Just look at the stunning view of the lake! Breathtaking!
It was around 6am when I took this shot in the morning. The sun rises real quick and real early (at around 520am). This panoramic shot is taken right outside my hotel’s room.
PS: This is also for those who were still sleeping soundly in their bed.
Read MoreGetting there
On the third day of my visit in Taiwan, we took the HSR Train from Kaoshiong to Taichung during the afternoon. As usual, the train are (very) timely. The journey takes about 40 minutes.
From the Taichung HSR Station itself, you may find connecting bus to Sun Moon Lake itself. This would take about 1 to 1.5 hours.
Alternatively, you may take a cab for about 1500TWD. Using cab service which we did, it took us there in 1 hour time.
Checking in at a hotel around the lake
We booked for a room at Apollo resort (鴻賓休閒渡假旅棧) for a total of 5456TWD inclusive of 10% service charge for 4 persons. We got ourselves a deluxe room (with lake view). And, it definitely worth the extra!
It comes with complimentary blue pass from the hotel issued by the Sun Moon Lake tourism authority. Read more about the pass at Wenster.net.
This is the view from our room’s balcony at around 4pm.
Canon 17-40mm f/4L (17mm, f/9.9, 1/200s, ISO320)
The view around!
And the morning view is superb compared to the dull hazy afternoon view above! This shot below is taken at around 6am.
Canon 17-40mm f/4L (17mm, f/5, 1/50s, ISO100)
It was a exciting experience exploring around Kenting from the sandy white beaches to the astonishing view at the top of the cape located at the most southern tip of Taiwan. Enjoy the view!
墾丁，台湾 (Kenting, Taiwan) - View from a cape in Kenting National Park
白沙湾，墾丁，台湾 (Bai Sha Wan, Kenting, Taiwan) - One of many beaches in Kenting National Park
You may click on the photo to view the enlarged version of it.
And technically…. In post processing, no other kind of post-processing technique applied other than using the landscape picture style in Canon DPP. They are later stitched together using PTGui.
Both panoramas are taken hand-held using Canon 5D MKII, and a Canon EF 17-40 f/4L and in stitching later on, each of the panorama produces a total resolution of about 60 megapixels. They are then downsized to 4000px at the widest side to accommodate for web viewing.
Read MoreAfter a night stay in Kaoshiong on the day of arrival in Taiwan, we headed further south to Kenting National Park in the next morning.
Getting there, good to know.
It is good to know on how the Taiwanese name their highways. Roads that are connecting west to the east would be even numbered. For north-south connection, one shall follow odd numbered highway.
So, if you are coming from Kaoshiong, you will need to head south east to get to the most southern tip of Taiwan.
A quick google would show us the exact route that we need to take to get there. (Click here or the map above for the Google map link). We traveled through the highway #88 followed by highway #1 (See pink circle on map). The whole journey would take you about 2 hours.
Also, in the map above, the red circle shows where the Taiwan High Speed Rail station is located. You may take bus from the HSR Station as well if you do not plan to drive.
Kenting is now accessible via the newly built HSR, or High Speed Rail which connects Taipei with Zuoying, Kaohsiung. The total travel time from Taipei to Kaohsiung via HSR is approximately 90 mins. After arrival in Zuoying, exit the station and head outside where there is a bus stop. Line 88 bus to Kenting operates 24 hours/day, so getting back to the HSR on time is no problem.
Quoted from Wikipedia
Read More
Chinese everywhere. Being living in Malaysia for almost all my life, I’m not used to be seeing Chinese and only Chinese all around me when I first landed in Taiwan’s Taoyuan Airport (TPE).
The immigration officer that manages the queue was a Chinese, the other immigration officer that checked my passport was a Chinese as well. The police, the cleaners and anyone else that keep the airport operational are Chinese. Well, this is a norm in Taiwan, of course.
The main gateway to Taiwan is the Taoyuan International Airport (臺灣桃園國際機場) with the IATA code, TPE. Opened in 1979, the airport was known as Chiang Kai-shek International Airport. It is the airport that serves the nation’s capital Taipei city and it’s suburbs.
Quoted from Taoyuan International Airport’s wikipedia
Taiwan Taoyuan handled a total of 21,616,729 passengers in 2009.[1] It is the fifteenth-busiest air freight hub in the world[3] and thirteenth-busiest airport by international passenger traffic.
Connectivity from the airport is good. I took the shuttle bus from the airport to Taoyuan High Speed Rail (HSR) station in a mere 10-15 minutes journey that only costs 30TWD per person.
From the station, you can get to almost everywhere in the country from Taipei at the north to Taichung in the middle to Kaoshiung in the south.
Quoted from Taiwan High Speed Rail’s wikipedia
The system holds the record for the world’s longest viaduct at 157.3 km (97.7 mi), from Pakuashan in Changhua County to Zuoying in Kaohsiung.[27] The system also ranks Taiwan as the country with the third-fastest trains, with express trains from Taichung to Zuoying averaging 244.7 km/h (152.0 mph) over 179.5 km (111.5 mi).[28]
Alternatively, there are also bus services right from the airport itself that basically connects you to all the vital places all over Taiwan.
Transportation that really works! Comparing to Malaysia’s transportation, it’s like living in heaven here in Taiwan. Different means of transportation connect to each other as seamless and easy as possible.
Heck, you do not need to climbing up and down checking out and back in again in Taiwan when you need to switch to another line when commuting using subway system.
In Malaysia, one can only ponder.
In Malaysia, one can only ponder upon how Taiwanese’s transportation work so beautifully connecting with each other at tremendous rate of efficiency.
Read More