March 28 - Jhihben (知本), Taitung (臺東)

We started the day by touring the Jhihben National Forest Recreation Area (知本森林遊樂區).  There are a lot of hiking trails and beautiful forest, trees, butterflies and birds.  We spent about an hour on an easy walking trial in a garden nearby the administration building, and did some hiking to just get a feel of hiking trails in this area.  

Then Charles took us to the top of East Rift Valley National Scenic Area (花東縱谷國家風景區) to have a full view of the whole East Rift Valley from south of Taiwan.  Unfortunately, it was raining when we got onto the top of the viewing point.  We could not see anything and then we just went to have lunch at a tea favor restaurant Ai-jiao-yi Tea Restaurant (愛嬌姨茶餐飯店 - 台東鹿野高台一帶最有名飯店) nearby the tea plantation on top of the mountain.  We had tasteful tea-favored dishes (紅茶滷肉, 綠茶炸豆腐, etc) and we also tasted their green tea.  It smelled good with very nice flavor, therefore we brought some of their tea as souvenirs. Just outside the restaurant, we were able to enjoy the beautiful view of this tea plantation.

In the afternoon, we visited the Bunun Leisure Farn (布農部落屋).  There was an aboriginal singing and dancing performance.  Then, we walked around the village to witness the normal Bunun Tribe’s living environment.  Bunun Cultural and Educational Foundation is operating this facility to achieve its mission of promoting Aboriginal education, industry development, social welfare and artistic culture of Bunun Tribe.

Next, we visited the Chu Lu Ranch (初鹿牧場).  This is one of the ranch raising cattle for milk and making milk related products along with some other agriculture products; and you can have horse riding activities there too.  When we visited, it was raining again, so we only took photos and went into their market place to purchase some ranch products for souvenirs.

We had dinner at the Luolei Restaurant (響羅雷美食餐廳) which is an aboriginal restaurant with grilled fish and Shan-Shu (山蔬).

We stayed at Hotel Royal Jhihben again and enjoyed the hot spring spa in the room one more time.