Venturing into Eastern Taiwan

Published on Wednesday, November 2, 2011 Leave your thoughts »

Ruei Suei Township: beautiful mountainous landscape and fresh unpolluted air

These photos were taken in Butterfly Valley, the perfect place to experience nature, go mountain-hiking, and of-course see little magical butterflies. Lots of ponds, gardens, and rope bridges. There's also a small cabin exhibit of different types of butterflies.

I recommend wearing comfy shoes and being prepared for plenty of walking. We only had a couple hours in the morning there and it was definitely not enough time to explore all the trails. Although there was a nice spacious parking lot for me to practice some challenged parking job.

"Dream Garden"

Visiting an Aboriginal Reserve.

About half an hour away from my grandmother's home in Ruei Suei, there is a reserve for Taiwanese Natives, which I found to be a surprisingly popular tourist attraction. The atmosphere surrounding is very calm and smoothing with large ponds, decorated gardens, and plenty of greenery.

We dropped by at their cozy restaurant for a very healthy lunch, featuring all organic greens.

Below is a nutritious purple rice mixture of barley, brown rice, black rice, etc. (I'm not culinarily knowledgeable enough to know what else was in that tasty mix.)

Another beautiful dish below is the guava salad with cucumbers, tomatos, beans, etc. The guava flavour matched the dressing perfectly and I found myself gobbling most of it on my own. We also had fried Shan-Yao roots. This type of yam is known for health-benefits although it's safe to say that the frying process probably took that away.

The restaurant was filled with Hinoki Cypress Wood decorations and furniture, all with intricate carvings. Some of the home decorations are actually for sale, but be prepared for the price - Hinoki is a high quality timber, valued for durability, anti-pest properties, as well as stress-relieving qualities due to its distinctive scent. Hence, it is NOT cheap!

After our hearty lunch, we followed up with some red bean ice-cream dessert, cappuccinos, and souvenir shopping nearby in a charming little plaza. Mmmmm, indulgence.

Handmade jewelry, hand-stitched bags, hats, keychains.

Finally, let me introduce you to the famous Ruei Suei Dairy Factory! (I should clarify that this was on a different day; we did not drive to 3 separate destinations eating consecutively.)

The Dairy Factory is known for serving fresh and minimally processed milk which initially caused me some concern. Being my slightly neurotic self, I was half expecting to see cows being milked and anticipating having to drink from a pail.

Happily enough, nothing of the sort occurred. I was greeted with a lovely park and dairy cafe offering cheesecake, milk buns, milk pudding, and various milk beverages with different flavours.

And of-course, we did not hold back. Behold our late afternoon snack! (Thank god none of us were lactose-intolerant.)

Everything tasted fresh and light. I especially liked the cheesecake because it was very airy and not too rich. The milk buns were also soft and fluffy. As you can see, we decided to sit inside rather than on the lovely patio because of the rainy and misty weather out.