Day two had us visiting the Linzi centre - 'Linzi' is famous in Taiwan for medicinal properties and harvested to make tea. Partly because I don't drink tea, and partly because of the incredible costs, this was not something we felt the need to buy - but the first pic shows this kind of fungus. We then drove to the Taroko National Park and the Eternal Springs Shrine. It is an area of natural beauty and gave us a chance to stretch our legs. We started the climb to the temple at the top - but had to give up when the steps kept going and our time began to run out!

From the Taroko National Park it was a short drive around the coast to Cisingtan, one of the many beach areas of Taiwan, for lunch.

From here it was then the long, long drive to our hotel for the night in the Hot Springs resort of Tautung. More for a toilet break than anything else, we did end up at a working animal farm, where of course I made friends with a few goats!

That was, in fact, all we did in this day, which sums up the disadvantages of a coach tour around the full island, we spent much more time on the coach than off it. We won't be doing this kind of tour again!

The next morning we were up early and back on the bus heading first to the Fo Guang Shan Buddha Memorial Center, a museum and educational complex spanning more than 100 hectares with eight Chinese-styled pagodas that stand for the Noble Eightfold Path, four stupas that symbolise the Four Noble Truths, and the Fo Guang Buddha amongst other buildings.  While the religious aspects were not of the greatest of interest for me as a Christian - they did have an absolutely fantastic ice-cream stall!

It was then back on the bus and a further drive, firstly to a fruit packing farm, and then to take lunch at the Mei Non Hakka Village, a very touristy complex of shops and tea houses in the middle of nowhere!  Then, from there to the town of Kaoshiung and the Spring and Autumn pavillions.

We just had time to visit the Leo Ho night market before heading back to the hotel!     Take care…  Trevor, Shanhong & Teddy xx