Biz Trip - Climbing Elephant Mountain （🐘象山）

2nd Biz Trip saw me climbing Elephant Mountain, alone, and in the rain! I reached Taipei 17-Jan afternoon and checked in the hotel around 2pm. It has been raining almost daily, and I saw a hope of blue sky as the taxi pull up to the hotel. I unpacked, checked my map, and although with dark cloud still in sight, I decided to take my chances and headed out with an umbrella. Took a 10 minutes walk to Daan Station, and off I head to Elephant Mountain station. With my phone loaded with direction, and followed the instruction and made my way to the entrance of the climb. By that time, it has already started to drizzle. Above is the entrance, and some rock showing the path. 

Based on the internet information, it was just a 15 minutes vertical climb. For someone who climb Penang Hill twice a week when I was young, I wasn't really bothered by a 15 minutes climb, but the stairs looked kinda intimidating, plus, it was wet, and very very vertical. But going up was never a problem for me. I knew my biggest challenge was coming down. So up I went, in good time. I made it to the targeted platform in good time, and slightly out of breath. All the while, rain was starting to get heavier. But I couldn't use my umbrella cause I knew it would make balancing an issue, especially if the wind starts to pick up. Still at the back of my mind was the journey down worrying me. Plus, I had a feeling it gets dark real fast here. But there were old uncles and aunties going up like it is their daily affair, so I figure I should be in good company.

Above is some picture of the signage and some of the platform I see along the way. Each offering a view of Taipei City below, specifically the view of Taipei 101. The path actually links to other parks around Taipei, but I didn't have the time to explore. My target that day was just to get to the platform to view Taipei 101 from evening to night view.

Here's the view. Lots of people were actually at the platform waiting for sunset. Sadly the clouds were still hanging around. The cool thing about that is you can see the peak of Taipei 101 right in the cloud! It was an awesome sight. I only stayed around 10 to 15 minutes and decided to head down. As I head down, it started to get darker, and the rain got worst. Was sure glad I left, cause the poor people up there would probably have trouble coming down a bit later. Plus, it was slippery!

I'm glad I went up even though it was raining. This was probably the first time I climb up a mountain, alone, and in the rain. And the feeling is actually pretty awesome! I felt so adventurous even though I was in Taipei. Never let your fear stop you from doing something you want! And this was the lesson I must always remind myself often. Cause the reward always outshine the fear.

I headed to Taipei 101 after that, walking there all the way in the rain, and had a typical cheap dinner there at the food court. After which I took the train back to Daan and walk back to the hotel and prepare for work the next day.

My goal is to just visit 2 new places each time I am in Taipei. I hope to be back again in October or sooner.

Note: This is the 2nd blog post from my MacBook Air, and I finally managed to edit my photos using a Paint application, and even managed to type in Traditional Chinese! I installed Japanese keyboard on the Mac cause I wanted to use it for my Japanese language as well. Yay! Accomplishment!