Wulai - Hot Springs and Aboriginal Culture

The sun has finally decided to show its face after 5 days of rain. :) Today, we are off to Wulai which is famous for its hot springs and aboriginal culture. :) My mother's good friend, Uncle Jian came to pick us up at 10am. It took about an hour to get to Wulai from Neihu area. We had a good nap in the car lol. :P

The girls at the lobby waiting for our ride to Wulai

Us three just waiting around and taking photos lol

As it was already 11am, we decided to have lunch first. There are numerous restaurants and shops along Wulai Street. We settled on one restaurant and ordered the local dishes such as Bamboo Tube Rice, Wild Mountain Boar Meat, Steamed Mountain Chicken, Chicken Broth with Green Papaya, Mountain vegetables and Fried Stream Fish which were all delicious and very fresh. The broth and green papaya was yummy but I forgot to take a photo as I was busy wolfing down food :P


Bamboo Tube Rice - has 2 version: vegetarian and non-vegetarian

The wild mountain boar meat is really chewy, yummy and not oily at all, very different from our usual pork.

A vegetation found in Wulai, literal translation, water lily roots.

After a satisfying lunch, we continued on our way to see the Wulai Waterfalls. We crossed the Lansheng Bridge to take the Wulai Log Cart to the waterfalls. The girls were thrilled to sit in the log train lol. It is the first time the girls have seen a waterfall and so they were excited. We had wanted to watch the Atayal Aboriginal Culture Show but we would get back to Taipei too late in the afternoon. We skipped the show but as compensation, the girls each bought an Atayal doll. On our way back, we bought more souvenirs from the shops along Wulai Street. I also ate the toasted mua-ji. Yum yum :)

Wulai Log Cart


Wulai Waterfalls



The girls with an Atayal lady weaving the traditional fabric of the Atayal tribe

We arrived back in Taipei around 4pm. We went to Uncle Jian's place for a rest before going for an early dinner at 5.30pm. We went to a Japanese restaurant, yes again haha. It's a small, simple restaurant but the food was great. There was no lack of patrons at the restaurant.

We were dropped back at out hotel close to 7:30pm. As Marieann has developed this obsession with this particular series of children's Korean comics when in Taipei and has been hounding us to bring her to bookshops, I decided to take her to a nearby shopping mall to look at the bookshop there. Juliane decided to stay with her grandmother at the hotel. Marieann and I took the Metro from Luzhuo Station to Neihu Station (2 stops away) where the shopping mall is. Marieann and I had a nice time, shopping together. :) We arrived back at our hotel at 10pm sharp. We needed to rest early as it will be a long day tomorrow.