#cihu

Sexy Boys and Macho Musketeers! ^_^

    It’s only 6 in the morning that I jumped out of my bed and got ready for driving. The sun’s still not up and a bit chill outside, finally there’s some touch of autumn coming up.

    This time I have my Garmin app fixed, and everything went just smoothly. I arrived at Cihu Memorial Sculpture Park shortly after 8, it was such a great time; not much visitors and the sky was clear.

    There were two statues of the Chiang’s in front of the visitor centre, and some historical data were on display in the interior. Since my booking for entering back Cihu is at 9, I decided to visit the park first.

    The park was full of the statues of Chiang Kai-Shek, but he was not the only one out there; there’s also some statues of Sun Yat-Sen and a statue of his son Chiang Ching-Kuo. This contradict a little to my original information that there were only CCK’s statue out there, so it’s a bit surprising to me.

    The largest statue out in the park was donated by the Kaohsiung City Government, and the statue was originally located at the culture centre in Kaohsiung. It somewhat fragmented, since they remove the statue from its throne and later supported it with some iron trestles.

    I toured around the park for about half an hour before going to the meeting point. The park is a nice place to stay and walk for a while. There were some shades along the riverbank, and the breeze makes you feel good.

    Entrance to the back Cihu requires inquiry in advance, and you have to follow a guided tour into the formerly forbidden area. The tour is highly influenced by the style of the curator, and I was with a curator that talks a lot about the flowers and trees along the walk, rather than history of the Chiang’s family, so I feel a little bit disappointed and a waste of time.

    The essence of the back Cihu area is the back Cihu lake itself and the history behind the entire region. It was a forbidden area and controlled by the military for a very long time before it’s open to the public. In the middle part of the lakeside walk they built a observatory deck called the Eye of Back Cihu, which is the best scenic point of the entire lake.

    After leaving the back Cihu area, I walked along the secret path towards the military tunnel and Cihu. The tunnel is long deserted and becomes the shelters of bats and other nocturnal animals.

    At the end of the secret passage lies the Cihu Mausoleum, former residence of the Chiang’s family. Today, 10/31 is the birthday of Chiang Kai-Shek, and each visitor gets a small Taiwan badge with national flag background after mourning the former president.

[Taoyuan, Taiwan]

1. This lake is called "Cihu".

2. Chiang Kai-shek loved the sceneries here because it resembles his hometown, Fenghua. (Who is Chiang Kai-shek? click here)

3. He completed Cihu Resort in 1959, and renamed the place to “Cihu” in the memory of his mother.