We got up early in the morning to set off to Qing Jing! Throughout the whole Taiwan Trip, this place was my most favourite one. Just a getaway from the city lifestyle. Away from the shopping, the crowds, the mundane and dull lifestyle. Fresh air and great scenery awaits for us as we booked a cab and travelled into the mountains!
The journey up the mountains was an unpleasant one as I have motion sickness. After sitting at the front and resting for a while, I felt a little better. The driver took us to our accommodation and we checked into "Top Cloud" house. Since we could only check in at a later timing, we took this chance to go to the sheep farm! The sheep farm was one of the reasons why I looked forward to going to Taiwan.
The sheep was so cute and quite different from what I imagined. The grasslands were huge and wide as fluffy sheep munch obsessively on the green pastures. Scenic mountain landscapes, green grasslands, woolen sheep and delicate horses made my day! However, whenever I saw markings and labels on the sheep, it brought me back to reality that humans control and farm these sheep. These sheep are only allowed to come out at a certain timing and were starved so that we humans will buy food for them to munch on. That's why the sheep only cared about gobbling down the grass instead of running around on the grasslands. I am no exception and I might be worse because I tricked the sheep into taking a photo with me by using a strand of grass to grab its attention.
"Piak!" the sound of the whip hitting the 'stage' floor as the horse ran for its life in circles with a horse rider on top. A large crowd gathered round the stage, watching the so called 'performance' while covering their ears from the loud sound every 5 seconds. It was an eye opener when a horse of a bigger size appeared from the backstage and subsequently a baby horse appeared. People were fascinated at the idea of how horses could gallop that fast with the horse rider performing tricks. Well, I wanted to leave this area, away from the loud sound and the 'torture'. I really wonder why must the man in the center keep whipping the cane on the floor...
After we left the sheep farm, a long flight of stairs await for us. At least the stairs was accompanied with great scenery and beautiful trees. "Lets take jump shots on this flight of stairs!" said my brother. Due to my lousy photographing skills, I made my brother jump about 40 times and still ended up with a blurry photo. Sorry for that. Well, I jumped at least 20 times to get a somewhat clear jump shot which is shown below.
What really left me awe-struck was this amazing sunset view that we caught while walking back to our accommodation. The 'silhouette' of the sun behind the mountain and the streak of orange across the mountain really made me think that "Wow, Life is beautiful. I'm glad that God created this world. I'm glad that I'm alive. I'm glad that I had the opportunity to travel overseas."
As the night comes, the weather became colder. It was practically freezing as we were clad in rather thin clothing. The road to the food area were rather long and dark. I felt all right as we stuck close together as a family. Unable to find the Italian restaurant, we settled for a simple but warm steamboat at a small shop. Even though the steamboat contained just vegetables, it was delicious. Maybe its the warm soup or I'm hungry. I wished that I had the life of just enjoying the scenery, free of worries and troubles.
The night ended with a warm tatami bed as we had the whole warm and wooden 'cottage' to ourselves! :) Great experience.
The taxi driver was kind enough to let us get down and let us capture beautiful shots of the scenery around us.
Campfire inside the mingsu
Our very own "house"
Tickets and chop for us to enter the sheep farm!
Since my mom did not allow me to buy the food to feed the sheep, I came up with a way to attract the sheep by plucking a strand of grass and putting it near the sheep's mouth. What a way to take a great photo with the sheep!
This horse is one of the biggest horses in Taiwan! It was like thrice the size of an average human being. I was too afraid to go near it to take a picture with it >.<
We climbed up a whole flight of stairs to reach the sheep farm!! However, it was totally worth it!:) The thing that really tired us out was not the flight of stairs, it was us trying to take perfect jump shots. Only one in 30 shots that came out to be quite nice XD
We were so blessed to be able to catch this wonderful sunset behind the mountains. I swear that this was the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen~
A simple but heartwarming steamboat :)
The most comfortable and warm tatami bed ever.
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