Meet your tour guide and driver at the hotel lobby, and then head off to Yilan County. Hsuehshan Tunnel is a vital traffic road that connects Taipei and Yilan, taking only 1 hour to travel from metropolitan to the beautiful countryside of Yilan—the back garden of Taipei. Driving out of Hsuehshan Tunnel, the vast and lush green Lanyang Plain is right is right before your eyes. And soon you will see a unique building in the shape of cuesta—Lanyang Museum. The permanent exhibition space is designed to showcase the unique topography of Yilan, each floor represents a different sea level elevation: the Mountains, the Plains, the Sea, and a Time Gallery. The ingenious names give the visitors a lot of room for imagination about the exhibitions inside before they arrive. Here visitors will have a full understanding of the nature ecology, geographical environment and cultural traditions of Yilan.

After the museum, head off to Jiaoxi, a popular destination for hot spring. The alkaline sodium bicarbonate spring here is colorless and odorless, making the skin smooth and elastic after the bath. The phenols in the water has an excellent function to the digestive system. Before lunch, you will experience a hot spring foot bath in Tangweigou Hot Spring Park. The park has many outdoor pools for foot bath, it’s a good place for friends and family to gather and enjoy a soothing foot bath. In addition, there are pavilions and Chinese garden landscaping in the park, making the park an ideal place for photo shoot.

It has been a trend to go for B&B in Taiwan in recent years; hotels are no longer the only options for travelers. More and more people tend to travel in depth to gain a deeper understanding of local culture and history. On this tour, your lunch will be arranged at the local B&B, Loherb Villa. Running by the locals of Yilan, Loherb Villa is built as an eco-friendly dining and lodging space, adopting greening building and ecological engineering methods. Over the transparent curtain walls, visitors can seize the beauty of the four seasons. All the foods are carefully cooked with seasonal ingredients, using self-sowing, pesticide-free vegetable. Visitors can have a look at the vegetable patch next to the restaurant, so they enjoy the foods without worries.

The highlight in the afternoon is the great annual event—Yilan Green Expo. Ecological sustainability has been an important issue that has received great attention in recent years. Yilan Green Expo was founded in the year of 2000. The core of the event is composed of agrarian life, ecological conservation and the sustainable future, conveying the spirit of sustainability and green energy. Yilan Green Expo not only lays the foundation for environmental protection and ecological education, but also attracts more people to come here for tourism and leisure. It has become a flagship event for environmental education in Taiwan during the spring time. As one of the expo venues, Dongshan River Water Park makes a perfect combination of water and greenness. The land immerses in the water in the manner of a slope, creating a harmonic view of nature. The initial concept of planning the park, “being close to water and nature” can be seen everywhere in the park.