Taiwan Day 7 : 梅花湖 - 太阳饼 - 清境

Our last day at this luxurious stay. Gonna miss the direct natural view just a slide away. 

And will miss this comfortable bed. Weather has been rather cooling so I've worn socks to sleep both nights. No complains except waking up frequently for Jasper and Jasmine got up once to use the toilet. 

Anne woke up rather early to pack up and use the hot spring taking turns with mummy.

And then we got ready for breakfast. Note that Joshua haven't bathed yet. And of course the kids have to wear the cute outfit one last round.

It is very hard to photograph Master Yoda. But we managed to take some really good videos of him walking through lobby happily by himself. We completely enjoyed the part where he walks in front of us back to our room. Whenever he sees an entrance, he will turn in, and we have to guide the wobbly Yoda out, and repeat the same at the next entrance. :)

The kids were all still in the pyjamas under the japanese outfit.

After much debate and final vote by mummy, we have decided to give the buffet breakfast a try. I would call this a risky decision because it's our last meal here, what if they serve lousy food?

Thank God they did not fail us! For both adults and kids.

Then the kids had to go for one more round of playground. It's their happy place here.

This is the basement.. all the activities for leisure are here. Jasper is quite familiar walking around here, charming the people around. 

And this leads to the play corner and playground.

After playground, we went back to the room to get ready for check out - Joshua to bath & we changed the kids.

Zip up all our bags, call the bell boy, we are hecking out soon but Joshua still insisted to drop his bomb and take a quick shower 5 minutes before the check out time. @.@

For mummy and Joshua, they have said more than once, this the toilet bowl is the thing they will miss most from this hotel. -_- Why not the hot spring bath tub?  Weirdos. Haha. 

One last time... may I?

Bye bye... Jasmine joined us doing the sad face!

Here we are at the receptionist again. Second time, this time to say bye and make full payment. Everybody was all smiles... but my heart sank when I saw the total amount I had to pay.

Twd52800 converted to ringgit at 0.14 = almost RM7500. I roughly calculated it to be RM6k+ when exchange rate was 0.11-0.12..... and at 0.145 it really cut me deeeeeeeeeep. I couldn't smile... sorry. For a moment, I thought I made the wrong call, who did I think I was? Why do I think I deserve such luxurious stay and pay out such a hefty bill for justttt 2 short nights? But then again, now I look back, it's worth it for my mummy. She's not been spending on herself much these years except for buying things. This kind of experience last a life time isn't it? At least we all can always talk about that hot spring bath we all enjoyed in Taiwan. :) :) :)

Our bags all tied together to prevent being mixed up.

The hotel allows us to use up the facilities up to 3pm, including registering at pools / gyms for their towels or shoes. But we just took a walk around the garden. 

During the walk, Joshua reminded me to be happy a bit, I challenged him to swipe his credit card for the huge bill !!! Grrrrr.... If I could roar like a lion, I think he had gone deaf that day.

It's quite a nice walk, if it had not been drizzling the day before, we would've came here already. 

Jasmine been wearing this pair of H&M boots almost everyday here. Keeps her feet warm and looks trendy. Thanks to Shin Wee for buying about 2 years ago, although the glue had dried, but we managed to fix it with simple super glue. And by now the colour had become more grey than pink, due to the dirt she's stepped on. But I think it's so worthwhile. Anyway her feet won't be this size anymore when we eventually plan for next overseas trip.

Thank God I discovered Anello, I can't imagine carrying any other kind of diaper bag for a trip like this.

I thought Jasper looked really cute in this outfit so we want to take proper photo. 

And as expected, he couldn't stay still for a decent photo. Kept moving and wanting to walk about.

This is almost the best we had. As you can tell, he fell on his bum after this picture was taken. It's very common for him to just drop to sitting position after he somehow lost balance.

One last playground for the kids, we know 小傅 is coming anytime now, but still want to let the kids play one more time. Look at the kid walking there on his own, he knows where he is going.

Here we are in the car with 小傅 again! We are going to explore more of 礁溪 before heading to 清境。

梅花湖!!! 小傅 only need to tell us that we get to ride electrical bike around the lake here and we were all sold !!

We love the weather and the place even before we start exploring!

Jasper taking his morning nap. :)

We opted for this duck electrical bike that can fit all 4 of us adults. 小傅got us some discounts, with unlimited ride time. He comes here so often the lady boss gives him special deals.

Quack quack car!

Here we go! Going round the lake...

We stop by for pictures. 小傅surprised us by coming with a normal mountain bike! He came to take photos for us.

While Joshua drives, I had to help him to vlog...

Why is this place called 梅花湖? Because somewhere further up high in the mountain, when you look down at the lake, its shape is like 梅花. 小傅 had initially said he will take us there to have a look but after that we didn't have time, we spent too much time here, but I think we can miss that, no problem. Hehe.

We started feeding the fishes in the lake with the leftover fish food from 望龙碑。 It actually was spilled in the car before we arrived.

And I discovered this half stumbled tree, I think it's a unique backdrop to a group picture and I like this one where everyone's so happy, although I seemed a little blurry. @.@

We took turns to drive the bike, except mummy and myself never drive hehe. 小傅 and Joshua took turn to ride the bike. :D

Feeding fishes and ducks again.

We decided to go round the lake again since we're given the unlimited ride time.

We saw these 菅芒花 blooming along the lake and got to know its name from 小傅. It's really beautiful and somehow gives u the magical feels.. we decided to snap some photos with a bush of them. 

Jasper woke up in time for a picture with 菅芒花

Jasmine got to "drive" the bike too!

After we are done with the bike, 小傅took us to eat 卤肉饭. He said 台中卤肉饭 can anytime beat 台北。 

It really tasted quite good. 

And this is what he recommended too.. call 梗 we thought it's some intestines but turns out is just some kind of thick soupy dish.. u can go for with or without glass noodles. I wasn't too impressed.

Anne started to complain that she's not feeling well... she didn't eat much... And when we're done, we spent some time waiting for 小傅who said that he was going to buy us the famous bubble milk tea down the road.. we suspect that he is buying more stuffs...

Jasmine imitates Joshua on the phone.

Jasper started playing with the stools in this shop and often end up sitting on the floor. This shop although old, is very very clean.

小傅bought these!! Assorted fried snacks!!

Everything was yummy especially the 炸鸡皮！ But I don't like the black one - 米血糕 (pigs blood) it's toooo chewy and that taste is really not worth the work I put my jaw through.
Another one called 甜不辣 believed to be tempura.. also too chewy. Nah.
This dark brown one here? I think is chicken intestines, mmm I prefer pig intestines. Haha.

After we're done here, we finally could start our journey to 清境。 Little did we know.. this journey is long and to me seemed endless. We sat in the car from when the sky was still bright until it's dark. -_- makes me feel gloomy. To make things worse, Anne kept complaining that she's not well. She feels that she was going to throw up a few times. She was wrapping herself up with jacket and neck warmer.

When I entered the car with the anello on my back, I accidentally hit Jasmine, she asked me "mummy, are you a tortoise"?  It's quite funny :D

Then it was dinner time, 7pm and we were still on the road. The kids were starving. Other than giving them the biscuits, we felt bad that we ought to be giving them proper dinner. So I opened up another pack of instant porridge for Jasper. He hardly ate!! We had to throw most of it away. For Jasmine, Joshua managed to get 小傅 to stop by a mini mart where he bought her a sandwich. That sandwich smell had caused Anne to really vomit in the car. -_-  She dirtied the car............. and we marked history in 小傅's 3 years in this career.

小傅 had to stopped by a pharmacy to buy medicine for her. Where to find such a good guide!
When we apologise to him for dirtying the car, he kept saying “没关系，我清就好啦！”

And by now, Jasper already got really restless. He can't stay in the car seat if he is not sleeping. He must get out. He will keep on crying and screaming (his new found skill) until I remove him from the car seat. 

Finally, we got to our second last stop. The shop to test eat & buy 太阳饼. I love to eat 太阳饼 mostly because many colleagues always buy this from their taiwan trip - I only got to eat one and I always felt one is not enough. So this round, I was determined to buy a lotttttt.

Once you sit down here, they give each person a free 太阳饼 and you can order anything from their menu to taste without the burden to pay!! And they serve us tea & coffee.

And there's a little corner for the kids to release energy, although not very clean but better than none.

We wasn't have much of appetite to eat dessert, so we didn't finish all too. We even packed the leftover testers. We bought 10kg worth of 太阳饼 and other puffs that we found quite tasty. Actually, we missed out asking when is the expiry date, these actually expires by 1st Feb! We initially bought most of it for our own consumption and when we give to colleagues, we selectedly give... who knows come end of January, we realised we still have plenty to finish. We really rushed to finish them up.. that made me feel that my love for 太阳饼 has officially ended. I won't call myself crazy for it anymore.. although I discovered that I prefer the cheese flavour more than the original one. Because after you force yourself to eat one each day, the thought of it sometimes give you a bit of reflux. Haha.

Anyway after this is almost 9pm.. we headed straight to Mone Resort.. arrived almost 10pm. We faced one of the most unfriendly & sarcastic receptionist... got help from 小傅 to bring all our luggages up to 2nd floor where our room is.... and finally call it a day..... I can't remember what we eat for dinner... maybe we skipped dinner that day. The long travels has messed up the kids timing especially Jasmine. Her dinner was in the car - biscuits and sandwich. And when arrived at the hotel room, she just burst into cries for no reason. We quickly fed her milk and she fell asleep on the nap mat... that night, midnight, she woke up to me and said she had just peed in her pants. True enough, all wet. All her pants and panties, nap mat and bed, all wet.

Our original plan was to have Anne & mummy sleep upstairs. Our room is a 楼中楼. But because Anne's not well, she sleeps downstairs with us. There was a lot of fights on this between me Anne and mummy. Added exhaustion. There's Anne, me, Joshua and the kids - the double bed is not sufficient, thank God we could push down the top layer, the bottom layer although is not as soft, but it's also a mattress. We got additional sheets, blanket & pillow from the hotel and Anne sleep on the far right corner, then me, Jasper, Joshua & Jasmine. After Jasmine had wet her side of the bed, I put her between Anne and me. There was a gap just so she don't pass the germs to us, but we had no other choice at midnight, thank God Jasmine didn't catch the bug from Ah Yi. :)

清境you better be worth it, we were all tired out just to come here for you............