Day 15 - Sun Moon Lake to Taichung
Fleur de Chine - Morning 雲品溫泉酒店
Ci’en Pagoda 慈恩塔
Cable Car / Ropeway 日月潭纜車站
E-Paddle Boat at Ita Shao Pier 伊達邵碼頭
Dinner in Taichung 台中市
Evergreen Laurel Hotel 長榮桂冠酒店
Our last full day in Taiwan before flying out on Day 16… We had the delicious breakfast buffet and enjoyed more activities before checking out of Fleur de Chine. The hike to Ci’en Pagoda was a good workout and the views on top lives up to its reputation as THE best view of the lake from anywhere. Beautiful! The cable car was an enjoyable ride, especially in the glass-bottom “crystal” carts. We did the tour boats before so we opted for e-paddle boat this time, which wasn’t quite as exciting as we had hoped but we made the most of it. That concluded our visit to Sun Moon Lake as we drove to Taichung to drop off Alison at the HSR station and met our cousins for dinner. It was so nice to see our cousins again! It’s been ages since we last met, we have all changed so much! It felt so nice catching up on old times!!
Fleur de Chine - Morning 雲品溫泉酒店
The hot spas felt so nice in the morning! It was hard to get out. The breakfast buffet selection was tremendous, we had to carefully allocate our appetite! The build-your-own guabao (Taiwanese burger) was surprisingly delicious, with the moist buns, deliciously tender pork and nice finishing peanut powder and cilantro! No beer dispenser in the morning though. The girls got to do the DIY bath salt projects and try out the rock wall climb before we checked out of this amazing hotel. Definitely our favorite hotel this trip!
Ci’en Pagoda 慈恩塔
We learned from the hotel staff that the top of this pagoda offers the best view of the lake, and they were absolutely right! There is a convenient parking lot at the trail head with a bathroom. The hike was steep but not too long, very doable. Once you get to the pagoda, you still need to climb up the stairs to get to the top. The 360 view on top is totally worth the climb. Just gorgeous!
Cable Car / Ropeway 日月潭纜車站
The cable car is another must-do here. It leads to a tourist village at the top where you can learn about the aborigine culture here, but even if you don’t want to visit the village, the ride itself is still fun and relaxing. There is a separate line for the “crystal” cars, which only one in six or so are crystal, but we were surprised to learn that this line was just as fast as the other one. I guess not everyone wants that experience. The ride is scenic and calming, a good relaxing stop after our hike where we enjoyed the view.
Voyagers tips: There is a small free parking lot across the street from the entrance, or you can pay for parking at the large lot here.
E-Paddle Boat at Ita Shao Pier 伊達邵碼頭
Most tourists here opted for the tourist boat that takes you between three piers, but since we took it years ago and weren’t super impressed, we decided to do the e-paddle boat instead. What we didn’t realize was that the paddle boats are confined to a relatively small area, and the boats go pretty slowly. And oh, there are no paddles, just the handle bars. We kept ourselves entertained by thinking of the craziest things we could do with the relatively slow speed. That, and living like outlaws by going around the area-limit cones. We still had fun, but this isn’t on our Recommended list.
Dinner in Taichung 台中市
Unlike our prior trip to Taiwan where we spent most of the time visiting relatives and hanging out, this trip was all about hitting the tourist spots and experiencing everything Taiwan has to offer. As such, we didn’t have much time to visit relatives, so it was really nice that we were able to have two meals with our cousins, this night with Ivan’s dad’s side, and the next day with Ivan’s mom’s side. It’s been way too long, almost couldn’t recognize some of them! Good times!!
Evergreen Laurel Hotel 長榮桂冠酒店
This hotel was highly recommended as a luxury hotel in Taichung. After being spoiled at Fleur de Chine, however, this was a bit of a disappointment. It’s a nice, classy hotel, has everything we would expect of a nice business hotel, just nothing special. Breakfast buffet also didn’t quite live up to our expectations; it was decent, but we expected more from a hotel of such high reputation. We’ll probably save our money and stay somewhere else next time.