Ah, Sun Moon Lake - the favourite honeymoon spot for Taiwanese newly wedded. It is described as an incredibly serene lake with calm blue-green water and pristine hills. When the sun rises, the water surface will shimmer like a thousand sapphires.
Longing to behold such a wondrous sight, we journeyed to the lake in a cab, full of anticipation. After a long ride, we finally reached our destination. We hopped off the cab and saw this:
...Not. To be really honest, we saw this:
What the-?! Why was there so much difference between the sight in front of us and the pictures in our glossy tourism brochure???
As it is, due to the effects of Typhoon Pearl approaching the nearby China coastline, Taiwan is hit by unseasonally heavy rainfall islandwide. Though disappointed that Sun Moon Lake did not look as beautiful as it would have looked under sunny weather, we learnt to be contented whatever our situation. Enjoying each other's company, we chirpily embarked on a guided tour of the lake by our cab driver!
Along the way, we stopped at two temples. Both of which were rather big and grand. The one called "Wenwu Temple" consisted of many storeys and was furnished with jade decorations. The other temple had Japanese-styled garden and gazebos. We spent some time at both places, admiring the mysteriously misty lake from the tall places of these temples. Captivated by God's wonderful creation, we did not really bother about man-made temple architectuals.
Moving on, we came to this place known as the "Peacock Garden". On fair-weathered days, the administrators of the place will actually let their resident peacocks out for a walk in the garden. Today, however, we could only admire them in their cages. There were quite a few varieties of peacocks, among which the pearl-coloured ones were most exotic. The metaphor "vain as a peacock" is most true; as soon as we popped up at the cages with our camera, the peacocks jumped on to the branches of their cages and turn their tails towards us in anticipation for their photo shoot.
Afterwards, we visited the two small towns of the Sun Lake and the Moon Lake. They were entirely commercialised areas, consisting of hotels, souveneir shops and restaurants. I saw a stall which sells roasted wild boar meat, alas, it was not open this rainy day. That caused quite a heartache in me. Before coming to Taiwan, I had established a few life goals for myself; among which eating wild boar meat was one of the most highly prioritised. For the comprehensive list of my life goals, check out my "Book of Really Interesting Non-negotiable Goals" (BoRING for short). The top seven items are presented below for your viewing convenience:
7. Consume roast duck curry in Thailand
6. Consume fried beetles in Thailand (achieved)
5. Consume Afghanistan mixed meat dish (achieved)
4. Consume fried catfish in New Orleans
3. Consume roasted wild boar in Taiwan
2. Consume Irish lamb stew
1. Achieve goals 2 to 7 without spending more than a total of S$34
But I digress. Back to the topic. Anyway, Deario cheered me up with her usual cheeky self and we went on to take some photos of the towns. I particularly like the harbours there very much; I could imagine myself sitting there the whole day fishing had it been a sunny day. Either that or Deario and me could be paddling one of those cute yellow boats up for rental across the surface of the lake. Perhaps someday we should retire in a place like this.
The cab driver took us to many other spots around Sun Moon Lake as well, explaining the lake's history to us along the way. On the overall, he was an entertaining tour guide; we thought our money were well-spent. By mid-noon, we were done with touring the lake and we went back to Hero House to rest our feet. We rested till evening before going out again for dinner and shopping.
In the night, as we were watching TV and munching tibits furiously, news of tumultuous rain and threatening winds hitting the Alishan area flashed on the screen. To our hearts' dismay, the Alishan railway and bus services were gonna be cut the following day, when Typhoon Pearl impact Taiwan the hardest. Looks like our plan to travel up Alishan is gonna be shattered...
No comments:
Post a Comment