Taiwan 2014: Day 3 - Small Swiss Garden (Day view)

Walking back to our minsu from The Green Green Grassland, we spend our remaining time at Cingjing by visiting Small Swiss Garden again. But this time, under the misty weather during the day. (if you want to know how it looks like during the night, read about our exploration of the area last night we were there).

As we entered the Small Swiss Garden last night, we were given free entry into the garden the next day to enable visitors to see the beauty of the farm during the day. Thus, do enter the farm at night and get the complimentary day past for the next day. With this, you can see the difference of Small Swiss Garden during the day and at night.

Our visit to Small Swiss Garden was welcomed by a flock of pigeons looking for food near the entrance. Along the walkways were the lilac fence which makes the environment looks as if we were in a lavender farm kind of feel. 

Pigeons looking for food.

Here's the canvas pumpkin carriage which disappear at night.  

A garden is not complete without flowers blooming everywhere; not forgetting it's spring there.

An Effie tower about my height.

And lots of wild berries plant around.

Now, you can see the mandarin ducks clearly.

And we found some lavender plants there. Love the smell!

Now, you can see the L-O-V-E letters and take selfies with it!

This is how the are looks like in the morning. At night, they were all lighted up with neon lights.

You can't miss these pale pink flowers in spring.

We stopped by for some light lunch at this mini cottage cafe inside Small Swiss Garden. Your entrance ticket comes with some cash voucher for you to redeem at the cafe located inside the garden.

Cafe entrance with its menu in lilac colour too.

Here's our lunch. Porki burger with mushroom soup and juices. Love the pork sausage burger where there's fresh pickle and vegetables in it. The mushroom soup is not bad though. It's very creamy. Forgot how much does it cost but it's kinda affordable.

Dessert was this pudding which we bought from the plaza earlier.

Take a scope and there's strawberry puree oozing out from the middle.

Lunch was simple and delicious plus we can enjoy the view surrounded by beautiful flowers.

Taiwan 2014: Day 3 - The Green Green Grassland Cingjing (青青草原)

After the light and healthy breakfast provided by Misty Villa, we hop on to the shuttle provided by Misty Villa for a one-way free ride to The Green Green Grassland or better known as 青青草原. How about going back? We will need to walk back to the minsu from the farm. It takes about 30 minutes walk but you'll manage to enjoy beautiful surrounding along the way.

From Misty Villa, it's about a 5 minutes ride to the farm. Here's the farm map: 

The red part is the Green Green Grassland area where you see all the sheep roaming freely.

The green and white part is located downhill and you can see some horse, donkeys, etc.

Our shuttle stops at the entrance which is located in the red colour area on the map. This entrance is located in the upper hill area where we just need to walk downhill from there to explore the farm. The path to walk back to our minsu is also located downhill from this area, thus it saves energy from climbing up the stairs later.

It was very misty when we reach there that morning. Our minsu owner even borrow us umbrella afraid is might drizzle later. She's so kind :)

It's that misty behind me

The entrance ticket to The Green Green Grassland is NT160 per person on a weekday and click here to see more details about the entrance fee. Once you enter the farm, do chop the stamp provided on your hand so that you can enter the farm again if you want to. The entrance ticket includes unlimited entry to the farm for the day (till before the farm close that day, of course).

Remember to put this stamp on your hand

It was so misty that we can't see a single thing. Where's the sheep? :(

The mist was so thick that it covered the beautiful scenery :(

Fine, at least we saw the squirrel statue :)

Walked to the little cottage and saw these little lambs. When they grow up, they'll be roaming outside freely.

Marry had a little lamb, little lamb ...

In front of this cottage, there's a lamb sticking out its head for food. Yes, you can feed them. There's a coin-operated machine where you can buy them food pellet. Do remember that you must only feed them food bought from the coin-operated machine and not any other animal food or human food that you might have brought along to the farm.

Food please, anyone?

Here's the area where you can watch the 綿羊脫衣秀 (Sheep shearing show). We didn't wait for the show and just explore the surrounding admiring its scenery.

Still a bit misty.

Some clouds floating above the mountains :)

The mist started to clear a little due to the strong wind and we can see the surrounding area :) Yes!

Soon, the mist is gone (not completely gone but it's okay) and we can now see its surrounding area very clearly. Enjoy the scenery:

There's the sheep.

Sea of clouds behind me and ignore my messy hair.

And we can see all the sheep walking around us. If you have some food pellets with you, they'll follow you around :)

Touching sheep's face :)

Lonely sheep walking.

More sheep.

This sheep castle (near the entrance) is still under construction. Probably they will have exhibits, souvenir store, etc soon.

Sheep castle?

Inside that castle/cottage, it's the place where baby lambs is housed. There's a souvenir shop and washroom there too.

The scenery is magnificent :)

My moment with the sheep. Okay, I don't like the sheep licking my hand thus it's best to stand far far away. But pig feed the sheep though, your hand will be covered with sheep saliva after that.

Stop by one of the souvenir shop near the stage show area and bought some local produce. There's sheep milk candy, biscuits, ice-cream, etccc. And they taste good. I love the sheep milk candy the most. Besides sheep's milk, there's a lot of products made from cow's milk too. But I bought all sheep milk's products (cow's milk is used in most commercial products) since you can't get it outside. Sheep milk's ice-cream is creamy and nice to enjoy it under the cold weather. I choose the original flavor to try the fresh sheep milk's taste.

Sheep milk ice-cream.

Walking straight from the stage show area, you'll reach another entrance. You can enter the farm via this entrance too. I saw some tourist bus and car stops here. At this area, there's some shops selling food. Didn't stop by to eat though but they looks good.

Sausages.

Some local produce.

Looks like Tong Po meat to me.

From the food store, we walk further and we enters the downhill side of Cingjing farm. And we saw rows of cherry blossoms trees with their flowers still clinging to the tree branches. However, weather is getting misty again. Thus, we took a few snapshots and continue our journey.

Row of cherry blossom trees.

It's misty again

Some fairy pink powder along the road?

It's cherry blossoms :)

Walk further and you can see the iconic windmill in the farm where most tourist will take pictures with. But it was so misty that we can hardly see the windmill :(

Iconic windmill under a misty weather.

At least we can see a cow structure with flash on the camera.

Without further delay, we walked further and we saw more sheep, cows, emu, etc. There's a cafe nearby this area too. Save for next visit.

Looking for food under the cold weather.

Wotcha looking at?

From the farm, we walk straight and downhill following the stairs to go back to our minsu. Along the way, you'll see some beautiful scenery and some plants too. We found some red maple leaves along the way :)

Maple leaves still in red.

The journey took about 30 minutes walking downhill and from the farm, you'll reach a plaza where there's steamboat restaurant, cafes, souvenir shops, and so on. This is a different area from the Carton King area which we went last night. Bought some pudding for lunch there. If we have time, we will dine in at the steamboat restaurant, till next time then.

Taiwan 2014 Day 2: Exploring Cingjing at night

Since we were there in Spring, the sunsets at around 6 something in the evening and the sky turned completely dark at about 7pm. The weather was very cold at night due to the wind.

Dinner at Misty Villa was great at it was only about 8pm when we finished our dinner. Since the night is still young; we walked out of our minsu in the dark for some adventure. The road leading to our minsu was very dark and there's no street lights along this road; we used the light from our handphone to guide us. After a few minutes walking downhill, you'll reach the entrance of the road where there's lots of signboards indicating some of the minsu that are located along the road which we walked and they are all located further in from Misty Villa. Thus, Misty Villa minsu is the first minsu located along the road leading uphill and you will see other minsu if you walked uphill from Misty Villa. We're glad that we chose Misty Villa as it's nearer to the attractions in Cingjing. But probably if you staying in the minsu located uphill; the scenery will be even better :)

The signboards at the entrance of the road leading to our minsu.

From this signboards, we walked across the road towards the 7-11 store where the Carton King and Small Swiss Garden are located. Be careful while crossing the road because many cars were "racing" uphill and downhill along this road. Our first stop is the Small Swiss Garden because there's a musical fountain at night. It was drizzling but that did not stop us from our adventure :)

As we entered the Small Swiss Garden in the late evening, our entrance tickets entitled us for another free admission for the next day :) Thus, we can see the beauty of Small Swiss Garden at night and in the morning too. There are few sessions of musical fountain at Small Swiss Garden; do look our for the showtime at the entrance. 

The musical fountain was a simple one but it's enough to entertain us. The music consist a peaceful and calming tone compared to those loud and fast music which you can get from the typical musical fountain in Sentosa Island or the one used to be in The Mines, KL. A unique experience watching musical fountain under a cold and windy weather.

Entrance to Small Swiss Garden

The end of the musical fountain

Then, we explored the park before the drizzling starts again.

The windmill on the lake. It looks more beautiful at night due to the lights.

Still Christmas in March?

A beautiful garden surrounded by Christmas inspired statue.

There's a cafe located at the end of this park but it was closed.

One last pic of the night view before we left due to rain.

Since it was drizzling, we went to explore the Carton King located beside the Small Swiss Garden. This outlet of Carton King is quite small compared to the one in Dakeng.

Made from paper too!

It's made of paper!

 

Animals figurines made from cardboard.

Besides Small Swiss garden and Carton King, there's a 7-ll there where you can grab a whole bag of snacks as supper. I love Taiwan's 7-11 where there's a variety of fast food available. 

There's also an outlet of the infamous Mina Chocolate store outside Carton King and several store selling souvenirs and ice-cream.

Mina Chocolate stall.

Yum!

Opposite the area where the Carton King, Small Swiss Garden and 7-11 is located, we saw some buildings with bright lights. Without further delay, walked across the road to explore that area. This area is a huge area complete with food stalls, cafes, a MOS Burger outlet, Lavender Cottage shops as well as bus station hub.

cute panda!

There's an outlet of Lavender Cottage to buy your souvenirs!

Colourful bath salts at Lavender Cottage

There's a giant teddy outside the shop for photo taking.

The Old England is a famous place for high tea in Cingjing. If you would like to book for a high tea in the Old England hotel or minsu, you can do so here in the Old English kiosk or cafe. Dining in Old England hotel/minsu is very expensive; but you can try their food here in this Old English cafe.

Old England cafe !

They sells dried tea leaves, coffee, pastry and sandwiches here.

Explored the Starbucks outlet to grab a coffee.

Since it's spring season, there's lots of cherry blossoms inspired tumblers and mugs for sale.

Looks presentable and yummy!

 There's also a tourist bus station here where they can take you to Hehuanshan to see sunrise. Since it's Spring, the peak is still covered in snow. But we had a packed itinerary the next day, thus need to save this for our next trip. Really wish to see sunrise at Hehuanshan!

That's our adventure for the night.