The ever-expanding nursery looks vastly different since the last time I was here 2 years ago. There are many varieties of mature tropical fruit trees… to name a few: banana, soursop, cempedak (Artocarpus Integer), papaya, langsat (Lansium Parasiticum), starfruit, guava, pamelo, pineapple, rambutan, custard apple (Annona Squamosa), coconut and durian. There are also many mature exotic fruit trees that I have yet noticed before, such as tarap (Artocarpus Odoratissimus), durian isu (Durio Graveolens) and mundar (Garcinia Forbesii). An interesting addition to the nursery is a monkey in a made-shift cage. Due to sheer amount of fruits available throughout the season, a troop of monkeys have been stealing the bananas and cempedaks in the recent months. Hence, some of these fruits are now enclosed in wire frames. Perhaps we were no different than the monkeys, because we ate lots of fruits while we were there. Since our visit coincided with the durian season this time, we also ate lots of locally grown durians brought over by family members and relatives. These durians were neither Musang Kings or D24s, but they were still very delicious and outrageously cheap.

The nursery has a few more dogs than in the past with the current total of 6 (or 7) dogs. Although some dogs belong to the distant neighbor, they usually move in a pack between both places in search of food. They have no names, but everyone called them “Lu Lu”. Every time we drove past the entrance gate at night, they sprinted out in delight and gave us a warm welcome by wagging their tails, escorting the car to the house and licking our legs while we unloaded the items from the car trunk, hoping that we brought meals for them. They don’t possess the “security dog” materials but they would randomly bark when they get startled, which is helpful especially in a secluded place like this. Every once in awhile, their ears perked up and they raced off to their silly adventures chasing critters in the woods. When they got bored, they playfully fought one another until we yelled at them to shut the hell up. When the blazing heat from the afternoon sun became unbearable, the dogs spread their bodies and napped on the shaded and cooler concrete floor.

This album pays a special tribute to 1) parents-in-law for their unimaginable amount of blood, sweat and tears to create this magnificent nursery from a piece of jungle land, and 2) all siblings who have contributed in some shape or form to fulfill dad-in-law’s ultimate dream of spending the majority of his time at the nursery. Hopefully, each photo is worth at least a few words, hence, these photos are not captioned.

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Perhaps this is the southernmost city we visited in Taiwan, or perhaps this city is shielded by the Central mountain range on the east and mainland China on the west, the weather was the warmest and driest compared to our first 10 days on this island. We visited several attractions, including Rainbow Village, 921 Earthquake Museum, Xinshe Sea of Flowers, and Lavender Cottage. After visiting Gaomei Wetlands at sunset, we departed for Taoyuan — a 2-hour drive from Taichung. Taoyuan is not a touristy town per se, but we chose to spend a night there due to its proximity to the international airport where we would take the 4.5-hour flight to Malaysia the following day.

Our Taiwan trip was very enjoyable and memorable. Even though the first part of the trip was much wetter than expected, it didn’t stop us from exploring the important landmarks and trying many interesting local dishes. We had a great private driver that indirectly served as our tour guide. It helped that the Taiwanese people are generally very nice and well behaved people. They truly understand the concept of queuing even in crowded areas. It also helped that each of us brought a particular skill set to the trip. While I handled all the trip bookings and plannings, we also had 2 of us who could speak, read and write Mandarin Chinese fluently, which made it very painless to converse with the locals. We certainly look forward to exploring the bottom half of Taiwan in the near future.

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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.

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Typically we would spend several days exploring a national park. Due to various factors (limited time, logistics issue, whether the little ones would be bored or not) and the need to drive through Taroko National Park to reach our final destination in Nantou, we allocated just a little more than half a day there. The ruggedness and the untouched beauty of the landscape here was simply astounding. We chose several simpler popular hikes and timeboxed each hike to ensure we had enough daylight to safely traverse the mountains.

From Taroko National Park, we headed deeper into the rugged mountains and made a pit stop at a small beverage shop near the 3200 years old and 160 feet tall Bilu Divine Tree — the largest old tree along the Central Cross-Island Highway. Upon arrival, we were informed by the shop owner about the road closure ahead in half hour time due to road construction. So, after getting our honey coffee and honey tea, we hastily departed to reduce the possibility of getting stuck there. By 3 PM, we arrived at the Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area. This is the highest automobile pass in Taiwan. Given the limited time, we did a short hike to the summit of Hehuanshan Point — one of the 6 summit hikes in Hehuanshan, all above 10,000 feet in elevation. The beautiful blue sunny sky in the afternoon was deceiving as it was very windy and cold. After driving for another hour, we arrived safely at our accommodation in Nantou at 5 PM just as the daylight began to run out. We ended our day by having the fantastic local specialty urn roasted chicken and various interesting dishes for dinner with our driver.

Driving in these mountains warrant a topic of its own. Taiwan is very unique in the sense that there are lots of tall and steep mountains on a tiny island. Throughout the whole day, we drove along the Central Cross-Island Highway that cuts through the Central Mountain Range. The word “highway” is misleading because it is actually a narrow single lane road that wraps and curves around the mountains. Dubbed as one of the most dangerous roads in the world, there are several sections where the road is so narrow that both sides of traffic share the same lane without any humans or traffic lights monitoring the traffic. On top of that, motorists have to deal with low hanging clouds, blinding curves, rockfalls and landslides from heavy rains and seismic activities. For once, I was very thankful that car rentals were so outrageously expensive in Taiwan that we ended up hiring an experienced driver to bring us around because I could not handle this treacherous driving condition.

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Throughout the day, we experienced the lingering effects of Tropical Storm Fung-Wong moving north from the east side of the island. We managed to cover most of the planned attractions. In Yilan, we visited the 3-tiered Wufengqi Waterfall and wandered aimlessly at the National Center of Traditional Arts. The idyllic reflections on the flooded paddy fields were quite a sight to see. Based on our private driver, Hualien has better rice quality than Yilan due to its climate.

Given the bad weather, we skipped our visit to Nanfangao Lookout and proceeded with our journey to Hualien by taking the Suhua Highway. This cliff-hugging route is one of the most dangerous drives on this island. Being the only main road between the northern part and the eastern part of Taiwan, there are many fast moving heavy trucks transporting goods and hauling quarry stones between cities. To make matters worse, there are many blind curves, road and tunnel constructions, protruding cliff walls and debris cleanups due to landslides and falling rocks from the cliffs.

After a few hours of driving, we arrived at Qingshui Cliff. Coincidentally, the rain stopped long enough for us to stretch our legs and to witness one of the most spectacular views on this island. As part of the Taroko National Park, Qingshui Cliff is dubbed as one of the Eight Wonders in Taiwan. We admired the stunning beauty of the 3 distinct color tones of the Pacific Ocean and the sheer cliff walls — caused by collisions between the Philippine and Eurasian tectonic plates. To this date, Taiwan is still growing higher and higher.

As we departed for Qixingtan Beach, the weather took a turn for the worse again. We rushed our beach visit as the daylight ran out. Upon our arrival in Hualien, it took us a little longer to locate the AirBnb accommodation in the darkness. However, we were pleasantly greeted by the very spacious high-ceiling rooms. After checking in, we leisurely strolled to the nearby Dongdamen night market for dinner where we tried several interesting aboriginal specialties.

A couple of observations…

• There are plenty of bright neon-lit shops along the streets, especially in the cities’ outskirts and in the countryside. These shops sell one thing in common: betel nuts. Unbeknownst to us, betel nuts are widely consumed as addictive snacks in Taiwan, usually by the working class men. It is also the 4th most commonly used psychoactive substance after tobacco, alcohol and caffeinated drinks in the world. Since these nuts contain carcinogenic properties, those who chew them are 28 times more likely to develop oral cancer compared to those who don’t partake in this cultural habit.
• This was by far the most road tunnels we drove through in a day. Given the mountainous landscape, some of these tunnels are so huge and long that we literally couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnels. While most of us slept through the drive to Yilan, we passed through the 8-mile Hsuehshan Tunnel — the longest road tunnel in Taiwan and the ninth longest in the world.

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The drive to Yangmingshan National Park took about an hour from Taipei. Known to be one of the safest places in Taiwan, this national park is surrounded by affluent neighborhoods. Before the United States severed official diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979, the United States built more than 200 houses for high ranking American military officers stationed there. Upon arrival, we were greeted by terrible weather in the mountains. The whiteout conditions from the low hanging clouds were so bad that we weren’t able to see or enjoy most attractions. After having a nice hot lunch to warm our bodies, we left the mountains.

The weather of the day was a tale of 2 halves — heavy rain, strong wind and thick fog in the mountains but warm and gorgeous weather at the foot of the mountains. In Beitou, we visited the Hot Spring Museum and Thermal Valley. In Tamsui, we escaped from the crowded old street and strolled along the riverfront. Our relaxing time at Tamsui riverfront was unexpectedly the highlight of our day — laid back setting, warm weather and beautiful late afternoon sun. We requested our private driver to drop us off at Shilin Night Market as our final stop. After having our dinner in a very crowded night market, we took a half hour subway ride back to our accommodation. It was a long day, and unfortunately, a few of us experienced feverish cold that night.

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Our private driver — Johnson Kao — was very polite, patient and knowledgeable. Although he was hired to be our driver for the next 6 days, we treated him more like our private tour guide. He entertained us with many interesting stories about Taiwan during the drive. One of the stories that stuck in my mind was how the Dutch-influenced Tainan — the oldest city in Taiwan and was the capital during the imperial times — used to be a much busier city than Taipei due to its proximity to mainland China. Back then, immigrants mostly from Fujian province traveled by boats to Penghu Island first before arriving in Tainan.

Our first stop in the morning was Yehliu Geopark. From my web research, it doesn’t appear to be that interesting. In reality, it was pretty extraordinary to stand on the seabed pushed out from the ocean to form this otherworldly landscape. From there, we followed the coastal road to explore the Nanya Rock formations. In the afternoon, we visited 2 old gold mining towns: Jinguashi and Jiufen. Since the weather took a turn for the worst, we skipped Shifen Waterfall and headed to Shifen — an old coal town — to light a sky lantern in the heavy rain.

A couple of observations…

• The electronic toll collection in Taiwan is truly impressive. Taiwan was the first “country” in the world to adopt the distance-based pay-as-you-go tolling system on all of its freeways. Motorists do not have to slow down on the freeways as the tolls are collected electronically by the overhead gantries. When driving at night, the blue flashing lights from the overhead gantries were very apparent.
• All of us could borrow a page or two from OWNRIDES’ playbook when dealing with potential yet noncommittal customers like me. When I emailed the customer support with my endless list of questions, Steve — the owner of OWNRIDES — personally answered all of them promptly and thoroughly without any qualms. When I sent my initial trip itineraries to him for feedback, he was honest enough to suggest that I should consider breaking a single booking into 3 separate bookings to save some money. This way, I didn’t have to pay for the driver’s accommodations for the 2 separate day trips from Taipei since most of the drivers live there. Steve also granted my request to assign the same driver for all my bookings. During the trip, he kept in touch with me through emails to ensure everything went smoothly. While I’m not in anyway affiliated with OWNRIDES, I have nothing but good things to say about this company.

The post Northeastern Taiwan appeared first on Hungry Mike.

Prior to this trip, due to our ignorance, we knew almost nothing about Taiwan. We knew Taipei is the capital of Taiwan, Taipei 101 is one of the tallest buildings in the world, and Taiwan is famous for its stinky tofu… and that was it. However, after discovering many existing Japanese-era landmarks in Taipei, my piqued interest encouraged me to learn more about Taiwan, including the Japanese occupation in Taiwan for 50 years, the complex relationship between China and Taiwan, and how the massive amount of priceless treasures from the Forbidden City in China ended up in Taiwan.

This time, sis and her family joined us to explore the top half of Taiwan. Since this was our first time traveling together in a different country, we honestly didn’t set any expectations. For one, I was uncertain if everyone could manage doing our typical 20K+ steps per day especially with 2 younger kids (they did). Our travel style involves exploring a place by wandering off the beaten path while observing and absorbing the local culture as much as possible. Since I was the only person planning the whole trip, I was nominated to be the group’s unofficial tour guide.

We were very worried about our short 45-minute layover in South Korea due to our unusual flight schedules. Upon arrival at Incheon International Airport, several airport staff were seen holding big signs of our names at the arrival gate and yelling at the crowd in attempt to find us. Then, 2 staff promptly escorted us where we made a mad dash to the departure gate minutes before the flight took off. We were so certain our luggage wouldn’t have made it to this flight that we were already stressing out about the additional hours we needed to stay back at Taoyuan International Airport to wait for the luggage, knowing that 1) we had traveled for almost a day, 2) we were tired and exhausted, 3) the accommodation location is an hour drive from the airport, 4) it was getting late at night and 5) we were still in the process of figuring out the exact location of the AirBnb accommodation based on the last-minute check-in instructions from the house owner. So, upon arrival at Taoyuan International Airport, we surrendered to our fate and dragged our feet to the baggage claim area trying to locate the service counter to report our delayed luggage. However, to our huge surprise, our 2 luggage were the first to come out on the conveyor belt! We grinned and smiled from ear to ear. The surge of euphoria made us the happiest folks in Taiwan that night, bar none.

Although we stayed at the same accommodation in Taipei for 6 nights, we spent the first 4 days exploring the attractions in the town center on our own (covered in this album). We made 2 separate day trips to explore other attractions outside Taipei (not covered in this album). Since we arrived a day earlier than sis and her family, we explored the National Palace Museum and its vicinity first, knowing that her kids wouldn’t have the attention span to enjoy this museum. Even though November is generally the driest month in Taiwan, Tropical Storm Fung-Wong had just made landfall on the east side of the island when we were there. So, we experienced a slightly wet weather on several occasions, but overall, the weather was generally dry and comfortable with the temperature around mid-70s. In Taipei, we covered most of the main attractions, including National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Taipei 101, Maokong and Taipei Zoo. Realizing that my nephew is still very crazy about dinosaurs, we tweaked our itinerary to include an hour visit to National Taiwan Museum, the oldest museum in Taiwan.

A couple of observations…

• We were absolutely awestruck by the level of friendliness and politeness of the Taiwanese people. The very first time we saw the locals quietly queueing up at a busy MRT station, it gave us a great first impression of this wonderful “country” knowing that we didn’t have to sacrifice our limbs, honor and dignity just to board the trains. Even in the crowded night markets, everyone patiently queued up to buy street food without any fuss. When riding the escalators, everyone stood on the right to allow others to walk on the left.
• The AirBnb accommodations are technically not legal in Taiwan. The house owner advised us not to mention about AirBnb and that we were staying there as his friends when asked. At the same time, we were also educated the existence of Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA), which protects us from sharing any personal information with anyone if we choose not to. You would think at some point of time, his neighbors would start wondering about all his “friends” carrying big suitcases week in, week out.
• There are too many different ways to pay for the MRT rides: Single Journey Ticket, Taipei Metro Multi-day Pass, Taipei Fun Pass, All Pass Ticket and electronic tickets such as EasyCard, iPASSes, iCASH and HappyCash. It was very confusing to say the least, especially to foreign visitors like us. We were on the verge of purchasing the 3-day Taipei Metro Multi-day Pass tickets, but after doing some last-minute research and quick cost calculations, we made the right decision and bought the EasyCard tickets instead. Besides paying for the MRT rides, we were able to use these tickets to make any purchases at the convenience stores without the need to deal with loose change. At the end of our Taiwan trip, we proceeded to the MRT station at the airport to get a refund of the remaining balance.

The post Taipei appeared first on Hungry Mike.

We left at 7 AM on the first day so that we would have enough time to hike to the summit of Lookout Mountain in Cascade River State Park. Upon arrival in Croftville, we apparently went to the wrong house because I punched in the incorrect house number on the map. Thankfully, after some confusion, the house owner was able to laugh it off and showed us the right house. It was embarrassing and comical at the same time as I tried in vain to pry open the locked door.

On Friday, we lazily woke up at 8 AM knowing that it was going to be a very wet day. We almost never wake up this late during our trips. After wandering around downtown Grand Marais, we did a short hike in Judge C.R. Magney State Park. From there, we drove along Arrowhead Trail to Rengo Road. Rengo Road appears to be the local photographers’ favorite location for fall colors. The single-lane unpaved road is very uneven and rugged, and frankly speaking, it is not suitable for our vehicle. We were blocked by 2 downed trees, but we were able to break off part of the tree trunk by our hands to allow our vehicle to squeeze through. It was stressful to say the least knowing that we were literally in the middle of nowhere and about half a mile away from the Canadian border.

The temperature dipped drastically on Saturday as predicted. The wind chill temperature was in the mid 20s. It was the coldest day throughout the trip. While the road along the north shore wasn’t affected by snow, after driving just 5 minutes towards the inland to hike Tofte Peak and Carlton Peak, the entire area was covered with nearly 6 inches of snow. It was confusing to witness beautiful fall colors and pristine snow at the same time. From there, we continued our drive on Sawbill Trail to Honeymoon Trail. The further inland we ventured, the worse the road condition became. After driving half a mile on the single-lane Honeymoon Trail, we realized it was a terrible idea because our regular-season tires couldn’t get any traction to move forward. The road was too narrow to safely turn around without getting stuck. We finally chose to reverse very slowly all the way back to the main road. We then drove on Gunflint Trail for 40 minutes to do a short hike at Honeymoon Bluff.

We had the best sunny weather on our departure day. In fact, the weather was so gorgeous that we had to make short visits to Palisade Head in Tettegouche State Park and Enger Park in Duluth before heading home. This is one of the very few times we actually witnessed peak fall colors along the north shore. Typically, the inland’s fall colors were much more spectacular than the fall colors along the north shore. This time, the entire area was exploded with incredible colors.

On this trip, we ate a lot of fish and wild rice. We also tried a few local beers. We had a wonderful accommodation in a secluded place. Although the weather was generally very wet throughout the trip, we were still able to carry on with most of our planned activities.

The post Fall Colors in Minnesota’s North Shore appeared first on Hungry Mike.

The entire day was cloudy and windless, but it was chilly with the temperature hovering around mid 60s. We hiked 3.5 miles for 2 hours in this lush green quiet forest. This state park is located right beside of Upper Sakatah Lake where the lake appears bigger than the park. There is a 39-mile bike trail called Sakatah Singing Hills State Trail that cuts across this state park connecting Faribault and Mankato.

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