Excursion

For the optional excursions after the EHT collaboration meeting, we will visit the famous Taroko national park in the eastern part of Taiwan on Saturday, July 1 (Sat) and have a one-day tour of Taipei on July 2 (Sun). One can choose to join one or both of the excursions depending on one’s preference and travelling schedule. The following are the detailed plans:

1. The excursion on Saturday, July 1st : one-day tour of Taroko

The total cost of the excursion on July 1 will be around 1800 NTD (~60 USD or 54 Euro). This includes the fees for train tickets, renting shuttle bus in Hualien, lunch, and dinner.

Taroko National Park is one of the most famous tourist attractions in Taiwan and is described as Taiwan’s top tourist draw by Lonely Planet. This national park, situated in the Hualien county in the eastern part of Taiwan, covers more than 92,000 hectares in the northern section of the Central Mountain Range. This park features high mountains and sheer marble-walled gorges cut by the Liwu river. Many of its peaks tower above 3,000m in elevation, with many natural wonders. The spectacular Taroko Gorge and the scenic beauty of Liwu River can be conveniently viewed from the Central Cross-Island Highway.

To visit the Taroko national park, we will take the train leaving at 7:30 am in the Taipei main station. It takes two hours and 10 minutes to travel from Taipei to Hualien by train. After arriving at the Taroko national park, we will mainly visit a few hiking trails to see the landscape, waterfalls, rivers, and marble gorges. Thes hiking trails we will visit include the Baiyang trail, the Tunnel of Nine Turns, the Swallow Grotto, and the Shakadang trail. We will have lunch at a restaurant in the Taroko Village Hotel which serves traditional aboriginal food. After visiting the above hiking trails, we will go back to Taipei by taking the train leaving at 7:20 pm.

Please note that if you would like to join the excursion to Taroko national park, it is highly recommended that you move to a hotel close to the Taipei main station on Friday, June 30 after the collaboration meeting so that you can meet with the group to Hualien on time before boarding the train. We will meet at the train station at ~7am on July 1 at the East Gate No. 3 of Taipei Main Station.

2. The excursion on Sunday, July 2nd : one-day tour of Taipei

The excursion on Sunday will be a one-day tour of Taipei. We will visit three must-visit places in Taipei including National Palace Museum, Taipei 101, and Lungshan Temple. The cost of the excursion is ~70 USD or ~62 Euro, including tickets to National Palace Museum and the Taipei 101 observatory as well as transportation fees in Taipei. Meal cost is not included here.

National Palace Museum houses the world's largest collection of priceless Chinese art treasures, one which spans China's nearly 5,000-year history. Most of the museum's over 600,000 art objects were part of the Chinese imperial collection, which began over 1,000 years ago in the early Song dynasty.

Lungshan Temple is a famous old temple in Taiwan that mixes the Taoist, Buddhist, and Confucian faiths. This temple was built in 1740 during Qing Dynasty and is located in Taipei’s most historic neighborhood. There are traditional streets/shops, antique shops, Buddhists article shops, and Chinese medicine shops surrounding the temple. It is one of the most famous sightseeing attractions in Taipei.

Taipei 101 is a skyscraper and was the tallest building in the world between 2004 and 2009. Taipei 101 features a series of observation decks (Taipei 101 observatory) on its upper floors. The 89F observation deck offers visitors an indoor view of the city and Taipei Basin at all directions. There's an outdoor round observatory square on the 91st floor of the building, at 392m above the ground, it's now the 3rd highest open-air observation deck in the world. In the lower floors of the building, one can find Taipei 101 shopping mall, which hosts a remarkable range of luxury international brands as well as extensive dining choices.

On July 2, we will first visit National Palace museum in the morning and have lunch in the restaurant Silks Palace, located right outside the Palace Museum. After lunch, we will visit Lungshan temple for about an hour and take a shuttle bus to Taipei 101 at ~3 pm. In Taipei 101, we will mainly visit the top-floors to have a panoramic view of Taipei, and people can go to the shopping mall freely after leaving the observation decks and have dinner in preferred restaurants in the mall. This marks the end of the excursion on July 2.

For those who plan to attend the excursion on Sunday, July 2, we will meet at 9:45 am at the East Gate No. 3 of Taipei Main Station (the same meet point as the Day 1 excursion). The shuttle bus will leave the meet point around 10:00 am.