Day 9 - Sun Moon Lake

Today’s Programme
Morning	Ji Ji Station
Afternoon	Sun Moon Lake
Evening	Activity of Team
Hotel	Ching Sheng Hotel, Sun Moon Lake

We had to wake up very early to move to another city. Everybody was in hurry and some didn’t have enough time to have breakfast. After hopping on the bus, P’Arm (Group leader) asked people who skipped breakfast to raise their hands. He seemed upset. Most of us raised our hands. It looked like they would be punished because Fu Dao Yuan had to count the head and checked in order to make sure that no one is missing during breakfast time. However, the punishment was to eat bread with jams that P’Arm prepared. That was totally nice. As group leader, he was very responsible and concerned. (I am sure he asked someone else to do that but it’s very sweet anyway)

Leaving the Taichung city, we headed for Ji Ji Train Station which was an important train station that Japanese army used to transport food reserves to Sun Moon Lake at the time that Taiwan island was ruled by the Japanese. Years ago, the JiJi station was the center of an earthquake. Everything was naturally destroyed. The Taiwanese government didn’t provide the budget to reconstruct the place, but the local people donated money to rebuild the station, and the amount of raised money wasn’t very high. So, the remains of the destroyed station has been used to rebuild it.

We arrived at the JiJi station in the late morning. FDY allowed us to explore it for about 20 minutes. I didn’t spend much time there, as it wasn’t very interesting. We spent time shopping as there are many snacks and souvenir shops there. (If you are considering going there, don’t waste your time!)

From there, they brought us to the Wu Shang Gong temple. We had to walk for some time to reach the temple. On the way there, we were told about the long story of the temple. I thought that the temple must be very beautiful. I was a little shocked when I arrived at the ruins.

This temple has collapsed because of the massive earthquake in 1999. I am not sure if they intend to reconstruct it, but the wooden Buddha statues inside were moved to the small house nearby. Just across the small street, we found the house where the famous Buddha statues were. Since the incidence in 1999, the beard of the wooden Buddha statues keep getting longer. This seems to be a miracle because dead wood normally doesn’t grow.

Getting on the bus, XuanXuan told us that the Taiwanese people, as Chinese temple always have 3 doors, will use the right doors of the temple for entrance and the left doors for exit, and middle door is only for the monks. This is because they believe that there is a tiger guarding the temple at the left door to protect the temple from bad things. Also, there’s a dragon at the right door of the temple. I don’t remember the purpose of having the dragon, but we shouldn’t enter to the temple using left door because the tiger would pounce on us. ;-)

We finally arrived at the Sun Moon lake (“Ri Yue tan” in Chinese) around midday. They brought us to the view point, called “Meihe Garden-Lakeview Platform”. It is a sweet area at the high peek where we could see the lake and the port clearly. It was extremely beautiful. Our lunch consisted of a lunch-box from 7-11 (a mini-mart) which was still hot. (I wondered how they can provide 150++ lunchboxes while they are still hot.) This place is really good for couples, but there were 150 of us. No wonder there weren’t enough seats. We had to sit beside an old couple. The ones who didn’t get a seat had to stand and eat while looking at the old couple from time to time to pressure them. Well, we were cruel but it worked. They finally gave us the seats. (Bad bad us)

Finishing having lunch, we went down to the port to take pictures of the very beautiful lake. It was so blue. I loved it.

Let me tell you the story of the Sun Moon lake. There is a small island called LaLu which was a place of local ancestor worshipping. The water of Sun Moon Lake almost covers the island, with only the peak of the island remaining above the lake. I was told that the island inspired many poets too.

The Shao tribe (“Shao Ju”, one of twelve Taiwanese aborigines.) was the first to settle there. The Shao tribe has the least population, but they were good in hunting. Before moving to the Sun Moon lake, they hunted a white animal 3 days and 3 nights but they couldn’t catch it. They tracked that animal till they reached the Sun Moon lake where they lost the trace of the animal. What they saw was the big tree which they believed it’s the goddess that transformed to the white animal and brought them there where they found the land that was full of food resources. They had decided to pay respect to the tree which they named “Qia Dong Xu”.
Before the earthquake incidence in 1999, the Lalu island divided the Sun Moon Lake into two sides. We could see the sun from a side and the moon in another side at the same time. Unfortunately, the island was destroyed by the earthquake. There is no longer appearance of the sun and the moon at the same time. There is only another occurrence on the full moon night. When the moon fully rises, we could see the shadow of the moon on the lake. It looks like the sun and gives the feeling that the sun and the moon appear at the same time. (Unfortunately again, I wasn’t there during the full moon night)

From the port, we passed lots of tunnels using the road around the mountains to go to the Chiang Kai Shek’s Tsen pagoda. I was really sick and about to throw out. The pagoda was made for Chiang Kai Shek’s mother as he felt sad while thinking of his mother. He was at his house at Sun Moon lake (He had many houses located around the island, but the house at Sun Moon lake, named “Shi En”, is the most beautiful one.) The scenery viewing from the house is the perfect part of Sun Moon Lake. At the late time of his life, he thought of his mother. He wished he could bring his mother there to view the perfect scenario. So, he decided to build the Tsen Pagoda in 1971 in memory of his mother.

The Tsen Pagoda is located at an elevation of 954 meters on Mountain SaBaLan. The pagoda has 9 floors and its height is 46 meters. The top of the pagoda is at the elevation of 1,000 meters from sea level. At the top of the pagoda, there is a bell, while there is a big drum at the base area, outside of the pagoda. The practice is that you have to knock both of them, 3 times each, and shout that you love your parents. As it’s located very high from the sea level, the bus dropped us on the street; we had to hike through the forest to the pagoda. It was not bad as it’s a shady forest. We had to walk a lot. There were 570 steps in total. We walked around the hill till we reached the top.

Finally, we reached the base area with happiness as it was totally beautiful. There are tons of tiny stones around the base which looks somehow like snow when we took pictures. I knocked the drum first, then walked to the 9th of the pagoda where the bell is. I was extremely tired, but it’s really worth visiting because the scenery from the top of the pagoda is much more beautiful than of the base area.


After we took enough pictures, we walked down the 570 steps trail back to where the bus parked, but we had to walk further, because the bus had to park at the Syuen Tzang temple.

Syuentzang was a holy monk in the Tang dynasty. During the Sino-Japanese war, the Japanese took his remains away from Nanjing to Tsen temple located at Saidama Ken in Japan. After series of negotiations, the Monk Syuentzang’s remains were returned to the Syuenguang temple in 1955. Then it moved to the Syuentzang’s temple in 1965. However, it’s now replaced by the Buddha’s relics. I arrived at this temple when I was too tired. I had no mood to walk around. I only looked around, then left to the bus.

We got on the bus very late. They took us to a temple opposite to the hotel we were going to stay. The temple is called Wen Wu temple. We only took a couple of pictures and walked to the hotel to have dinner.

When Fu Dao Yuan announced that I got the room on the first floor. I couldn’t help but be happy ‘cos it will reduce time carrying our luggage to the room. God damn, I was a little shocked again when I found out that the hotel is beside the cliff. The street in front of the hotel is on the hill. The lobby is on the fourth floor. It was so sad to carry the bag from the fourth to the first floor.

They gave us free time in the evening. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do anything but to practice the show till late night.