:: footprintsallover ::: Taiwan: 冷水坑, 绢丝瀑布 & 川府麻辣火鍋

Monday, January 28, 2013

Taiwan: 冷水坑, 绢丝瀑布 & 川府麻辣火鍋

Been completely distracted on various stuff that the plan to complete Taiwan's posts went haywire. A couple of friends are heading to Taiwan in a couple of months, so back to TW entries on this blog again *clutch fists to finish this time round* hopefully these posts will be useful in your planning :) drop me a liner (caihong.lim@gmail.com) if you need more information on the various places that we had visited.

From our last visit to 夢幻湖, we ventured to 冷水坑, also known as "Cold-Water-Pit"

冷水坑 was formed by volcanic lava flowing down from the mountain, forming a barrier lake. The lake was eventually drained, leaving behind a bed of precipitated sulphur. 冷水坑 is actually a hot spring area, with a temperature of around 40 degrees. Although it is substantially lower than other hot springs, as long as it's about 6 degrees above human temperature, it can be classified as hot spring.

Spotted - Hydrangeas outside the visitor center! One of my fave flowers, in pretty hues of purple, pink and blue :)

Must take picture, but I think I looked extremely exhausted from all the walking, climbing and whats-not.

Even the guys wanted a pic with the flowers as well :)

Simple lunch of noodles, meatballs & bamboo shoots soup. We needed all the energy, to continue for the next stop of the journey.

Crossing the bridge to our next destination.

Leecher getting all excited - his moment of defying gravity.

The fog came & visibility was reduced greatly. We couldn't really make out what was lying in front of us.

Try spotting us, lol!

Road signs leading to all the various destination.

Choose to head down to 绢丝瀑布, 800m away.

up, down, up, down. I've never climb so many stairs all my life, surely exceeded my quota for the rest of the year.

Another beautifully created spider-web. Do you know that "spider web" is typically used to refer to a web that is apparently still in use (clean), whereas "cob web" refers to abandoned (dusty) webs? I certainly can't tell if this is a spider or cob web, but this looked clean to me.

绢丝瀑布 is pretty much like a normal water-fall. The water is supposed to fall like threads of silk, hence the name. The water-fall was surrounded by too much greenery and it was difficult to capture a nice picture. Slightly disappointed, given that it was almost a 30min hike.

Pics to capture the "miserable" water-fall behind, to show that we came here, lol! After this, we left Yangmingshan & headed for dinner.

Chuan Fu Hot Pot Buffet, 川府麻辣火鍋

Corner table for us, enjoy the food + people watch.

The place was crowded with patrons & I supposed it must be a popular steamboat place for people of all walks of life to gather & have a meal together.

Induction cooker, which is faster & more energy-efficient than a traditional electric cooking surface. Because the surface of the cooker top is only heated from contact with the vessel, the possibility of burn injury is significantly lesser too. During our reno, we contemplated b/w induction cooker and traditional hood. In the end, traditional hood won us over.

麻辣 & chicken soup-base.

A wide variety of food to choose. 王子面, the most popular instant noodles in Taiwan, which always reminds me of the song that Stefanie Sun & Mayday sang together.