PING HSI DAY TRIP 平溪一日

Jing Tong Station of Taiwan Railways

Jing Tong Station

Railway passing "through" Shih Fen

Ping Hsi(平溪鄉) is a small town in Taipei county, famous for the Ping Hsi line railway and sky lantern. This time we would like to try something different. I parked the car at Jing Tong(菁桐) and walked through Ping Hsi(平溪) to Shih Fen(十分), total 9.5 Km. It took us about 2 hours to finish this walking trip. If you are not a hiking people, don't try walking from Ping Hsi to Shih Fen, it is a pretty long walk.

In fact, if you are not coming to Ping Hsi for the sky lantern, there is nothing special. So we had a late lunch and took the train back to Jing Tong, then drove home.

Maybe you think our Ping Hsi day trip was boring, but we enjoyed the walking very much.

Ping Hsi tour web site (Chinese only)
more photos

THE MOST FAMOUS TOUR GUIDE IN TAIWAN

Lin Lung(林龍) may be the most famous tour guide in Taiwan. You can see him frequently in TV talk show. He also has his own TV programs in Taiwan and China, also published several books.

Luckily he was the tour guide of our Sun Moon Lake trip. Although he is quite famous, he was still doing his job professionally; talking about detail info of each tourist site and sharing a lot of interesting stories in his life (also some gossips!).

Since he is in the traveling business, sure he encourages people to take vacation every year as "recharge". I pretty agree with him about this idea. Don't wait till you are 50 or 60, then start to plan enjoying your life. You never know how long you will live, so be nice to yourself and your family; have a nice trip at least once a year, no matter with your family, friends or even alone.

THE FIRST TIME OF FIREWORK PHOTO SHOOTING

(photos taken in front of The Lalu)

The day we stayed at The Lalu was also the day for Sun Moon Lake Firework Festival (日月潭花火節), so I had a chance to have my first fireworks photo shooting. I only read some "how to" articles about taking photos of fireworks shows, but never had a chance to try.

These photos do not look as good as those photos taken by pros, but I am kind satisfied with the results of my first firework shooting.

THE FINEST HOTEL IN SUN MOON LAKE AREA

The Lalu(涵碧樓) is located on Sun Moon Lake’s Lalu Peninsula. In the past, the building served as Chiang Kai Shek’s travel accommodation. So you can imagine it should be the best location in this area and enjoys the best view of Sun Moon Lake.

Of course, the rate of The Lalu is much higher than other hotel in the area(stating from NTD15500 per night, around USD470 per night). Luckily we had a chance to stay at The Lalu, due to Jane's company trip. We had a lake view suite, and I thought it was the best hotel I had ever stayed in Taiwan so far; you definitely can tell from those photos. Except enjoying a good stay at The Lalu, we also watched the firework show of Sun Moon Lake Firework Festival.

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SUN MOON LAKE 日月潭

Sun Moon Lake

Sun Moon Lake, view from The Lalu

Chiang Kai-Shek's(1887-1975) private dock at Sun Moon Lake

Photos taken in the morning on Oct. 11, 2008 at Sun Moon Lake area. I was planning to take the photos of sunrise, but took some nice Chinese painting style photos instead. These photos (w/o retouching) are more beautiful than I expected.

More photos of Sun Moon Lake

MAKE MODEL AIRPLANES FLY

F-16A MLU jet fighter of ROC Air Force (1:72)

EVA AIR Airbus 330-200 Hello Kitty jet (1:500)

After taking some interesting photos to make my collected action figures and model cars alive, how about making model airplanes fly? It was not difficult to take photos of model airplanes with the same skill for action figures, but it needed extra job to get rid of the airplane's stand.

How did I make it? The combination of Wacom tablet and Photoshop made it happen!