Sun, Mountains & Dog

If you think Taiwan is a boring place for the aged, it's time for a 'paradigm shift'.
This is my second trip to Taiwan, and maybe, I was better prepared, the journey, was simply, amazing.
In terms of experience, my stay two-day stop at a minsu in CingJing (清境）was really good for the body and soul. The crisp mountain air - ok, you can smell sheep feces too, but who cares (!), and the soaring mountains that seemed to go on endlessly!
We were really quite blessed that the weather was good - sky was clear and the sun was always shining.
Our host, the affable 李老板 (Mr Li) was helpful, knowledgeable and well, incredibly entertaining! If you do not ask him to show you the night sky, you would have missed his amazing 'laser' show.
At his 观星园 (Starry Minsu), it is famed as a location in 清境 for star gazing. We met two Singaporean couples there and started pointing into the sky, trying to show each other the locations of the constellations. Then along came Mr Li, who said matter-of-factly, "Ah, you mean this one?"
Utterly flabbergasted, this green laser beam shot out right into the night sky, seemingly to hit the stars itself. This was better than Omni-max ANYTIME!



Mr Li is a man of discerning taste. The food he served, his hot pot, his coffee, even their humble home-cooking was a gourmet experience.
Winter is a time where they mainly serve their prized cabbages. It has a much sweeter aftertaste than what we are familiar with in Singapore. And it was so for the onions, capsicum and even ginger!

On the second night, we had the hotpot. His 招牌菜 - salted vegetable soup was unexpected! He revealed that he had prepared the stock by slow-boiling it for about 6 hours. The results was a robust, flavourful soup base that had a hint of sour and saltiness. By adding the other ingredients, like corn, mushrooms, toufu, etc, the soup becomes progressively sweeter. It was great fun to eat on a cold night.
Mr Li is incredibly generous with his food and more often than not, we find ourselves stuffed to our noses and still have food left. He has however, a very 'green' way of not wasting food. It comes in the form of a Siberian Husky called - DuBi (read - DooBee).


I fell in love with her at first sight.
She greeted us - well, anyone for that matter, with a slight woof and a howl. It was really cute and well, she really eats anything. You can get her to do tricks by baiting her with food. But I think as guests, we should also feed her responsibly. I think she doesn't move much and because she is sooooooo cute, guests can't help but feed her (of course, you can't say no when her eyes are on you so hopefully).
Mr and Mrs Li were very kind in letting me play with DuBi. I also managed to take her out for a walk.. more like she took me along for her run. She is a really pretty and affectionate dog. Makes me want to have one like her....
I'm sure to go once more, to enjoy the morning sunrise, the quiet peacefulness of the mountain-side, the amber beauty of the retreating sun and the night jewels in the sky!