A sea of silvergrass.

Don’t worry! The locals are on it already. There are already hillside gyms about 500-metres away in both directions.

I agree. It is definitely a distinctive place. However, on the day I visited, the somber atmosphere was spoiled because the giant golden Buddha was having his belly rubbed (I mean polished).

It’s a slightly different vibe, but have you visited Zhaiming Temple (齋明寺) in Taoyuan? It’s very pretty.

Picturesque tidying implements.

In addition to the neat stairway, it also has more than its fair share of sculptures, statues and temply things.

I’d been drawn to it by the promise of this “thread of sky” feature — a path that cuts straight through a narrow gap between rocks. There’s this one point where you can’t see the exit and it’s really quite claustrophobic.

Then this one (the Shuishan Giant Tree Trail) would be a great choice. It has a “healing trail” element that invites you to lie down, breathe, listen (I did all and enjoyed the experience), plus you would have extra energy left to explore one of the park’s other short trails.

I’m not sure what kind of hiking you’re into, but if you think this looks pretty, look up the Mianyue Line hike. Several kilometres of abandoned railway. It’s gorgeous. (This trail is the kid-friendly version of that.)

That cat is doing a great job of acting shy there.

This is one of the parts of Taiwan that made me first fall in love with the landscape here.

I haven’t written purely about this temple (although I hope to in the near future), but for more background about the location and some of the trails in the vicinity, you can check out this old post: taiwantrailsandtales.com/2021/09/17/l...

And we had a quick gander at some of the beautifully detailed artwork in and around the temple complex before heading off for a walk nearby.

In the morning, we ate breakfast as the sun crept upwards to crest the nearby hills.

The lower price rooms (NT$1,300) for a twin feel like something from a low-budget Wes Anderson copycat.

After dinner (the temple provides vegetarian meals), we went for a night hike, passing several other temples, then descending up dark steps into the noisy forest. We saw an owl, lots of critters, about five or six flying squirrels (although there were many more in the trees) and several fireflies.

The bird is a bamboo partridge. They’re usually not this fearless, but the ones on Qixing Mountain are used to hikers. And the snake is a big-eyed rat snake (過山刀 in Chinese). It’s non venomous, so it’s not at all dangerous. I think their big eyes make them super cute.