March 29 - Kenting (墾丁), Pingtung (屏東) and Traveled Back to Taipei (臺北)

We drove from Taitung (臺東) to Pingtung (屏東) to visit the most southern of Taiwan’s national park - Kenting National Park (墾丁國家公園).  After 2+ hours drive, we got to Kenting which covers a total area of 33,268 hectares (公頃) of land and maritime environment.  It includes large stretches of agricultural land’s providing visitors with a view of typical Taiwanese rural life.  In addition, the national park has mountains, forest, pasture, lakes, sand dunes, beaches and coral reefs. It has everything you could desire when one wants to get up front and personal with Mother Nature. 

The first stop is Maobitou Park (貓鼻頭公園) which has 2 platforms for looking over the south to Bashi Channel (巴士海峽) and the east to Taiwan Strait (臺灣海峽). Since there is a rock falling from the sea cliff which looks like a crouching cat facing toward the sea, it is named Maobitou. The whole area of Maobitou is a typical erosional landform of coral coast which just faces windward and has abundant sea erosion. It is an excellent landform classroom with various scarps, reef columns, sea trenches, sea erosion caves and pot holes . 

The next stop was E-Luan-Bi Park (鵝鑾鼻公園) with the most famous landmark in the most south of Taiwan - E-Luan-Bi Lighthouse (鵝鑾鼻燈塔).

Later, Charles took us to Wanluan (萬巒) Township to have lunch at the Important Fellow Hakka Restaurant (大人物客家餐廳).  They are famous with Wanluan pig knuckle (萬巒豬腳) and they also have a cold dish with name of Opium Cabbage (鴉片白菜) which means that once you try it you will be hooked on it just like opium. The taste was good and unique.  We had a wonderful lunch with these local specialities.   

After lunch, we got to Zuoying (左營) which is the THSR’s  (Taiwan High Speed Rail) Kaohsiung station around 3PM.  We took the THSR for 1 hour and 36 minutes to get back to Taipei.

In the evening, we went to dinner at Bear Cuisine (老熊味湯包 located at 復興南路一段253巷52號) and had a wonderful dinner. Their Green Squash and Shrimp Xiao Long Bao (絲瓜蝦仁湯包) and Donkey Tumbling (驢打滾), and House Steamed Chicken Soup (原盅土雞湯) were our favorite dishes.