By MINNIE ADVINCULA

TAIPEI -After about a week of feeling "trapped" in a university south of Taipei, it was a liberating to learn that I am so near a tourist spot that I and other foreign students have underestimated.

The Maokong Gondola beside the Taipei Zoo is not just about getting a cable car lift over mountains and getting a panoramic view of Taipei (this is better than going up to the viewing deck at Taipei 101). One needs to spend a whole day to enjoy all the stops and check out the places in each of the three stations.

It is also very accessible as it is at the end of the brown MRT line (Muzha line). Get off at the Taipei Zoo station and walk to the gondola station. You don't even need a tourist guide to get here.

The gondola fare is a real bargain at NT$50 for the three stations. It is relatively new in Taipei as it began operation only in July last year.

At the Zhinan temple station, the brochure says there are 19 spots and or pavilions to see but in nearly three hours we were there, we only got to visit three -two Taoists (a temple and a shrine) and a Buddhist temple. The main temple can be reached through a staircase of 1,200 steps but if you came from the gondola station, the path is going down. There are picnic groves all around but if you're a tourist and would therefore prefer convenience, the better restaurants are at the next and final stop in Maokong station.

We saw one Buddhist restaurant near the temple but this is something more like for the locals than for non-Chinese speaking tourists.

The temples are all located on mountainsides, giving visitors a view of the forest and hills and skyscrapers of downtown Taipei.

You would have thought what's there in the temples for one to see? A lot, actually. We chanced upon some ceremonies being performed by women in the main Zhinan temple and their singing was quite interesting. It was said that the main deity of the temple, Lu Dongbin, was a scorned lover so he frowns upon lovers visiting the temple.

At another Taoist shrine, it was men who were doing the rites and theirs was a different ceremony altogether.

The main attraction at the Maokong station are the tea plantation and tea houses. But since we were discovering the place on our own, it became a total adventure as we ended up on top of Mt. Ejiaoge (elevation 472 kilometers). We (or at least my classmates, because I stopped at about 500 meters to the peak) reached the top after more than an hour of hiking. I wasn't geared up for a hike but we went on climbing up because we had thought an exotic restaurant could be waiting for us at the top. There was only a small Buddha-and a breathtaking view again of Taipei.

The teas in the area are a bit pricey. A pot of jasmine tea costs NT$300 and visitors would have to pay an additional of $100 per head. So the bigger the group, the more expensive your bill would be, even if you consumed only one pot of tea.