A Broad Reference: Wulai Hot Springs

click on the mp3 to listen to me talking about the fabulous Wulai Hot Spring
For the 2/28 holiday, some friends & I caught the bus to Wulai, about an hour south of Taipei. This is an aborigine mountain township where the volcanic hot springs are used by many little spa resorts. We climbed up the hill to "Cloud Spring Garden". A pink slice of Nirvana.

It's a hotel/spa/restaurant and was quite busy due to the holiday. For a mere NT$500 you get 2 towels, slippers and locker. In order to enter the pool area you must scrupulously wash and rinse off 3 times, before you can get into any of the pools. The complex is divided into 2 sections for men and women. Each month, the resort switches sections between the genders, so that there is a change in facilities available. This month the women's section included a group of four pools covered by a Japanese style roof with open sides looking out into the lush garden surrounding the pools. Each pool was a different temperature- super hot, really hot, plunge pool cold, and hot with massage bubble beds/spouts. These were the "loud" pools where groups of women- aunties, grandmas, cousins, mothers, daughters and friends all gather to soak, gossip and laugh on seating ledges submerged along the edges.

Along a tiny deck, you could relax with a face mask, and look out over the view of mountains across the valley. Another area included thundering massage waterfall spouts which pounded streams of water down on one's head & back. In the middle near the showers, the dry sauna, steam room and cold plunge pool were grouped strategically. First scrubbed down with handfuls of mineral salts, then sat in the cedar planked steam room and waited for the salt to dissolve away. Taking a deep breath, jumped into the COLD plunge pool to rinse off and then sat in the dry sauna to warm up and work up a good sweat. In between took long drafts of green tea to replenish fluids. Then relaxed in the "quiet" super duper hot pool until melted. This pool was surrounded by rocks and plants so it felt very secluded from the rest of the garden. The whole garden was fenced Japanese style where the slats were cleverly designed to allow you to see out, but no one to see in. I was a little doubtful, but everyone else was very nonchalant, so I tried not to worry about it. On the way down I checked and you really can't see in! Of course no cameras were allowed for privacy reasons, so this shot of the pool was lifted from their website http://www.cloudspring.com.tw

Cloud Spring Garden Spa
雲頂溫泉行館
台北縣烏來鄉西羅岸路45號
02-2661-7755

With legs like jelly, we hiked down the hill to the nearby Atyal community, where we sample the locally grown boar sausage. Crisply grilled over charcoal, the casing was crackly while the meat was dense, chewy and sweetly flavorful- in a way more "pork" than pork. The special spices made each bite an explosion of deliciousness.

Sustained by the hearty snack of pig on a stick, we headed back uphill on the only other road, and trekked for 45 minutes to a local Atyal restaurant with a view of the mountains and emerald blue river running thru the gorge.

Cherry blossom restaurant
櫻花餐廳
台北縣烏來鄉環山路181號
02-2661-8085
Unfortunately the business card is all in Chinese, so I'll have to get Angelica to translate the address.

We ordered several local specialties including
betel nut flower salad- lite sesame and brown vinegar dressing,
rice cooked in bamboo-the flavors were delicately nutty with a smoky hint of charcoal

green stir-fried fern tips,
clay pot mountain chicken with wedges and chunks of garlic/ginger in in caramelized soy basil sauce,

grilled boar with preserved garlic in vinegar.

Angelica got a bottle of brewed cloudy millet, which tastes and is made in a way very similar to sake.