For this hike, we stopped at Yongning station and walked along the road until Tonghua Park Archway (桐花公園牌樓).

The way to Chengtian Temple was unfortunately closed so we had to take another path up the Mountain. The road was pretty steep. On one of the pictures you can see, we could see Guanzizai Golden Dragon Pagoda.

After the long climbing, we arrived at an intersection where we could choose between two paths which were going to two different temples. At that point we came across a girl and her father who actually didn’t recommend us the road we had chosen. The girl took the time to talk with us about the area and was really nice. She even took the time to translate what her father was saying.

But even after that, I still wanted to take the road I’ve chosen at first. They took the same direction as us (because, I understood afterwards, they had their car down the road). While we were going down, the path was very very slipery so it was not that easy. Some steps further, the father gave us some sticks that he took from the forest next to the road, to help us go downhill. Very nice people, in Taiwan, as usual.

Once we had reached the Temple, I kind of get what the girl meant. The temple was actually not really finished, and from what she said, it’s not going to be finished soon because not enough money.

But even if it looked a bit abandoned und unfinished, I still wanted to climb up and have a look. There was a nice view, and still some sculptures. I was very suprised to see a guy guard the temple. Well he was sleeping, but I understand (I was probably the only person going up the temple).

Guanshan Chongqing Cihui Church (關山重慶慈惠堂)

After the temple, we took a little path next the road again up the Mountain and climbed until Flame Mountain (Qingyuan Mountain) and the way up there was so so so beautiful. We could really see that the road was almost never crossed. We met no one and the road was covered with moss and growing vegeation. The path was like a magical way. It felt like I was in a fairytale forest. It started raining a bit and it made the moment even more magical. I think not everyone would have been enchanted by this road but I was.

At some point we even came across big big rocks. It was very surprising because it’s really not usual to come across such rocks, at least uncovered rocks. It looked almost like a fake landscape with those big rocks in the middle of the jungle. I just love beeing surprised, and during a walk in the nature it’s not easy beeing suprised, but well we are in Taiwan.

The road was just perfekt !

Once we reached Flame Mountain (Qingyuan Mountain) we saw this very very funny spot.

It was covered with fake grass and little spots to eat. That’s also very common, to see this kind of places in the mountains of Taipei, but this place was huge !

I love this in Taiwani, they really don’t care if it looks good, they just put different chairs, pots of all colours, figurines of all sizes, ranging from religious deities to hello kitty or naruto figurines, also a gym area next to it. All this stuff in the same place. It feels like someone had emptied old houses and put all of the stuff he could find at one spot in the mountain. It’s always a big funny, but convenient, mess.

We walked down the road and went back up the Mountain until the top of Tianshang Mountain. We were close to Tonghua Park (Tung Blossom Park).

The way to Tianshang Mountain was pretty hard. We already had walked uphill from Tonghua Park Archway without any break, but what was to follow was even harder. The stairs were really steep at the end and sometimes ropes were helping to go up.

Tianshang Mountain Peak, platform

The sky was a bit covered, so we didn’th had a very clear view around us, but it was ok for me. I love when it’s cloudy when I am in the mountains, it always gives a cool and mysterious atmosphere.

At first we wanted to go to Guanzizai Golden Dragon Pagoda, but the way up to Tianshang Mountain was already so tiring, it looks straight on but it’s really up and down the mountain, and in a really steep way, sometimes without stairs, just up the rocks. It was late and we were already quite exhausted and decided to go down.

We didn’t saw Guanzizai Golden Dragon Pagoda but when we went down we saw Ganlu Temple.

Ganlu Temple (甘露寺)

Since, as usual, I didn’t want to go back the same way, we went down in the opposite direction. It was a good idea because the road was really cool. Even if it was on a road, we saw a lot of temple and cool buildings. We even came across a « rooster tree ». We heard a lot of different roosters crowing one after another and we realised they were all sitting on the same tree. Like I said, in Taiwan, you can expect seeing everything.

But also a bad idea because it made us walk a looooooot more and when we finally reached the city, it was right between two MRT stations, so we had to walk a lot more to reach Haishan Station.

Kiyomizu Kannon Temple

Shangxuan Daoyuan