Cing Jing

From Pu li Brewery to Sunnydale House, the car ride took about 45 minutes. All of us couldn't wait to check in to the 'min su' for a good rest. As I was sitting beside the driver, I decided against napping on my way. My decision paid off as I was able to catch some beautiful scenery while on our way to the hill top. I was a little frightened to catch the driver dozing off. It could be some parallax error or maybe his eyes were just too small. My instinct told me to keep talking to the driver so that he could stay awake.

About an hour later, we finally reached Sunnydale House. It is a sweet and beautiful little 'min su'. Elmo, Mich and I were looking around and taking pictures while Juliana was in the washroom. The owner was friendly as he managed our luggage. As we were too early for check in, we decided to visit the most popular attraction, Cing Cing Cao Yuan, a farm on the hill top. Overhearing about our plans, the driver decided to give us an incentive trip to the farm and told the owner to pick us up instead. Usually, the owner of the 'min su' only provides a single trip to the farm which differ from what I read in Tripadvisor. 

It took only a few minutes to reach the farm and it wasn't as cold as we expected. Still, all except me wore their jackets. I was in love with the weather except for the occasional windchill! The entrance fee cost about NT200 per person and I thought it was reasonable with all the promise it had in the farm. The initial view of the farm was amazing as the scenery was breathtaking and everything looked perfect with the fresh air surrounding the farm. As a farm, the activities there were quite limited. There was a sheep show scheduled at 2.30 pm but our fatigue minds instructed us to skip the show. We did enjoyed ourselves while feeding the sheeps and  standing close to horses to take some pictures for sweet memory. The sheeps weren't allowed to run freely as it was too cold. Well, we moved on to the market nearby to have a late lunch and some street food. <pictures to be uploaded>

As lunch was a little too heavy, a short walk might helped us a bit in digestion. The walk to the main plaza in Cing Jing was about 2km away. In this walk, there was a road comprises of 400 steps stairs called "Bu Bu Gao Sheng'. Luckily, we were walking down hill which was easier. The 20 minutes walk was a tough one for the girls and we had a rest at the plaza sipping Starbucks coffee with some crepes and ice cream. The owner kept his promise and fetch us back to Sunnydale House. Their service was excellent as our luggage were already placed in our room. We quickly made our way to the room feeling excited to find out how the room would look like. To my surprise, the room was smaller than I thought. There was no heater in the room like the hotels in US. There were only two blanket heaters for the two queen sized beds. Without any hesitation, we figured out to turn on the heater as the room was too cold! While the beds were warming up, we were preparing for a short nap which almost costed us our dinner. Kudos to the service yet again as the owner woke us up to make sure we didn't miss the simple yet delicious dinner prepared by them. The dinner gave me a sense of home and I would love to stay there as long as I wanted. As the room was so cozy, we fell asleep almost immediately after we got back to our beds. 

You can just imagine how comfortable the room was when we needed another  morning call for breakfast which would end at 10. We rushed down to the dining area which was also the reception area for breakfast. Everyone turned their heads to look at me as I wore just a pair of shorts in the extreme cold morning which I though was great. The mixture of warm porridge and American breakfast was brilliant! The coffee though thin, was enough to satisfy my daily dosage. Sunnydale House was a wonderful accommodation. Everything was excellent. However, visiting the place in spring would be highly recommended.

We checked out at 11 to catch the 11.10am Nantou bus to Taichung. Elmo and I were on the opposite side of the road to wait for the bus when a van approached us which left us dumbfounded. The driver got out of his van and offered to drive us to Le Parker hotel in Taichung for NT300 each.That's a  steal! With the amount of time saved for travelling, this was the best bargain of the trip. Well, we had to share the van with two other tourists whom were known to be Singaporeans. The husband kept pestering us to make a trip to Sun Moon Lake with them so that they could save some money. He tried too hard which left us quite annoyed. Fortunate for us, the weather was not good to view the sunset as advised by the driver.

The ride to Taichung was a fast but dangerous one. The driver was speeding and we could feel his van was rocking. We just closed our eyes and prayed to reach Taichung safely.