Maokong Gondola Taiwan April 2016

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Maokong Gondola Taiwan April 2016

Maokong Gondola Taiwan April 2016


Maokong (貓空) is a quaint village located at the top of a mountain providing breathtaking views of Taipei City. There are a wide variety of teahouses and high quality selection, and this is a perfect place to sit back with a cup of tea and nice dinner, while taking in the beautiful views of Taipei. The easiest way to reach Maokong is to take the Maokong Gondola scenic cable car up the mountain from MRT Taipei Zoo Station. The cost is only NT$50 each way, with each adult allowed up to 2 children for free. The Maokong Gondola was originally built in 2007 and retrofitted with Crystal Cabins (glass-bottom cars) in 2010 to provide more viewing angles and opportunities, also lowering the service interval to 3 minutes per car.

How did Maokong (which translates literally as "No cat" in Chinese) get its name? One joking explanation is that it is called "No Cat" because there are no cats in the area. In fact, its name is derived from the Taiwanese "Niaokang," which refers to the topography of surrounding mountains, which has been scoured and pitted by the runoff from springs. "Niaokang" is a reference to this pitted surface, but it is also a homophone for "cat scratched," which was rendered as "maokong" in Mandarin. According to the Taipei City Government's "Official English Website", many people know that Maokong is the place to go to enjoy fine tea, few realize how the area got its unusual name, which in Chinese means "cat hollow." The name comes from the area's geology. The igneous rock of the valley east of the tea farms of Muzha varies in hardness, such that over the years the creek has eroded and created potholes into the softer areas of the riverbed. Many of these indentations look as if they are the prints of a cat's paw, inspiring the name "Maokong" as a byword for the tea farms and teahouses of Muzha.