Asia Trip 2023 Day 6 - Red Lanterns in the Sky
After a very busy day of touring yesterday, we were back out again early today. We left our hotel room a little after 7 AM and grabbed drinks and pastries at Starbucks before we met our tour guide Vincent downstairs at 8 AM. Today we had an 8-hour Northern Taiwan tour that would take us about an hour north of Taipei. We got in Vincent’s Mitsubishi and were off.
After hitting some traffic we arrived an hour later in Pingxi to do a lantern activity. That meant for about twenty minutes we were to decorate a red plastic lantern with our hopes, dreams, wishes, and anything else we wanted to put on it. Jenn loves any arts and crafts project and was totally in her element here. I was panicked. Luckily by the time it was all said and done 2 sides were great and 2 had room for improvement. When it was time to let our lantern out to the world it made a quick hit on a nearby awning before making its way out. This was a very cool experience.
From there we made a quick stop at a nearby extension bridge before getting back in Vincent’s car and continuing. We made a brief stop at Yin Yang Sea and Golden Waterfall. An old mine that was abandoned many years ago has transformed this beautiful waterfall into gold. In pictures, it shines bright but in person, it almost was glowing. Probably not something we would have traveled to see on our own but as a quick stop it was breathtaking.
The only miss on today’s tour was to the gold mine which for an hour after the waterfall we meandered around not sure why we were there. When we booked this tour we had asked to shorten the 8 hours to the areas we wanted to see but it seems our tour guide felt like he was doing us a disservice by shortening it so we ended up at an old Japanese gold mine museum. It was interesting but nothing to write home about.
When we left the gold mine we made the short drive to the other big stop of the trip, Jiufen Old Street. The narrow streets are lined with shops and food stalls that are completely engulfed on the side of the mountain. If I am going to remember anything about our time on the old street it will be the thousands of different sights, sounds, and smells we had winding our way through the streets. It was beautiful, everyone was incredibly friendly, and it was a very fun experience.
We left Jiufen and made a quick stop at Houtong Cat Village a shelter for abandoned cats as well as another mining museum. This museum was a bit more interesting made a thousand times more so when Jenn set off the fire alarm. In her defense, the alarm was right next to some interactive buttons for an exhibit of a mining cart. Sadly Jenn hitting this button meant the entire place needed to be evacuated outside. With that out of the way, we joined back with Vincent who drove us back the hour to our hotel.
When we arrived back at the beautiful Shangri-La we went to have drinks at the Li Bai Lounge. Jenn had a glass of Chardonnay and I had a gin martini. We decided we were starting to get hungry so Jenn got spaghetti with meatballs and I had a Caesar salad. Everything was great and I’m glad we went. From there we got a coffee at a different Starbucks nearby and came back to our room to rest from two very busy days of touring.
For the next few hours after our light lunch at the lounge, we relaxed in our room, posted some of our photos to Instagram and I worked on catching up on my posts. We went down to dinner at Ibuki Japanese Restaurant on the 7th floor of the Shagri-La. We started with a glass of Chardonnay for Jenn and a Taiwanese beer for me. From there we had edamame and tuna and salmon sashimi which were all quite good. After that, it went downhill with three rather pedestrian sushi rolls tuna roll, crab salad, and crab tempura. The tuna rolls were fine, the crab salad was OK, and the crab tempura was unedible. Not all meals can be winners sadly. Luckily the mediocre Japanese food was only a small blip on what was otherwise another great day in Tapei. Like our red lantern, we may hit some snags on the way but the general trajectory is up!
