{"id":28424,"date":"2018-12-17T23:40:20","date_gmt":"2018-12-17T15:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=28424"},"modified":"2026-03-15T20:23:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T12:23:12","slug":"12-days-in-taiwan-day-11-daan-forest-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2018\/12\/17\/12-days-in-taiwan-day-11-daan-forest-park\/","title":{"rendered":"12 Days in Taiwan \u2013 Day 11 \u2013 Da’an Forest Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every trip we go on with two young kids means we have to populate the itinerary with the kind of activities we know they would enjoy \u2014 for sure. That really just means two activity types: playgrounds, and animals. The Taipei Zoo, though having a low admission fee, got dropped as the reviews for it weren\u2019t encouraging. We did also consider including a visit to the Taipei Child Amusement Park, but that was a bit out of the way from where we were heading in the afternoon of Day 11 \u2014 basically the east side. So we chose Da’an Forest Park<\/strong> instead on account of the many pictures we’ve seen of it, and that it boasted a fun and fairly large children\u2019s playground.<\/p>\n

The children’s playground itself isn’t different from what we’re used to seeing, but there’s just an indescribable joy in seeing other children that isn’t your usual crowd also at play. There are also other activities around the park, including roller-skating, dancing etc., that presented great photo opportunities again.<\/p>\n

All the photos in this post were taken using the Tamron 70-200mm f2.8 + Sigma MC-11 again on the Sony A73. Didn’t expect to get this much mileage out of this lens! I’m glad I took this lens out for this trip, heavy as it is.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
There are some swanky-looking condo apartment blocks facing one side of the park. The children’s playground was fairly uncrowded the weekday morning we were there. It’s a normal school day for the city’s school-going children I reckon. The only children there, I reckon, are those who are foreigners, or too young for formal school.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Five years old and loves playing with sand.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
H swung for nearly 10 minutes for me to capture several dozen photos of her at the end of each swing cycle. The wife chose which of those several dozen to post.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Building hills. There are numerous taps on one side of the sand play area. Very thoughtful inclusions that mean so much to parents of young kids!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
He doesn’t look it, but he’s middle-aged \u2014 we saw when he took off his cap to wipe off his perspiration. Unusual to see someone his age roller-blading.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I did also read about the park’s bird habitat, but didn’t expect to see this many specimens within moderate telephoto reach too. Da\u2019an Forest Park has a lovely bird sanctuary in the form of a small island inside the park\u2019s ecological pool \u2014 which was where I encountered a brigade of photographers on the opposite bank all waiting for a particular kingfisher to fly out. I didn\u2019t bring the kind of long telephoto equipment they had \u2014 I brought just a 70-200mm f2.8 this trip for semi-long shots \u2014 so made do with the more achievable subjects, a selection of which is posted here.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
This fellow was perched in the island sanctuary, and the 70-200mm can only reach so far.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
The row of photographers, several of whom were toting Canon full frames and a few others with m43s. I overheard one of them saying in Mandarin that he’d been waiting since 7am for that one elusive bird to finally appear. It did finally show up shortly after I took this picture of them waiting \u2014 and it was a kingfisher who flew down, grabbed an insect, and flew back. And in that three seconds it appeared this entire row of pros fired off their drive modes!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
This guy clearly means business! It’s not just his camera body and lens: he has his accessories all set up too!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Da’an Forest Park is a really charming place to visit, and we’re glad we made time for it. We next headed to Yongkang Street, blogged here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every trip we go on with two young kids means we have to populate the itinerary with the kind of activities we know they would enjoy \u2014 for sure. That really just means two activity types: playgrounds, and animals. The<\/p>\n

Read More 12 Days in Taiwan \u2013 Day 11 \u2013 Da’an Forest Park<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,17],"tags":[608,618,615],"class_list":["post-28424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-photography-cameras","category-traveling","tag-sony-a7-iii","tag-taiwan-2018","tag-tamron-70-200mm-f2-8","wpcat-13-id","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/blog-2018-taiwan-day-11-A7_03535-daan-forest-park.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28424","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=28424"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38549,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28424\/revisions\/38549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}