{"id":28180,"date":"2018-12-11T22:51:56","date_gmt":"2018-12-11T14:51:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=28180"},"modified":"2026-03-15T20:35:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T12:35:37","slug":"12-days-in-taiwan-day-05-the-cotswold-villa-cingjing-and-inako-valley-view-restaurant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2018\/12\/11\/12-days-in-taiwan-day-05-the-cotswold-villa-cingjing-and-inako-valley-view-restaurant\/","title":{"rendered":"12 Days in Taiwan \u2013 Day 05 \u2013 The Cotswold Villa, Cingjing and Inako Valley View Restaurant"},"content":{"rendered":"

We were initially quite worried whether we’d find appropriate accommodation after we decided to do a night at Cingjing<\/strong>, so we didn’t wait to lock in a room reservation once our travel dates were confirmed. Truth to tell, there’s no lack of minsu-styled places to stay in (\u201cmin\u201d means locals, \u201csu\u201d means home stays), and there are also apparently Airbnb options even. I reckon one needs to be finally mindful of how long you’re going to stay in Cingjing. Basically, if you’re looking to only visit Cingjing Farm<\/a>, then a day-trip out of Taichung is fine, as Cingjing Farm can be easily covered in a single day, even with the 90-minute journey each way from Taichung to Cingjing and back. If Mt Hehuan is on the itinerary, then yep you need to spend a night in the town: an ascent up the mountain without stopping will already take at least 35 minutes, slightly less down \u2014 and you’ll want to spend at least an hour at the numerous stops to soak in the sights!<\/p>\n

The other major point of consideration is whether you want a room that will face the morning sun. We intentionally chose one that would. At the point of booking, we knew that we would unlikely do the 4AM departing trip up Mt. Hehuan to observe the morning sunrise \u2014 so a sunrise at Cingjing is the next best thing, and you’ll need a room with an unobstructed view facing east for that. That we dropped sunrise at Mt. Hehuan turned out just as well in this particular instance, as I don’t think the fiery red cloud layer<\/a> I witnessed would have been visible over at Mt. Hehuan! I’ve never seen anything quite like it before, and I’ll post up a view of it when we’re back in Singapore.<\/p>\n

We saw quite a few accommodations in Tudor-style architecture, so The Cotswold Villa<\/strong> isn’t actually unique in this sense. And while we can’t speak for the other minsu stays, The Cotswold Villa has a jaw-dropping, stunningly decorated reception and exhibition area on the first floor. The villa is fairly small \u2014 just four floors \u2014 and I reckon there’s maybe just a dozen rooms in the villa, with perhaps three or four rooms on each floor. The room we had had a view of the mountain range just yonder, two queen-sized beds, a shower stall and toilet with heated floor tiles, and a 42″ flat-screen TV \u2014 all lovingly furnished in lacquered wood. Breakfast is served in the dining room in a neighboring wing. Amenities-wise it is fairly basic \u2014 and we’re not complaining since this was just a one-night stay.<\/p>\n

What really impressed us though, and made the visit really memorable, was our minsu host Jennifer. She’s an elderly lady I reckon in her mid to late 60s, with a very genial personality, and she briefed us with great clarity and patience. I think she stays in the villa itself, with her room on the first floor, so your needs are pretty much well taken care of if you need help at odd hours.<\/p>\n

Pictures!<\/p>\n

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Exquisitely decorated common area.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The very friendly and almost sedate house dog.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Exploring the villa at night. The stairs lead down to the dining hall.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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View from the balcony of our room on the second floor. The next door unit was occupied by a Singaporean family, and their older boy flew a drone around the area on check-out morning. The kids found it quite fun to watch!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Simple home-cooked styled breakfast comprising both store-purchased and home-baked bread, porridge with a spread of condiments you see on the table above, coffee, and also warm soya milk for the younger ones.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Jennifer took this picture for us, and we’re with driver Kong.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One last bit about the Cingjing area \u2014 and specifically Inako Valley View Restaurant that Kong brought us to for lunch on Day 05. The restaurant is so named, I reckon, because in the distance you can see a valley with a tiny lake \u2014 or perhaps because the restaurant really does sit facing a small valley with hills on both sides. Either way, the view from the restaurant is indeed quite pretty, though obviously only in the daytime when there’s light. The house specialty is roast chicken, and it’s served with rice, sauces, vegetables, and also soup. Like the other restaurants we’ve visited in Cingjing, the menu options are sized by how many persons you need to feed. We were initially worried that a two-person meal wouldn’t be sufficient for a family of four \u2014 but we were assured by the wait staff that it would be.<\/span><\/p>\n

And boy, were they right: there was a huge bucket of rice \u2014 enough for four adults \u2014 a fairly large and well-fed chicken sent to roast, a cabbage dish, and winter melon soup. We struggled to finish everything \u2014 where’s the Ang Mo when you need him haha. Total damage was NTD700\/SGD31, and personally, I liked this meal more than the pricey Spring Ground Hotpot dinner the previous night.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Sunny lunchtime making for yet another pretty picture of the mountain ranges surrounding Cingjing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The small lake in the distance.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The roasted chicken is so piping hot they give a pair of gloves to guests to pry it open.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Time to tuck in!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Chickens on the ready…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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…to be roasted in these gigantic urns.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The chicken is so tasty that I’m putting up a map of the restaurant!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We were initially quite worried whether we’d find appropriate accommodation after we decided to do a night at Cingjing, so we didn’t wait to lock in a room reservation once our travel dates were confirmed. Truth to tell, there’s no<\/p>\n

Read More 12 Days in Taiwan \u2013 Day 05 \u2013 The Cotswold Villa, Cingjing and Inako Valley View Restaurant<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[608,618],"class_list":["post-28180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-traveling","tag-sony-a7-iii","tag-taiwan-2018","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/blog-2018-taiwan-day-04-A7_00677-the-cotswold-villa.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38567,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28180\/revisions\/38567"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}