Travel to Sun Moon Lake

Thankfully, this time we didn't have to try and find our way back to the station dragging our luggage. The hotel provided a shuttle car and drove us down to Beitou MRT so we could then head to Taipei Main Station.

Waiting at Beitou station for the train to Daan

It's a rare Kitsune sighting! 

From there, we went about figuring out how to buy a ticket for the High Speed Rail (HSR). Kitsune lined up (the self service ticket vendors didn't seem to work for us) to buy a ticket from the main counter. We had originally planned to board at 11:30am, but the line took forever. We didn't want to risk not making it in time and decided on the noon train. We went baller and bought Business class tickets! Haha, in reality they were only $9 US more a ticket.

Nice and spacious. Lots of leg room, and blessedly quiet.

Little Bear came out to play and keep us company

Kitsune was able to work and I was able to relax and read. We had complimentary drinks (coffee for me, tea for Kitsune) and a waffle. The waffle was more like a biscuit in my opinion, so I was a bit disappointed. I was expecting waffle, but got biscuit flavor instead. Kitsune liked them a bunch, so he nomed his and half of mine.

Taichung station

After a little over an hour, we hopped off the HSR at Taichung to catch a bus the rest of the way to Sun Moon Lake. After a bit of fumbling trying to find the correct bus to take, we purchased round trip tickets and waited to board our final leg of travel. The bus was almost identical to the airport shuttle bus (read uncomfortable) and they did not skimp on the aircon. It was freezing! I was thankful at that point for the really close quarters as Kitsune was generating a fair amount of body heat, and he was working, so the laptop also helped.

After a little more than an hour, we arrived at Sun Moon Lake. This place is amazing! We disembarked and some helpful locals told us how to find our hotel (which was thankfully really close by). We were tired from the travel, but thrilled to check into our room at Hotel Del Lago.

View from the lobby of Hotel Del Lago

Then off we went to explore!