We started our day at 5 AM. We anticipated a long day as we made our way down from the Central Mountain Range to Taichung, which is located on the west side of the island. Upon checking out from our accommodation, we visited the nearby Qingjing Farm. There are several sheep farms in Taiwan and Qingjing Farm is by far the most popular one on the island. Although this attraction was mostly for our niece and nephew, the adults still had a splendid time enjoying the gorgeous scenery in the mountains. There were several live animal-related shows, but due to our limited time, we skipped all of them and only explored Green Green Grassland where the kids had a blast chasing, feeding and pestering the hungry roaming sheep for 2 hours.
From there, we slowly traversed the winding mountainous road to Puli Township before arriving at Sun Moon Lake 2 hours later. Sun Moon Lake is the largest freshwater lake and one of the 13 national scenic areas in Taiwan. For an unfair size comparison, Lake Superior is at least 10,000 times larger than Sun Moon Lake by surface area. We visited the beautiful Wen Wu Temple upon arrival before heading to Ita Thao for lunch. Since Sun Moon Lake is the ancestral home of the Thao tribe — one of Taiwan’s indigenous people, the street food was rather unique and surprisingly tasty. We originally didn’t plan to do much besides strolling around Ita Thao. Our private driver insisted we purchase the heavily discounted boat ride tickets at any restaurants instead of at the pier. Apparently, the local establishments are allowed to obtain the tickets for cheap, and in return, the owners sell them to make some profits. The “hop-on-and-off” boat ride made 3 stops and we explored all of them.
After the boat ride, we waited for the sunset at Xuanzang temple — our last attraction at Sun Moon Lake. Since we were only allowed to check into our accommodation after 7 PM, we loitered at the nearby shop across the temple at dusk before beginning our final 1.5 hours drive to Taichung. We explored the Feng Chia Night Market in search of evening meals but we were honestly too tired to jostle with the crowds and ended up filling our tummies at a fairly empty noodle shop near our accommodation.
