So on Friday evening 16 May 09, I traveled to Zhang Hua county with Prior and Eva since Prior was going back to his hometown and invited me along.. this is my first time to the central part of Taiwan and it did prove to be an amazing weekend...
on Saturday 17 May 2009, we headed to Nantou county (see map on the left). Prior drove and the trip took just abit over 1 hour thanks to a new expressway that opened linked Zhang Hua and Nantou...As you can see from the map, Nantou is actually the only county in the whole of Taiwan that does not touch the shoreline... so yes it's entirely inland...
Yet despite that, I can assure you that it's visited by many many people because the allure of the Sun Moon Lake is just too great
It really is very very beautiful! they say that the lake looks different at different times of the day and I do believe it even though I did not see it (we spent about 3 hours plus there)... surrounded by mountains covered in greenery, the lake gives a really peaceful feel to visitors...
The road goes all around the lake so there were a lot of tourist buses as well as cyclists... our 1st stop was the Wen Wu Temple (文物廟), a beautiful temple directly facing the lake.. a large part of it was damaged in the 1999 earthquake but thanks to aid that poured in from within and outside of Taiwan, it has been properly restored...We then went on to take a boat ride on the lake... these boat rides come with and without guided tours... we did the one without since Prior was pretty much an experienced tour guide already :)
The boat trip was about 1.5 hours and included a stop at another smaller temple as well as a view of this mini island in the lake (it used to be much bigger but most of it sank in the earthquake). If you go during the weekdays, you can even go on the island... you can't do that on weekends since there are already too many visitors then and I'm sure that island will sink if we all went on it :)for more info on Sun Moon Lake, visit http://www.sunmoonlake.gov.tw/sun.aspx?Lang=EN
After the Sun Moon Lake, we then headed to the Pu Li brewery
The brewery is actually featured in the book "Blue Ocean Strategy in Taiwan" as one of the case studies... Once a pure brewery that almost went out of business, it is now one of the biggest and most famous breweries in the whole of Taiwan and draws huge crowds of locals and tourists every day to buy products related to 紹興酒 (Shao-xing wine, a form of traditional Chinese wine fermented from rice) or to visit its museum and learn more about the process of making various forms of alcohol as well as random facts about alcohol...
A tunnel whose walls are made up of wine urns...More on Puli Brewery at http://www.sunmoonlake.gov.tw/TW/04001114.aspx
Our final stop of the day was at the 中台禪寺 or the Chung Tai Chan Monastery... located in quite the rural part of the area (we passed by farms and large plots of lands before reaching it), the monastery is built by the largest (I think) Buddhist association in Taiwan and is said to cost NTD 4 billion to build...
From the outside, you can already tell that a lot of effort was put into the design and construction of this monastery... when you step inside, it's even more amazing...
Here you see the grand hall of the monastery on the 1st floor... that statue on the left is one of the four guardians in the halls and is 5 storeys tall and weighs 120 tonnes... It is entirely hand-sculpted, just like many of the other statues and structures in the monastery...They definitely didn't hold back when it came to getting the best materials and the best craftsmen for this monastery...
Only the 1st two floors are open to the public and there are monks and nuns who help explain about the statues, the construction and of course about Buddhism... they cater to foreigners too (we passed by a group where a nun was speaking fluent English)...It's an interesting way of spreading Buddhism to the world... this organization has also opened schools in the area where children learn Buddhist values from young while receiving high quality education (all students have to learn Chinese, English, French and Spanish)..
To find out more, check out http://www.ctworld.org.tw/english-96/html/index.htm (the chinese website features more information but the english one is not too bad.. comes with a virtual tour too :P)
So all in all, it was a very enriching day where I saw great scenery, learnt about wine making and had my breath taken away by the monastery while learning more about Buddhism... Definitely a worthwhile trip!
More photos at http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=6892183&l=3934180b1e&id=576355703
