Taiwan Vacation: The East Coast

After spending a couple of days in Taipei, we decided to travel down the East coast of Taiwan. From Taipei we took a 3 and a half hour train South to a city called Hualien.

Hualien: We spent 2 nights in this small city, which was surrounded by mountains. We walked around the city during the day and did some shopping. We saw some strange shops here, one being a Playboy store selling clothes with the playboy bunny on it. The playboy bunny logo is popular in Japan, too, even with kids! We're not sure if they know what it means or not.

Passing by the tourist information center in Hualien, we decided to ask about a restaurant recommendation. We took a taxi that night to the recommended restaurant. We immediately realized that this was a very authentic restaurant with no other foreigners in sight. We walked in and found there was only 1 thing to order, dumpling soup. We placed our order and went to sit down at a table. The place was packed with Taiwanese families all sitting at huge round tables. Only being the 2 of us, we were reluctant to take-up a huge round table, but there was no other option. We sat down and began eating our soup, which was DELICIOUS, when a family of 9 came over to our table and hesitantly started to sit down. Apparently, the restaurant was completely full and they needed a place to sit. We were really excited at the chance to meet a Taiwanese family and immediately told them it was okay. Sitting with us was a mom, dad, son-10, daughter-8, daughter-2, aunt, 2 uncles, and grandma. As they got settled, the 10 year old boy started asking us questions in English and translating the conversations between us and his family. His English was amazing! He takes private English lessons and also studies English at school.

At the end of dinner, the family invited us to a Taiwanese aboriginal dance performance with them. They took us in their minivan to the aboriginal village and we ended up spending the rest of the evening with them!

Here is a video of the aboriginal dancing:

Towards the end of the show, the host came into the audience asking for 2 volunteers to come on stage. Of course, we had no idea what was going on because no one was speaking English. The next thing we knew, the entire family was pointing at us, as well as half the audience, wanting us to go on stage! Having no choice, we went on stage. A college student from San Fransisco was visiting Taiwan and offered to come on stage to translate for us. Here are some pictures of our "performance!"

Here is another friend we made....our translator from San Fransisco.

Taroko Gorge: While in Hualien, we took a day trip to the Taroko National Park, which was amazing! The National Park is a 20km stretch that has marble-walled canyons, tree-covered cliffs, waterfalls, tunnels, a river, and a shrine. We took a bus tour throughout the gorge that stopped periodically so we could walk around and explore. The pictures really don't do it justice!

Here are some pictures of the shrine that overlooks the gorge. We got to go into the pagoda and climb the spiraling staircase to the top.

Jiufen: After Hualien, we took a train 2 hours north along the eastern coast to Jiufen. This was the quaintest city we visited and it turned out to be one of our favorites. We stayed in a really cute bed & breakfast type inn that overlooked the sea. This city is known for their decorative-style tea houses and traditional narrow streets. The city mainly consists of one main street that has small shops and restaurants. We spent a day and a half wandering in and out of shops and drinking tea at the traditional tea houses. The views were so beautiful here and the atmosphere was so peaceful, we really could have stayed here a few more days if we had time.

This is our B&B and the view from the front patio:

Green Bay Beach: From Jiufen we then took an hour bus ride north to a privately run beach resort. We stayed one night at the Howard Plaza Hotel. This hotel was huge! It had 4 restaurants, a convenience store, an entertainment room with pool tables and ping pong, a gym, indoor and outdoor pools, and a private beach. The beach was really pretty with mountains lining the inside of the bay. Here is the view from our hotel room.

We spent a day on the beach and swimming in the pool. We were really surprised when the lifeguards made us get out of the pool to buy a swim cap. Apparently, everyone has to wear a swim cap to go into the pool. We felt really dorky!

Yehliu: Just outside of Green Bay is Yehliu, a long cape where sea and wind erosion has caused some unique rock formations. We had a lot of fun exploring the cape.

Back to Taipei: The last 2 days were spent in Taipei again, but unfortunately a typhoon hit so we weren't able to do anything except walk around malls and see a couple of movies. Overall, we loved Taiwan...the people were extremely nice, the food was great, and the sights were beautiful!