Little Bears Adventures with his Bear and Fox Family: Trail up to see the Pagoda in Sun Moon Lake (we didn't make it all the way T.T)

So bit of backstory...

I'm massively out of shape.

Ok, not massively, but I'm pretty pathetic. Overweight, and have no muscle. Even so, I am trying to overcome these issues and improve my overall health. Kitsune and I are working on it together. So I am pushing myself to experience these trails because I don't want to miss out due to my wussiness.

Anyways, during our boat tour we got off on the first stop to hike up and see the temples and eventually the Pagoda. It was wet and a bit slippery as the path was just some flat stones, but overall they weather wasn't bad.

The entrance to the hiking trail. It's mud all around it. You actually are supposed to step through.

The first temple area that you came across after climbing a bunch of stairs was really busy. Of course, it's the closest to the docks, and there are vendors everywhere selling fruit. I'm not sure how many people actually choose to do the hike up to see the other temple and pagoda. We didn't come across too many people on our way up, and a few of them only went half way (basically once the path started to steadily go uphill, they turned around).

It was a quiet path, and you felt surrounded by green while on it.

Pretty scenic overlook spot.

View from the overlook

There was a moss covered turtle man friend that Little Bear came out to say hello to at the overlook

Hitching a ride on the Kitsune

We came across these giant ferns that somewhat hung over the path. I wanted to get a picture of Little Bear against them. They are really big!

Funny sign that was posted in several spots. We never came across any dogs, nor heard any.

Neat little spot off the path

Now the uphill parts really started to get serious. We had encountered several short bursts previously, but after this point it was pretty much all uphill. My pictures just do not due the inclines justice. Also, there were plenty of my favorite things of all....stairs.

Stairs of Doom.

They just kept winding up and up past our view.

Lots and lots of stairs. Ugh. At this point I'm panting and bright red, so I didn't really have the energy to take many pictures. I did, however, have to get a picture of the last set of dreaded stairs of doom that we had to overcome.

Thankfully this was the last set of stairs before arriving at the temple.

Ugh. I hate you stairs.

Survived! I'm such a wuss! The path in reality really isn't bad. Relatively easy. Sigh.

Thankful to be done with the stairs and plastered with sweat (not only from exertion, but the humidity was no joke), I slowly limped over to the temple gates. My knees were so janked from the stairs that I had to go slow. They wanted to just check out on me horrid things that they are. Total Prima Donnas.

The view was amazing from up there however.

Oh look...more stairs.

I had a total tantrum at this point as Kitsune really really really wanted to continue on to the Pagoda. I, on the other hand, was having none of it. I was done with going uphill. I was doubly done with stairs. My knees were done, and I wanted absolutely nothing with continuing upwards. Thankfully, I happened to read the time wrong (honestly, I did! No lie!), and convinced Kitsune we didn't have time to continue on with how slow I would need to go, see all of the pagoda, and hike all the way back down to the docks. Grudgingly, he gave in and after touring the temple, we headed back.

Then he looked at his phone and realized we had enough time to have gone to the Pagoda. Needless to say, he wasn't happy. It's a good thing that we didn't take the time to do the hike farther up however, because if we had, we wouldn't have had the time to stop and wander around the second part of the tour. The aboriginal side with the night market we enjoyed seeing. So it all worked out in the end!