Day 11: Guanshan - Perfect for Sunset....

~ 24th March 2014 ~

Our driver told us that we would make another stop and then whatever he said just went in and out of my ears. We told him as long as the place was without crowd we would be okay with it. When our driver stopped at the car park, we were elated to see that it was totally empty, with not even a soul there and definitely not even one express bus to be seen. 

We took our time looking for the map of the place. We found it. So, the main attraction was the temple but we have no interest in temples or any sort of religious buildings. I just realized that I have taken the same photograph as what was shown on the information board.

There.... there.... I just made some research about this place. So, we were staring into part of Hengchun Peninsular. More like looking at a town by the Pacific Ocean. Are they not afraid to stay there with the waves and all? What if the waves decide to turn into monsters and eat them whole?

Please enlarge that photo. I think I did a great job taking that photo. It was a clear view of the building and you can look into the windows as well. I don't remember taking such nice photos until I'm going through it now. I find that I've taken lots of superb photos for this trip. Some might not like the photos but I like what I have. The beauty of each photo depends on how you look at it.

The sun was shining brightly at us. We didn't know what else to see other than the town sprawled all over the place and the vast blue ocean. It's a beauty and the best part was no humans or whatsoever. I really took my time taking photos. We became the slow tourists all tour guides dislike. I wonder what our driver was thinking while waiting for us in the car. We spent at least an hour or more here in one corner viewing the sea and the land. Our joy was then cut short when we heard a lady's voice over a loudspeaker. You couldn't have loudspeaker in a jungle right? Then we started hearing footsteps like there's going to be a stampede and more loud voices spoken in mainland Chinese dialect. We squirmed in our skin and I started packing up the speed of lightning. When ran for our lives when we could see human figures marching our way. It's kinda funny thinking back on how fast we really ran.

It was quite a long way down and since they have taken over our spot, we found a place to rest. They couldn't be that fast right? Anyway we're almost done I guess. I saw another view deck which was deserted as well.

I just read about this place, Guanshan. It's listed as the 5th or 8th place for the best place in the world to view sunset. The sun did not plan to set that early though. It was just around 4p.m. when we arrived. If I knew about this place and decided to wait until the sun sets, I think the driver would have driven off without us. But if the driver is a responsible person, he might leave his car and come looking for us.

Now, I'm very confuse with the source of electricity in Hengchun. Is it powered by wind or nuclear or both?

The nuclear power plants is just there and if anything happens to the nuclear power plant such as leakage or explosion, we have to get out of the red circle as fast as possible. I only know about that after I have one of my translators looking at this photo. Thank God kids who can translate or I will never know what that circle means.

Day 11: Baisha Beach in Kenting...

~24th March 2014~

We asked our driver whether we will have a chance to dip our legs in the Pacific Ocean. Our driver said yes and he would stop at the beach. We were quite tired to walk and we were afraid of the crowd. When he dropped us by the roadside, we told him it would be a quick one. But the walk to the beach was quite long. There were camp ground for those camping enthusiasts. I've rested in a tent for less than 10 minutes, I will need a portable air-conditioning system in the tent. It's so hot and stuffy inside. How can one survive inside the tent?

The moment we reached the White Sandy Beach, we went crazy. It was clean and breath-taking. It really took my breath away when I choked on the stinky tofu smell wafting everywhere from the small stall. How can someone sell stinky tofu at such beautiful beach? I can accept durians by the beach but stinky tofu by the beach, those two were just too contradicting. I'm not into beach because I dislike the sand but for the sake of dipping my legs into the Pacific Ocean, I had to bear with the sandy sand. And I could not understand why were those beach-goers putting up the huge umbrellas when their sole purpose of going to the beach was to get themselves tan? Nobody does that in Penang Island. The heat from the sun will melt the umbrella away. So what should one do at such short span of time at the beach. 

You can click on the video to see what my travel buddy was doing and you should be able to guess what I was doing...

Yeah, I was busy fidgeting with my camera. Just need to capture the moment. And we did have some fun frolicking in the sun but we ended up with a very bad sunburn.

Happy wave....

Happy travel buddy....

Happy me....

Day 11: Maobitou Park, Dapeng Bay National Scenic Area...

~24th March 2014~

We were on our way to somewhere. The most interesting part about this trip in Pintung County was, the three of us totally had no idea which part of the place we were at, what were we going to say, what to expect and how many places of interest did we miss out. We were clueless of this place. On our way to Maobitou, I captured this from the speeding car. Now that I'm back, if you enlarge the photo, you can see a number of cars and humans at the man-made rocks. There were at least three people fishing there and I wonder whether the country made bays appear out of nowhere.

We had no idea what the heck was Maobitou. Direct translation would mean Cat Nose Head. We didn't see cat, nose or head but the wind could fly a stick-thin person away. Sometimes the seastorm could be so bad that the place would be shut down. There were so many taking photos there, so why not join the crowd?

The wind was really strong but I am heavy enough to anchor myself to the ground. Until today, more than a year later, only I know that we were looking at Dapeng Bay, part of the Scenic Area enlisted for tourism. 

We spent some time there because whenever my camera tags along, my camera would want to have more time. So, I allow my camera to enjoy itself while we made sure we were not flown away.

The crowd on our right was really scary. We were actually contemplating whether to join the crowd or not. We had no idea why were people climbing up the rock in throngs. Would the rock collapse one day? If the rock does not disappear because of soil erosion, it will disappear under the human weight. Since we were already there, why not join the crowd? We won't be there again. There's no again in our list unless it's something worth doing again.

Shouldn't the park set one way to go up and another way to come down? These mainland tourists really push and shove and they stop at the stairs abruptly as they wish. The human traffic was so heavy, it was no surprise if one of us suffer from agoraphobia. 

We pushed and we shoved our way to get to the rock that we were suppose to see. Actually we overheard the tour guides for other tour groups of what to see from the top. It's suppose to be a piece of rock with the shape of a crouching cat. What I see according to my understanding was a cute teddy bear or it looked more like Simba, from the Lion King when it was just a cute little cub. Since it was so difficult to get a good spot to take photos, after I pushed my way through and got a spot, I refused to budge.

That's the little bear from afar.... at first I taught I got the wrong rock altogether as I was looking for a cat's mouse until I Googled for the place and read about the crouching cat story.

There.... there.... wasn't that a bigger looking bear? There were definitely no pointy ears of a cat's.

A nearer look spoils it all. Sometimes your figment of imagination makes everything more beautiful. There was a cave-hold down there. It's gonna disappear soon due to soil erosion. Are they gonna make a fake one to replace it if it's gone forever? Yeah, so I went to another country and joined crowd of thousands just to look at pieces of rock formation and we got excited doing so. 

Day 11: Houbihu Marina, Kenting...

~24th March 2014~

Our driver took us to Houbihu Marina for seafood lunch. It was a place with lots and lots of tourists, all hunting for a good bargain for seafood. 

I found the gigantic wind turbine the most beautiful compared to anything else. I have never seen such huge wind turbines in my life. We don't have it here in Penang Island so you can really imagine that we're the countryside people, travelling to another island which has more advance technology than ours.

We were okay with the price. We even considered the price as cheap because we have a bulk of cash in our hand after changing it from the bank. I have no idea what's written on the menu so we started using our index finger to place our order. 

We spotted this red spotted fish and we wanted it on our platter so we had that. We love seafood and my travel buddy has not been enjoying any good seafood as she was staying in the land flowing with milk, cheese and beef jerky. Before we settled with our order, we had a good look at those seafood on display.

Those jelly eyes... there were staring at you. I have no idea how they're selling those eyes. Steamed those eyes on a platter? Throw them in soup? How???? I could not understand. The eyes were no more there when we were done with our lunch. We had these for lunch... not much of a surprise looking at them now but when we were there, we had a full and happy lunch.

Deep-fried fish skin? How did we eat there? I don't even like fish skin.... we finished the whole plate though... don't know who's idea was that....

Sashimi... our favourite... we wished to have a bigger plate of sashimi... I prefer tuna than salmon... and what's that yellow fish?

Prawns were too small in my opinion....

The normal lala which I could get here for RM10 for a kati....

The worst vegetables we've ever had... when having seafood, please do not order any vegetables....

Fish belly? Why did the whole plate look like pig's tail?

Our delicious red-spotted fish...

My travel buddy... the happy one....

While waiting for our food, I saw this on the aquarium wall. If ever I'm asked to name the aquatic organisms, I think I will flunk the paper. I have no idea what was that. Was it even alive? An aquarium cleaner to lick all the dirty slime on the walls of the aquarium? I have no idea... we never bother to ask because they would probably reply in Chinese and left me with more questions marks later on...

There was this stall selling deep-fried delicacies of sort. Puffer fish? Serious? Do you scare the fish silly then when it puffed up you quickly throw it into the hot oil so that it could maintain its puffed-up shape? That puffer fish has beautiful teeth and it has a mole on its face. How did you eat that puffer fish? Was it like eating durian skin??

We got this drink for our driver. We didn't want him to dehydrate. He refused to have lunch with us... I have no idea what drink was that but I saw my middle name in the middle of those three yellow Chinese characters. Must be iced bird nest drink... 

My favourite fish maw... I don't mind having steamboat with just fish maw swimming in the pot of soup....

Day 11: Travelling with the Malaysian Ringgit...

~24th March 2014~

That was the first we traveled to another country where we were on our own. We had lots of Malaysian Ringgit with us because we thought that our currency was higher than that of New Taiwan Dollar but sad to say, it was not the wisest way of thinking. My travel buddy, on the other hand, brought along with her a stack of Renmimbi and that was a life-saving move. The only time we managed to change our Malaysian Ringgit was in Taipei, the national bank, while other banks refused to even look at our money. My travel buddy has Australian Dollar with her as well, but that too was not usable. In the end we used her stack of Renmimbi in exchange of a few pieces of New Taiwan Dollar...

... that didn't last forever. We finished up the money in three days' time. Looks like Taiwan has a high living cost. Our driver was really kind enough to take us to the bank because actually we told him that after paying him, we would need to be a beggar for the next few days before we made our way up to Taipei. So, since Malaysian Ringgit has dropped so much, it cannot be used for trading in any third world country as well. To travel with USD now.... ugh.... 

Day 11: Eluanbi Park

~24th March 2014~

From the entrance, it was a long uphill walk to the lighthouse. The lighthouse is the centre of attraction so we took lots of photos with the lighthouse. Oh, you need to pay for the entrance fee but it was quite cheap. Spend an hour or two walking around. I told ya we were slow pokes when I have my camera with me. Just to take photos with this lighthouse, we spent at least 15 to 30 minutes.

From the lighthouse it would be a downhill walk into the woods. There was this Seahorse Trail for you to enjoy the view of the Pacific Ocean. Please don't be too excited and jump down from the trail. If everyone starts to do so, the place would be in total chaos. Kindly abide by the park rules and please do not litter. You should not even eat when you're walking around the park.

We sat at the trail to enjoy the waves. The waves were not pounding hard as it was quite a low tide. I like that wave rolling in. It was a joy to look at. Yeah, going for holidays it's not all about food and shopping. Shopping is never in my list wherever I go. Food... it depends. But scenery, yes... culture, yes.... so you see I do enjoy looking at rock formation.

We saw this little birdy flew into bushes and we followed it. Then, we found its nest. Hey~! That's one cosy nest you have, shielded from the scorching sun and the blowing wind.

There's this part called the Prehistoric Village. I was expecting dinosaur bones or something else but we only found tables and chairs from Flinstones era... wasn't that during Paleolithic time zone?

We found the kissing rocks. There were so close... so close... another millimetre and they would have touched each other. Yeah, see how much imagination I can have for rocks but the name Kissing Rocks do not come from me. It's already there on the map.

I'm not very sure which section I was at. Should be the Twisted Banyan walk... not sure... just walk on. We were just hoping our driver would not faint waiting for us. We took such a long time if there's a Mario game to play, I would have finish the whole game.

Shadow Valley?? Or still at the Twisted Banyan? Geez.... I don't know...

That's the Narrow Gorge... I can enter, you can enter... but if I'm trap there, it would be unpleasant.

We found this Mysterious Cave... now... where's the hidden treasure? Okay, not much to say but it's quite a nice place to explore if only we have more time. Yeah, I can spend the whole day in one place.

That's the only major attraction. If you have a time limit given by your tour guide, then you just need to take many photos of the lighthouse and you can go off. You will not have enough time to walk the whole place. We finished the whole place and we got lost in between as well. When you have so much time in hand, you can afford to get lost. In my travels, I give allowance for us to get lost... hehehhee.... it's really important okay... and I give allowance for us to detour and allowance to explore uncharted ground.

That's all of Eluanbi Park. Get there to experience more if you light sunshine and blue ocean.