One Day Trip to Ping Xi (平溪)

Finally, I took a trip outside of Taipei City!

Place visited: Ping Xi (平溪) area
How we got there: Took a bus from Muzha MRT station, journey was about 40 mins and we alighted at Ping Xi itself...I would have done a chronological commentary but that would have been super long, so I decided to just cover some highlights :)

Train, railway tracks and tiny stations
We basically traveled along the whole railway line at Ping Xi, and it was an interesting experience to be walking on and along the tracks, hopping aside when the train came, alighting and boarding at tiny train stations, seeing the old, quaint train set against the backdrop of forests and rivers...

That's us after walking on the tracks through a tunnel... we were heading from waterfalls to the next station, since the waterfalls were between stations.

Nature everywhere and Waterfalls at Shih Fen
Ping Xi is really beautiful.. it's surrounded by mountains and the Kee Lung river runs through it... everywhere you turn you see nature and green - green trees and even the water looks green... definitely a refreshing changes from life in the city itself...

These 2 are shots from Spectacles Cave Waterfall (眼鏡洞瀑布). The biggest waterfall in the area is actually Shih Fen Waterfall (十分瀑布) but it has unfortunately been closed for a while due to an ongoing legal case between the government and the villagers or something.

Coal Mine Museum at Shih Fen
While most people know Ping Xi for the sky lantern festival, it is actually also famous for coal mining... no mines are in operation anymore today, and the Coal Mine Museum in Ping Xi is the only one in the entire Taiwan set up to commemorate the efforts of the many coal miners from the past... exciting part of the tour was when we got to ride in the coal carts from the entrance area to the museum itself... felt very authentic as we rattled and shook our way along the tracks... the tour guide was very engaging by telling stories of actual Taiwanese coal miners, some of whom still live in Shih Fen... through that, I think we all learnt a lot about the hardships of coal miners, without whom the economy then would not have been built up...
www.coalmine.com.tw

Sky Lantern and Sparkler fun at Chin Tong
We headed to Chin Tong for dinner and of course, sky lantern!


Many thanks to CCLC for organizing the trip and inviting!

Full album of adventures in Ping Xi are here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=221902&id=576355703&l=ceab0

My Welcome Party

My host LC hosted a welcome party for me and all I can say is, it was great!! I had sooo much fun!

The welcome party was held in a cosy little restaurant called 上帝的後花園 and it's located at 台北市大安區羅斯福路三段, which is near the National Taiwan University.

I had a great time meeting the members and the interns from Taiwan. It was especially amusing when some of the members said they remember me from the Summer National Conference 2007 that I chaired... I told everyone that I did not understand Chinese, so as to encourage them to speak English with me. Of course I revealed the truth on the last day of conference but since then, I'm sure I left an impression as "the Chair who lied"

There was also a very entertaining cross-talk performance (相聲）by 2 of the members (GREAT JOB!), an introduction by members about the various must-see spots in Taiwan, and of course, I delivered an introduction about Singapore, myself and AIESEC Singapore... it was really enjoyable doing the presentation, everyone was very participative :)

Here are photos from all the networking :)

What surprised and touched me was that they planned a bunch of presents for me as an official welcome thing... I got 3 sky lanterns (orange, yellow and red which each signify something in life that I don't remember), an AIESEC T-shirt and 2 sets of 3 drawers!! I think they saw my previous blog post about shelves and got me some... there was also a hand-made "Welcome to Taiwan" book containing post-it greetings by members! see how nice they are!!

More pictures will come once I re-organise my desk and officially install the shelves :)

Many many thanks to TPLC for a great evening!!!