Episode sixty lands us in Tianwei — Taiwan's self-declared flower capital, where the roads are lined with nurseries and the air smells of things blooming. At Chengmei Culture Park, surrounded by flowers in every season, we follow Sun Wukong through chapter sixty's elaborate game of disguise, counter-disguise, and the moment where having the real fan in your hand still isn't enough — because the person you tricked just tricked you back.
Location: Tianwei Township
Food: Changhua Meat Ball | Fresh Flower Desserts

Episode fifty-nine brings us to Lukang — the jewel of Changhua County, a harbour town frozen beautifully in the eighteenth century. Walking the narrow lanes of Lukang Old Street, past temples with dragon-coil pillars and incense shops that have been open for two hundred years, we visit both the famous Mazu Temple and the magnificent Longshan Temple. Over a pillow-soft Changhua meat ball and a bowl of deeply braised pork rice, we reach one of the most entertaining chapters in Journey to the West: Sun Wukong meets his match not in a powerful demon but in a woman with an extremely good reason to say no — Iron Fan Princess, who gave him a fake fan that made the fire worse.
Location: Lukang Township
Food: Changhua Meat Ball | Braised Pork Rice

Episode fifty-eight takes us up into the mountains of Yunlin to Gukeng — Taiwan's most famous coffee village, where hundred-year-old camphor trees form a cathedral-like green tunnel over the road. Walking through the green tunnel, past coffee farms in the mountain mist, and up to the Pink Bubbles scenic overlook, we hear the Buddha explain what the six-eared macaque really is — and watch Sun Wukong do something that shocks the entire assembled universe. Over oyster omelettes, crispy oyster fritters, and delicate phoenix eye cakes, we witness the most precise act of self-definition in the entire Journey to the West.
Location: Gukeng Township
Food: Oyster Omelette | Oyster Fritter | Phoenix Eye Cake

Episode fifty-seven takes us into the heart of Yunlin County — to Huwei, where the old sugar factory heritage park preserves a century of industrial history, and to Beigang Chaotian Temple, the most famous Mazu temple in all of Taiwan. Over cups of Gukeng mountain coffee and bamboo tube rice eaten in the temple courtyard, we encounter the most philosophically disturbing chapter in all of Journey to the West: the appearance of a perfect double, a doppelganger so exact that nobody in heaven, earth, or the underworld can tell which Sun Wukong is real.
Location: Beigang Township
Food: Taiwan Mountain Coffee | Bamboo Tube Rice

Episode fifty-six takes us to Dalin — a quiet old market town in southern Chiayi County, the kind of place where the morning market has been happening in the same spot for eighty years and the old temples still anchor the community. Dalin is unhurried and unpretentious, a farming hub that feeds a whole district. Over crispy fried tofu skin and bowls of sesame oil chicken, we follow what might be Sun Wukong's most painful episode yet: he kills to protect his master, gets banished for it, goes to Guanyin, comes back, gets banished again — and begins to understand that patience isn't weakness.
Location: Dalin Township
Food: Fried Tofu Skin | Sesame Oil Chicken

Episode 55 takes us into the tea hills of Meishan and Fanlu — the foothills of Alishan, where tea terraces climb the mountainsides in perfect green rows and the Alishan Highway winds through fog and bamboo groves. These quiet farming villages sit between the lowlands and the high peaks, at the altitude where tea grows best: cool nights, warm days, and mist that never fully lifts. Over a second round of Chiayi-style turkey rice (different shop, important comparison) and sticky rice sausage from a roadside grill, we tackle Chapter 55: the scorpion demoness, Sun Wukong's unexpected vulnerability, and the discovery that the most powerful solution sometimes crows at dawn.
Location: Meishan Township
Food: Turkey Rice | Sticky Rice Sausage

Episode 54 takes us up into Alishan — one of Taiwan's most beloved mountain destinations. We ride the forest railway through cedar and cypress, walk the Sacred Tree trail among thousand-year-old giants, and stand on the Er-yanping overlook where the morning mist fills the valleys like an ocean. Over bamboo tube rice cooked in fire-roasted green bamboo and smoky wild boar sausage from a roadside grill, we enter the Women's Kingdom — one of Journey to the West's most unusual chapters. A kingdom run entirely by women, a queen who wants to marry Tang Monk, a plan to escape, and a spider demoness who shows up at exactly the wrong moment.
Location: Alishan
Food: Bamboo Tube Rice | Wild Boar Sausage

Episode 53 takes us to Chiayi City — the gateway to Taiwan's mountain country and the undisputed capital of turkey rice. We explore Aimu Village, a wood culture museum built inside an old timber warehouse where the scent of hinoki cypress still lingers, and visit Jiuhuashan Dizang Temple, one of the most important Dizang (Ksitigarbha) temples in Taiwan, where incense has been burning since the Japanese colonial era. Over the legendary Fenqihu railway bento and cups of high-mountain oolong, we follow Chapter 53 of Journey to the West — a chapter that is both hilarious and surprisingly tender: Tang Monk and Pigsy, having accidentally drunk from the Mother-and-Child River, are now pregnant. Sun Wukong has to find the one spring that can cure them — but it's guarded by a demon who doesn't want to cooperate.
Location: Chiayi City
Food: Fenqihu Bento | Alishan Tea

Episode 52 takes us to the north Tainan countryside — to Houbi and Baihe, where Guanziling Hot Springs offers one of only a handful of mud hot springs in the entire world. The grey, silky mud water coats your skin and the surrounding hills are dotted with temples and old resort inns. Over Guanziling hot spring eggs with amber yolks and hearty Houbi harvest rice, we untangle Chapter 52 — the follow-up to the green ox arc, where Sun Wukong realizes the magic circle is still a problem and the Buddha quietly points him in the right direction.
Location: Chiayi City
Food: Turkey Rice | Square Cookies

Episode 51 drives north from Tainan city into the foothills, stopping at Yujing — the mango capital of Taiwan — and the famous Water-Fire Same Source in Baihe, where a natural gas seep burns above a flowing spring, fire and water coexisting at the same spot. Over Yujing mango ice and hot spring eggs, we follow Sun Wukong into one of his most humbling episodes: fire doesn't work. Water doesn't work. Every weapon in Heaven bounces off this demon's magic circle. The only way in? Turn into a fly.
Location: Yujing District | Baihe District
Food: Yujing Mango Ice | Water-Fire Hot Spring Eggs