by Michael
Taiwan spent about 50 years as a Japanese colony. This allegedly is the origin of developed hot springs and professional baseball in Taiwan. Taiwan also loves its cats. While Japan often gets credit for its cat culture, the original “cat cafe” (a cafe with beverages and cats) is in Taipei. And Taiwan even has a “cat village” — rather than euthanizing strays, they neutered them and release them in a carless hillside town that is now a tourist attraction. Of course, we had to see hot springs, baseball, and cats!
Hot Springs
Our first (and successful) trip to hot springs was at Guanzihling, a motorbike ride from Chiayi City. The area is known for its mud hot springs and is a popular tourist destination (luckily we visited on a weekday morning). There are no photos allowed inside so we just have a photo of the front of the King’s Garden Villa. You’ll have to trust us that it was awesome. You do not need to be a hotel guest to go to the resort’s hot springs, you can just pay a reasonable day-use fee — which worked well with our plans.
They didn’t say that we couldn’t take a picture of the brochure though. And yes, we tried out “exercise” machines similar to those pictured (but without the straps).
two backpacks, no plan 