Expecting to welcome a beautiful sunrise especially with a balcony view but it was drizzling before daybreak and very cloudy. Waited in the balcony while playing game but still nothing. Disappointingly, I climbed back in bed. 720am was the next moment of consciousness and mommy quickly got up to prepare meal for K. I prepared and left for breakfast first as buffet breakfast would end at 9am. There was only a small selection of food consisting mainly taiwanese cuisine and a lot of people were also having their breakfast at that time.
I swapped with mommy as I finished my meal quickly and did my share of preparing meal by putting in the fish and veg at the right time and cleaned up the dishes while baby K still slept soundly.
When K finally woke up, we got him dressed and ready to go but he wasn’t interested in having breakfast but requested for milk instead. The main activity today was to explore the Tokoro gorge by driving, similar to the 2nd day, so we didn’t want to give milk and risked another puking incident should he get car sick. The taxi car was also ready and waiting at the entrance to pick us up.
We were also prepared for car sickness by having many plastic bags on standby. Taxi uncle didn’t drive fast and sent us to a 7-11 nearby so that we could buy lunch to bring in. We got ourselves some sandwiches and seaweed rice.
The vehicle then proceeded into the National park proper, and our first stop of the day was a trail called Shakadang trail, 10mins drive away. He parked his car in the tunnel as car park was down for renovation. Retracing our steps across the bridge to the start of the trail entrance, we went through the gate and down the stairway. The light drizzle didn’t stop us as we brought along an umbrella. From the stairway we ended up on a walking path beside a water stream and then it was an easy 1.5km one way trek with not much ups and downs. Path had small stones but not too difficult to walk and K managed to walk a short distance before ending up on my child seat. At the end of the walk were some stalls selling souvenirs and and stuff so we returned without spending too much time there. The walk must have been too easy and K fell asleep on the return trip. On the other hand, it was very tiring to carry him back as he slept across my chest as I carried him with tired arms. Glad to make it back to taxi as K continued to sleep and mommy went off to use the public toilet.
We decided to do lunch first with what we had packed from 7-11, at a location about 5mins drive away called the tourist center. K woke up just as we were about to alight. There was a restaurant that was selling food for lunch but since we were prepared with something cheaper, we only bought taroko coffee and Pamelo juice from them. We settled for tables just outside the restaurant as the tables out in the open were wet due to rain. We didn’t think they would be happy if we had our meals on the inside since those would most likely be particularly for the diners. Had our meals there without any problems.
After satisfying the hunger, went to the ground floor of the center where the driver mentioned that there were something for kids there, like a children play area. He wasn’t exactly right or at least it wasn’t some playground like I expected but there was some exhibit meant for kids. Spent some time there to explore before we got back to the car for the 2nd half of Tokoro gorge.
We arrived at Swallow grotto but in order to walk here, we needed helmets which was readily available for loan at one of the stations. The driver brought us there and helped us get 2 helmets at the tented station while he had a baby size one for K. We drove on a little further to where the starting point was and after wearing the helmet, started our walking trail on the walkway along the gorge.
There were a lot of tour buses lining the road as tourists poured out from them and joined the same route. As we walked, we realized the need for the protective gears – falling rocks. Though nothing fell, there were notices along the wait that indicated that.
The beautiful sights were the water streams and the ever changing landscape of the mountains beside as we walked thru short caves. We reached a coffee shop at the midpoint and took the chance to change diapers for K at the toilet which had only one diaper changing station. We continued next section with what was about the same thing. By the time we completed the loop, the taxi was already waiting for us by the road.
Next stop was short visit to bridge to see the natural marble rocks below that was polished over time by moving water. We walked across the marble bridge overlooking from above and admiring this work of nature and boarded the taxi on the other side of the road.
The last stop At the Tokoro gorge was a visit to Xiang De temple, 祥德侍. After crossing the bridge to the entrance of the temple, there were 2 ways to climb up the slope of the hill, the left a gentler newer flight of stairs and the old steeper ones. We took the one on the left as advised by our driver and arrived to a laughing Buddha. We prayed and then went to sit at the overlooking pavilion for a while, enjoying the nice view of the mountains around us. Once we had our fills of the scenery, we returned back to the car and K fell asleep on 1hr journey return.
As we approached the hotel, the driver showed us where to have dinner near our hotel, a restaurant selling seafood as we mentioned of a lack of food outlets nearby. We bid farewell to the driver and thanked him for the fulfilling day trip.
Back in the room, K had cupcake for teabreak while we rested and relaxed until 6ish to go downstairs to the tea corner. There was a tea break station opened 24hrs and we wanted to check it out. It was a small area with 2 tables and there were small varieties of biscuits to choose from and some free coffee to complement the biscuits. The rain had forced us to stay indoors anyway we spent some time there before heading to the restaurant.
At the not too crowded restaurant, Bao Xian Lou, 包鮮樓, we ordered some sunfish, veg, egg and soup. K was cranky and as we tried to let K eat, he didn’t like it a lot. The portions were huge and we were quite full by the time we were done. Total costs for the dinner was an affordable 700NT.
After 2mins walk back to the room, R&R continued with a little playtime with K. There was some TV time and bath time and packing time before sleeptime when K downed a bottle of milk. Thought the night would have ended on an usual routine but the nightmare began. After drinking the milk, without any notice, K vomited on the bed, milk and some of dinner. I managed to catch most of what he puked in my hand but sheets still got some and was very smelly. We urgently activated housekeeping to help change the bedsheets and quilt. They do not have exact spares at this time of the day and so we had made do with whatever spares that they had. We tipped the staff for this urgent request when they were done changing out the sheets.
I then washed up the clothes with detergent as it was very smelly from the puke. K took the opportunity to walk around since we all weren’t sleeping yet. He slipped and fell at the toilet due to wet floor but didn’t cry too long. Learnt his lessons on wet floor. By the time I was done with laundry it was already 1130. Retired tired and worse was we had to start early the next day for our road trip to Cingjing.