Last Days of 2018

The boyfriend visited last month for the New Year and we spent our last week of 2018 in a county called Nantou. I've been wanting to visit this county for so long because it's quite a famous tourist spot here in Taiwan. There's a farm called Cingjing Farm where they hold sheep shows and generally just a grassland where you could hang out with a bunch of sheep.

To get to Cingjing Farm, we first need to hop on the High-Speed Rail from Taipei to Taichung, then changed to a bus to get to Puli station where we will stop for around 5-10 minutes before heading our way to the Cingjing Farm. All those commutes took us around 2-3 hours, which was quite tolerable but the ride up to the mountain was a bit rough for me. We arrived at our BnB at around 1 p.m. and we then headed directly to a restaurant just around our BnB to have our long-awaited lunch. After filling up our tummy, we waited for the public bus to get us to the Cingjing Farm which took quite a while since the bus only comes around every one hour, so we have to always keep track on the bus schedule through an app.

When we finally arrived at the Cingjing Farm, unfortunately, we just missed the sheep show; but there were still tons of sheep just chillin' on the grassland and enjoyed their time with the humans.

and of course, I had to take a picture with the sheep.

the boyfie <3

After chilling around the grassland, we went through the traditional market right outside of the farm to have a few snacks. We originally wanted to take a walk on the skywalk but the ticket booth has closed, so we did not get a chance to walk through it. We then wasted our time to wait for the bus (again) to take us back to our BnB.

The next day, we had to wake up super early for the sunrise tour that we're taking. I've been waiting for this moment the most because I've seen pictures of friends who came and the sky just looks amazing with hues of pink and purple. But luck doesn't seem to be on our side on those few days that we're in Nantou. The weather was not very supportive, so we didn't get the chance to see the pink and purple sky, but nevertheless, I still enjoyed the trip (not so much for the boyfriend because he wasn't feeling well that morning due to lack of sleep).

Met a cute corgy and couldn't resist taking a picture with him.

Since we woke up at like 3 a.m., we then took a nap again from 9 a.m. till 12 p.m. Then, we head to a resort called The Old England Resort, which has an architecture like the old English houses to have an afternoon tea/ lunch. But because we did not check the bus schedule in advance, we missed our bus and had to wait for another hour for it (?!!) After considering whether to wait for the bus or walk uphill to the resort, we chose the latter and walked our asses up the hill for around 30 minutes. The walk was worth it though cause then we could fill our tummy with more food.

We learned our lesson and actually checked the bus schedule before finishing our meal so we could get to the bus station right on time. While waiting for the bus, we took tons of photos around the resort and read a few wishes from tourists that hang around the big christmas tree in front of the resort. We also wrote a wish and hang it on the tree because, why not?

When our bus came, we then head to our last stop of the day, that is the Small Swiss Garden. We didn't do much or take too many photos there cause honestly, I was kind of disappointed with the place; let's just say that it did not meet my expectation.

And... we end this trip with hotpot.

To sum it all, the trip was okay. I enjoyed it because I was with my loved one, but there's one downside to this trip that make such a huge impact on the enjoyable factor of this trip, that is, the transportation. They should have more buses going around so people do not have to wait every one hour; every 20-30 mins is more acceptable. But then again, it's on the mountain. The fact that there are public transports available around the area is helpful enough for people who do not travel with private cars. So I guess we should just be grateful instead.