Taiwan in 7 days! :: Hualien and Taroko National Park
This is the Hualien portion of my Taiwan trip which I'd like to put in a separate post.
We took the afternoon train from Taipei to Hualien which took about 2 hours and a little more.We could have departed in the morning if not for our reservation with 海灣32號 (Hai Wan Haiwan 32) in which checking-in time was 3pm. So, we arrived at Hualien pretty late in the afternoon, met the driver who was to pick us up at the train station and drive us to HW32, 15 minutes away. We snacked on the train and weren't hungry but had to get food for the night since HW32's kitchen is not open at night and it is in the middle of nowhere unless you are happy to call a taxi back to Hualien city for good. The driver recommended 公正包子for their 小笼包 and 饺子, offered a stop for us to grab a takeaway before heading towards HW32.
I will talk about the stay in a bit. But the 小笼包 is not what we usually have in Chinese restaurants; thin skin et al. It is literally a 小包! And the best part is, we ordered 10!!! We weren't worried about dinner anymore after realising the portion. We also had a couple of 饺子and love the sauce. The sauce tastes like a very light version of soy sauce, with very light version of garlic and some spices and is lighly spicy. Haha! The sauce is really good, coming from a person (me) that doesn't take food with any sauce. I personally like it so much that we went back the next day to have the 饺子 again.
That's us having our early dinner at the dining area by the sea front of HW32. The staff are so uber friendly; opening up the dining area, made hot drinks for us, basically making us feel as comfortable as possible. It wasn't fully booked when we were there so it was really quiet and everyone was so attentive to guests.
Now, the stay proper. I squealed when I entered the room! It is spacious, has a full King size bed, and has a bathroom of dreams! Everything looks clean, proper, new, bright, white, yada, yada, made our stay the highlight of our trip! Actually, it already is since we booked. We wanted a nice little break from the sight-seeing. While researching in Hualien, chanced upon an online review of HW32 and we thought, why not since we have time? We were so happy to be able to book a room, they are usually pretty full most of the time. I think we went on a weekday, else on weekends, you have to book months ahead!
Checkout the bathroom! It overlooks the sea!
I wouldn't call it a hotel or a boutique hotel, it is just a small property which has about 8 to 10 rooms and probably 3 to 4 people running the place. There is a large outdoor space with benches and swings. Attached to the dining area is a verandah where you can eat by the sea. It was, like, winter, so it was very windy. We tried the swing for a while (mine was wet, gahhhh) and went down the footpath towards the sea.
There are a lot of pictures in their blog, you should check them out if you are heading to Hualien.
The stay was so super comfortable; the bed was comfortable, the pillows are good too! The friend decided to wake up at 6am to catch the sunrise from our 2nd floor balcony. After that, I slept in a bit more before washing up to go for breakfast. There is a kitchen at the dining area so all breakfasts are homemade by an ah-yi. If there isn't enough, she will make more. If there is something you really want to eat, tell her, she might be able to whip something out. To have breakfast by the sea is so nice, so tranquil. They have lots of pigeons (according to the friend) and we saw two pet parrots who refused to talk to me.
After breakfast, we walked the coast and checked out the people fishing by the sea. There were already people fishing before sunrise. They do catch something everyday and bring home for cooking. The sand by the seat isn't white as powder, it was the first time I saw sand that looks like... coarse sesame powder. LOL! There are loads of pebbles by the coast too, in all sizes, small to huge.
We had a great time at HW32, check-out, chatted with the lady while waiting for a taxi and greeted not goodbye, but see you again to each other. If I'm in Taiwan, and stopping by Hualien again, this will be the place I will go to for a stay.
Headed back to Hualien city and checked-in to 花蓮民宿日之出 (BB Sunrise Minsu) for our 2-night stay with a day tour to Taroko Gorge the next day. Rachel, a Hong Kong-er, who owns this place with her Taiwanese husband enthusiastically recommended many food places for us to check out.
We tried the 云吞 which was okay-ish. The other desserts (the one with yam balls and the other with jelly) were really nice! They have such fanciful names that I cannot remember for the life of me so if you are there, ask Rachel. You can see how much she loves the jelly one when she talks about it so we takeaway a bowl for her that evening. :D
自強夜市 is a small, 3-lane, night food market which I personally think is nothing to shout about. We tried the 棺材板 bread which was yumz and didn't really ate much after that. I had a bowl of noodles which I cannot remember the name again, that was light and good. There are two big fruit juice stalls and they have interesting fruit juice menus, especially milk shakes and so on. I had juice-mixes everyday in Hualien!
Hualien is not a big city, we managed to explore some places within a day, walking from our accommodation to the city centre. We located 阿之寶, checked out the store and did some shopping. There are some nice little knick-knacks stores along the way and many, many shops selling local snakcs and delights. We passed by a milk nougat shop, was so attracted by the store concept and prints and ended up buying some food for the office from them.
Check out the cute bus stop!
That basically summed up Hualien city. No wonder most people visit Taroko for a day trip.
The next morning was most looked forward to; Taroko National Park. I saw too many beautiful pictures, I have to go there! For the whole day, the places we covered were:
These are all from the Shakadang trail. This trail is amazing! Some little ponds, lagoons, whatever they call them, look like they came right out from paradise!
Can't really remember all these places. We walked a suspension bridge, went into a cave, saw a real, big, mega gorge, and many, many beautiful sights. Our driver was really funny as well and we had quite some fun talking to him and he's great with sights. He is Mr Huang and you might like to check with Rachel since she recommended him to us.
And yap, that's all for the Taiwan trip. I need to get the budget page up soon.
We took the afternoon train from Taipei to Hualien which took about 2 hours and a little more.We could have departed in the morning if not for our reservation with 海灣32號 (Hai Wan Haiwan 32) in which checking-in time was 3pm. So, we arrived at Hualien pretty late in the afternoon, met the driver who was to pick us up at the train station and drive us to HW32, 15 minutes away. We snacked on the train and weren't hungry but had to get food for the night since HW32's kitchen is not open at night and it is in the middle of nowhere unless you are happy to call a taxi back to Hualien city for good. The driver recommended 公正包子for their 小笼包 and 饺子, offered a stop for us to grab a takeaway before heading towards HW32.
I will talk about the stay in a bit. But the 小笼包 is not what we usually have in Chinese restaurants; thin skin et al. It is literally a 小包! And the best part is, we ordered 10!!! We weren't worried about dinner anymore after realising the portion. We also had a couple of 饺子and love the sauce. The sauce tastes like a very light version of soy sauce, with very light version of garlic and some spices and is lighly spicy. Haha! The sauce is really good, coming from a person (me) that doesn't take food with any sauce. I personally like it so much that we went back the next day to have the 饺子 again.
That's us having our early dinner at the dining area by the sea front of HW32. The staff are so uber friendly; opening up the dining area, made hot drinks for us, basically making us feel as comfortable as possible. It wasn't fully booked when we were there so it was really quiet and everyone was so attentive to guests.
Now, the stay proper. I squealed when I entered the room! It is spacious, has a full King size bed, and has a bathroom of dreams! Everything looks clean, proper, new, bright, white, yada, yada, made our stay the highlight of our trip! Actually, it already is since we booked. We wanted a nice little break from the sight-seeing. While researching in Hualien, chanced upon an online review of HW32 and we thought, why not since we have time? We were so happy to be able to book a room, they are usually pretty full most of the time. I think we went on a weekday, else on weekends, you have to book months ahead!
Checkout the bathroom! It overlooks the sea!
I wouldn't call it a hotel or a boutique hotel, it is just a small property which has about 8 to 10 rooms and probably 3 to 4 people running the place. There is a large outdoor space with benches and swings. Attached to the dining area is a verandah where you can eat by the sea. It was, like, winter, so it was very windy. We tried the swing for a while (mine was wet, gahhhh) and went down the footpath towards the sea.
There are a lot of pictures in their blog, you should check them out if you are heading to Hualien.
The stay was so super comfortable; the bed was comfortable, the pillows are good too! The friend decided to wake up at 6am to catch the sunrise from our 2nd floor balcony. After that, I slept in a bit more before washing up to go for breakfast. There is a kitchen at the dining area so all breakfasts are homemade by an ah-yi. If there isn't enough, she will make more. If there is something you really want to eat, tell her, she might be able to whip something out. To have breakfast by the sea is so nice, so tranquil. They have lots of pigeons (according to the friend) and we saw two pet parrots who refused to talk to me.
After breakfast, we walked the coast and checked out the people fishing by the sea. There were already people fishing before sunrise. They do catch something everyday and bring home for cooking. The sand by the seat isn't white as powder, it was the first time I saw sand that looks like... coarse sesame powder. LOL! There are loads of pebbles by the coast too, in all sizes, small to huge.
We had a great time at HW32, check-out, chatted with the lady while waiting for a taxi and greeted not goodbye, but see you again to each other. If I'm in Taiwan, and stopping by Hualien again, this will be the place I will go to for a stay.
Headed back to Hualien city and checked-in to 花蓮民宿日之出 (BB Sunrise Minsu) for our 2-night stay with a day tour to Taroko Gorge the next day. Rachel, a Hong Kong-er, who owns this place with her Taiwanese husband enthusiastically recommended many food places for us to check out.
We tried the 云吞 which was okay-ish. The other desserts (the one with yam balls and the other with jelly) were really nice! They have such fanciful names that I cannot remember for the life of me so if you are there, ask Rachel. You can see how much she loves the jelly one when she talks about it so we takeaway a bowl for her that evening. :D
自強夜市 is a small, 3-lane, night food market which I personally think is nothing to shout about. We tried the 棺材板 bread which was yumz and didn't really ate much after that. I had a bowl of noodles which I cannot remember the name again, that was light and good. There are two big fruit juice stalls and they have interesting fruit juice menus, especially milk shakes and so on. I had juice-mixes everyday in Hualien!
Hualien is not a big city, we managed to explore some places within a day, walking from our accommodation to the city centre. We located 阿之寶, checked out the store and did some shopping. There are some nice little knick-knacks stores along the way and many, many shops selling local snakcs and delights. We passed by a milk nougat shop, was so attracted by the store concept and prints and ended up buying some food for the office from them.
Check out the cute bus stop!
That basically summed up Hualien city. No wonder most people visit Taroko for a day trip.
The next morning was most looked forward to; Taroko National Park. I saw too many beautiful pictures, I have to go there! For the whole day, the places we covered were:
- Part of Shakadang Trail 砂卡礑步道 (which I'd like to go back and hike the entire trail)
- Tunnel of Nine Turns 九曲洞
- Eternal Spring Shrine 長春祠
- Swallow Grotto燕子口
- The Bridge of the Kind Mother 慈母橋
- Lioufang Bridge 流芳橋
- Hill of Yu the Great 大禹嶺
These are all from the Shakadang trail. This trail is amazing! Some little ponds, lagoons, whatever they call them, look like they came right out from paradise!
Can't really remember all these places. We walked a suspension bridge, went into a cave, saw a real, big, mega gorge, and many, many beautiful sights. Our driver was really funny as well and we had quite some fun talking to him and he's great with sights. He is Mr Huang and you might like to check with Rachel since she recommended him to us.
And yap, that's all for the Taiwan trip. I need to get the budget page up soon.