Guided by the motto: “Experience Taiwan now, sleep later”, I woke up at 5 am in order to see (and photograph) a beautiful garden with some blooming pond lilies. Excruciatingly exhausted now.. but totally worth it! (bonus – banana tree photo, first time I see one)

To eat breakfast, we went to a traditional market (by scooter, with our hosts – great experience with what seems to be the no. 1 means of transport in Taiwan). We had noodles (zha jiang mian) and pork dumpling soup (hundun). We also happened to see the traditional method of facial hair removal – using just a string.

Afterwards, we visited the Yilan Distillery, where we discovered some of the Taiwanese wisdom regarding alcohol consumption. Also, we found a drink with gold in it – seriously, I’m not making it up, check the photo.

Next on the day’s see-list was the Lan Yang Museum – finding out more about the history and culture of this part
of Taiwan and checking out the museum’s unique architecture.

For the last part of the day, we ventured deep (a couple of kilometers) into the subtropical jungle, in order to see the Wu Fong Qi waterfall. When I first saw the 3 meter waterfall, I asked disappointed “Is this it?”. Apple said no. Walked a little more and saw a 10 meter waterfall. I says “Yeah, it’s nice”. Apple was “There’s another one higher up the mountain”. Walked more on the trail and… well, just check the picture….

Bonus: the biggest mean-looking spiders I’ve ever seen (the title might contain a small exaggeration). Unfortunately, the pictures with the man-eating squirrel were not clear enough to publish on this high-quality blog.