We booked the taxi for the one-day tour through Dingtaxi.com. The taxi company we engaged is David Fleet. The driver of the day is with surname Lin. He called us up at 9am, saying that he is infront of 7-11 and mentioned he was on-time. We looked at the opposite street at the 7-11, we saw no car. Then, Lin reconfirmed our hotel address, and found out that he was at the wrong street. Within 5 minutes, his car arrived infront of us.
He looks like in his thirties, pretty fair, wearing spectacle, dressed tidy with white collar shirt.
Before seeing him, I thought our driver would be someone in his forties, who will talked alot, introduced us the places in Taipei, etc. However, it turn out to be the other side. Lin was quiet, seems not very sure of the route, very cold manner.
The planned route was: 陽明山：冷水坑、小油坑、擎天崗、竹子湖 > 北投硫磺谷 > 北投地熱谷 > 淡水老街 > 漁人碼頭
The actual become: 陽明山：冷水坑、牛奶湖， 擎天崗 > 北投硫磺谷 > 北投地熱谷 > 淡水老街 > 漁人碼頭
Lin mentioned that 小油坑 required us to walk at least an hour, the car cannot drive up. He also skipped the 竹子湖 , where we planned to have lunch. He mentioned that the food stall I stated, will only opens in late afternoon.
Lin intended to bring us to the 阳明公园， however, it as under renovation. Thus, we wasted the time driving to the park.
擎天崗 have a very good atmosphere, with cow idling around, good view of mist and mountain and nice fresh air.
牛奶湖 have nothing much to see, just climbed up the stairs and see the little white coloured pond of water.
冷水坑 is a place you can sit around and have your leg soaked in the warm spring water.
We only get to see the smoke from the 小油坑 in the middle of the mountains from the car.
Overall, I was abit disappointed with the trip to Yang Ming Shan. May be I have expected too much.
北投硫磺谷 is also nothing much, just to see this:
And, 北投地熱谷 looks like this:
According to the information stated, the water is at temperature of 90 degree c. It would be a nice place to go during winter, because of the hot steam coming from the hotspring water.
We are only at 3pm plus when we reached 漁人碼頭, and Lin told us to idle until around 4.30pm before heading to 淡水老街. Actually the purpose of us going to 淡水老街 is to buy iron egg. We should not have waited so long. But I was uncertain about the opening time of the stall, thus, time wasted.
The taxi we booked is 8-hour usage at NTD3500, additional hour at NTD400/hour. It was 5.30pm when we reached our hotel. We were 30 minutes overtime, but Lin charged us 1-hour OT. I was pretty annoyed. If we knew that it is the outcome, we would stay at 淡水老街 longer.
I find that Lin does not know how to recommend the time for us to shop , the route to go and so on (Or he purposely not to advice us?). Personally feel that he is kind of depressed, not keen in his job. Nonetheless, his driving skill is not bad.
Hotel of the day: Sweetme Hotspring Resort
The room we have is the Japanese Style, where we sleep with mattress on Tatami. A very spacious room with a very spacious bath room. We can enjoy hotsrping bath inside our room without the need to go to the public pool. Alternatively, one can choose to go to the public naked hotsrping bath. Each room booked includes a complimentary buffet breakfast.
The breakfast was ok. The room was clean, but the taps inside the toilet is abit rusty. Overall I would rate it a 8/10. Will visit again next time.
We headed to the nearby vegetarian restaurant for dinner, Su 蔬食料理 ， a nice atmosphere restaurant. The food they served are in western / italian style. A nice place to sit down relax and enjoy the food.
We ordered three main dishes, but out of which only this taste the best:
I forgot the full name, but is something like 松露炒饭。 The other dishes taste so-so.
This is our starter and soup (carrot cream soup), taste abit weird. But not bad la..
The salad:
Cake of the day - Coffee Cake:
See my post on our stay at the Star Villa here.
See my post on our visit to the Small Swiss Garden here.
See my post on our visit to Green Green Land here.
See my post on our one-day taxi tour to Yeliu, Jiufen, Houtong Cat Village, Pingxi here.
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