Guanziling 關子嶺, Taiwan Trip (Day 6)

22nd November 2014, Saturday

Pumpkin Cake (Fluffy!!)

Today, we were going to Guanziling, a place which is famous for its muddy hot springs and Fire & Water cave and its barrel chicken (桶仔雞). We woke up and had the cakes we bought last night as breakfast. The pumpkin flavor was better than the original flavor...hehehe.....Then we headed out to our destination. This time round, we don't have to chase for bus, so we took our time to walk to Tainan Train Station. And this time, we also passed by Chikan Peddlar's Noodle Restaurant. So i asked my friend to remember the location, we will come back tonight to eat as our dinner.

Stairs up Heroes' Slope

Once we reached the train station, i went to buy the train tickets to Xinying Station. As it had arrived at the station, we ran into the platform. Luckily it wasn't so far to the platform, and so we boarded. The train was like a MRT/Metro train and there were many people so we had to stand all the way until our stop. Once we came out from Xinying station, there were a few cabs asking anyone where they want to go. So i asked a cab uncle to bring us up to Guanziling for about NT$600. Along the way, i saw a lot of barrels with a metal pipe sticking out and signs stated as '桶仔雞' (It looked interesting...hehehee). The cab driver brought all the way up the hot springs zone (which was at the top).  We alighted and tried to look at the map for the whole area. Think my friend was still giddy from the ride (motion sickness from mountain roads), not in so good mood after alighting. Then we decided to walk up the road first, we came across Heroes Slope (好汉坡). It was built during the Japanese occupation by the Japanese to let those wounded soldiers to exercise and rehabilitate, it was really very tedious to climb up the steps. There were a totally of 300 steps up the LingDing Park, which was at the top. Whoever can do it will be a "HaoHan" or hero.

Dong Shan Instant Coffee

And since we were at the bottom, there was no description to the stairs, so we just blindly climbed up the steps...There were 3 resting huts to break from the stairs, damn tired from climbing. The description board of the stairs were at the end of the stairs, which was at the top. By then, we were panting so hard...hahhaa...Some people who were at the top saw the description board, didn't even bother to walk down the stairs to exercise...They just looked at us, as if wondering why we were climbing up the stairs from the bottom. After the tedious exercise, we walked around the park, which were having some small stalls selling products. We just saw a stall selling coffee and we headed straight for it (also don't know why...hahaa). The lady let us tried the coffee, without sugar...it was quite nice and was fragrant. It was named Dong Shan Coffee (which i didn't it was one of Guanziling products, in fact we didn't see the same coffee product anywhere else in Taiwan). So we bought 3 boxes of coffee powder and 1 packet of coffee beans. After that, another stall lady let us tried Longan Gan (龙眼干). My friend liked it, so she bought 1 packet and a bag of oranges too.

Barrels to cook chickens

Chicken!!! Must Try!!

After the shopping, we saw 2 restaurants down the road selling barrel chickens. I told my friend i want to try the chicken as we only saw it in this place, so should be their specialty here....hehehe....So we went in 1 restaurant to try the chicken, the small plate was half chicken and it was quite nice...tender and sweet. I showed my friend herbal tea egg and told her Singapore also have those. She said she had seen it around in SG but she never try it cos it looked black black and doesn't look nice...kekeke....After lunch, i wanted to go to Fire & Water Cave (水火同源). So we started walking down slope road to the cave. Gosh, i didn't know it was sooooo damn far. We walked at least more than 20 km down the mountain, what we had eaten for lunch were all digested....hahhaaa...But along the walk, we got a nice view of the scenery from the top and even saw oranges trees on the roadside. There was small boards of the attractions on the road, which was having tiny numbers. Everytime we saw 1, it was a reduction of 1 count but the distance between 2 boards was like 1 km away. We started from number 44, so by the time we reached the cave, we had already lost track of it...hahaha....After more than 1 hour or so, we finally reached the cave...阿弥陀佛 (a mi tuo fo)!!

Fire and Water Cave

出米洞

So we walked down the stairs to take a look and there were some people crowded in front of the fire. It wasn't really a cave, not sure why it was being called a cave though. What was special on this cave was there was fire burning on the rocks which water was at the bottom and the fire never got burnt out (The fuel of the fire came from underground spring which contain large amount of methane, when the methane is ignite the fire will burn forever). I can actually feel the heat coming out from the fire too. There was also a board on the legend of this Fire & Water Cave. After seeing the cave, we walked down to the shops area, where the shops were selling fruits, coffee, some food and honey. Ohhh...we also saw sausage trees too....the fruits of the trees looked like big sausages hanging...hohoho...Then we continued to walk down again and we were getting worried being stranded in this place again as there was no public buses or cabs around (The whole time when we were walking down the road to the cave, we didn't even see 1 cab or 1 public bus). As we walked down, we ended up at Temple of Azure Clouds 碧雲寺. What interesting was beside the temple, was a 'rock cave'. They had named it as 出米洞. It had a legend that this hole will release rice automatically (and magically), just enough for the temple to use. But one night, one greedy monk had stole all the rice for his own use. And so the rice cave never release rice anymore. So...don't be greedy....

Free Fruit to eat while waiting for bus

Then we went in the temple and see. I prayed for awhile and gave some donations. And then we walked to the opposite street to see the view. Able to see a big Guan Yin Statue at the bottom, should be another temple. I wanted to go down but my friend was worried we don't have transport back. So we walked around the place for awhile. Then we saw a mini public bus came by, we rushed to board it. Doesn't really care when it goes, as long as it can bring us back to the station or somewhere we can find a bus. I asked the bus driver we needed to go to Baihe terminal, so was asking where we can take bus yellow 12 or yellow 13. He said we can alight on the next bus stop and charged us NT$50 per pax. I was thinking why 1 bus stop needs to be so expensive, later then i know, it was really a long way down the mountain (down slope) and to the next bus stop. Imagine we were walking down the road instead of taking the bus...better to roll down...hahhaa...The driver told us to alight and cross over to the opposite side to wait for the bus when we reached the bus top. So i thanked the driver and we walked over to wait. Then there was an uncle approached us, asking us whether we are going to the train station. He can drive us there and charged us NT$200 per pax, but his car was not a cab. So i rejected but he kept walking around us to pester us to take his car. So i told my friend why not we walked down the street first while waiting for the bus (experience with Tainan public buses is either they come after 1 hour or so or it never come).

We walked until we reached the next bus stop, at least for me to get away from that weird uncle. So we waited there for the bus, no chairs to sit too. We were just standing on the road side, and we waited for quite a long time. We almost thought its the same thing as yesterday, no bus again. At around 5 pm, we saw a bus coming. Then i shouted to my friend, "bus is here bus is here"....my friend asked me back, "What number?"...And i just replied.."Does it matter?"...hohohoho....At least a bus came and we can go back to Baihe Bus Terminal.....It was a 20 mins ride to the terminal, there was people asking where do they have to wait for the yellow bus to go back to Xinying Train Station. So i told my friend to follow that group..going back the same place. But when the bus came, i don't have enough change for the bus fare and they don't give change back. So we dashed into the 7-11 shop and grabbed a chewing gum to buy. The bus driver was chasing us too, as he needed to drive off. Luckily we managed to get some small change for the bus fares. And we were on the way to Xinying Train Station, i saw the sunset from the bus, it was very big and red.

Train Tickets to Tainan

We went to buy the train tickets back to Tainan once we reached the train station. Got a faster train which doesn't need to stop at many train stations. It was also getting dark by then. Once we reached Tainan, we walked another street to go back to our hotel. Saw a bubble tea shop called Come Buy near the station and a lot of people were buying, so we queued too. My friend saw a group of Filipino ordering too, so she talked to them in Tagalog. Think the ladies were a bit shocked, my friend asked them what was nice in the bubble tea shop. And i went to order while she chatted with them. I noticed the ladies in the group were like quite arrogant, don't want to talk to her. Only the guy was chatting with her. After we got our teas, we continued walking down the street until we reached Chikan Peddlar's Noodle Restaurant. Funny thing was although it was a recommended restaurant on the net, there wasn't many people eating there. But we still went in to try the food, it wasn't up to our expectation. The food wasn't so nice as what was commented on the net and it was very small portion....Sad dinner...After that, we made our way back to the hotel. Saw a noodles shop packed with people, just hidden inside the street. So we got curious and went there to take a look. The noodles looked nicer and big bowl some more and the people eating were all happy. We should have eaten this instead for dinner....haiz...And it open only at 11 am, which means we can't eat it tomorrow too cos we will be heading down to Taichung in the morning... :(

Hotel Stayed: Famous Hotel

Places Visited:
Guanziling