good food. Hehe.

Dinner is inclusive in your staying package at Misty Villa so don't miss it! ^^

Spring in Taiwan: Small Swiss Garden at Cingjing Farm

I am back in Taipei!! Brrrr~~~~

Hmm I did not really go back home for a long time because my mum has to go to work and my bro has to go to uni. We only have one day holiday for Chinese New Year in Indonesia. Lousy!

Has anyone planned for a travel trip in 2014? If not, continuing my previous posts here, here and here in Cingjing Farm, we are gonna exploring another place today, Small Swiss Garden (小瑞士花園/ xiǎo ruìshì huāyuán). If you are wondering where it is located, you don't have to look that far from Carton King. The gate is within the complex.

Here is the entrance fee to enter Swiss Garden. The awesome thing about being a student in Taiwan is you can get a lot of discounted price, including the entrance fee.

Entrance Fees Swiss Garden Cingjing Farm

The garden is also known as Taiwan's little Switzerland. I've never been to a garden in Switzerland so I would not know how it looks like. Pity.

Seems like lavender is the key flower displayed here. I don't mind it a bit because I love purple.

Small Swiss Garden Lavender Farm Cingjing Farm

Hmm, since they put a windmill in the garden, should not they call it a Holland Garden instead? Hehe, just an idea.

If you are not a fan of purple, the garden has red and pink flowers too.

Last but not least, we spotted a cute family of ducks. Seems like they are enjoying a peaceful life in the garden. Envy.

Cute family of ducks small Swiss Garden Cingjing Farm

The garden is not that big (well they do name it small Swiss garden) so you will not probably only need 30 minutes inside the park. This should give you ample time to check out other places in Cingjing Farm like Green Green Grassland, which I'm gonna cover in the next post. =)

Find great hotel deals in Taiwan here!

Older Posts Home

Subscribe to: Posts ( Atom )