Monday, June 23, 2008

After our stay at Alishan, the initial plan was to travel 6 hours straight
to Hualien from Chiayi by train.
But in the end, we did not manage to get the train tickets so we were stranded in Taipei.

Ok not really stranded.
Just that we did not book any accommodation for that night.
But thank god for Chocolate Box Backpackers, we had somewhere to sleep!
I should leave CBB for another day cos' it deserved a longer entry!

Anyway, back to Hualien. Amazing place to be.
We thought it was a more interesting stay compared to Alishan.
One of the reasons could be the guide who brought us
around for our day tour around Hualien.
=)

Initially, we booked this guy called Chen Guang Fa to bring us around,
since he is HIGHLY recommended on tripadvisor.com.
But my dear friends, always take recommendations with a pinch of salt.
We got pangseh-ed cos' he was FREAKING popular.
HE is seriously over-rated la.

So we got another guide instead, who goes by the name of 陈福万.
And it was such a blessing in disguise.
He's funny, humble, polite and he made our trip at Hualien a very, very
memorable one.

If anyone's going there in the near future, do look for him!
Here's his contacts:
0911-062770
陈福万

Dont find the wrong 陈!
......................................................................

Anyway, back to the day tour around Hualien.

Since we arrived pretty early that day, 陈大叔 brought us around to see look before
bringing us to our lunch venue.

Along the way, we saw one FREAKING big snake along the road side.
Guess who spotted it? Our blurry Qianhui, of all people!

陈大叔 was more excited than us so he got off his car and took a closer look. He told us that seeing this snake was more worth it than seeing the Taroko Gorge.

Haha. Oh and we saw a cow too! And a rare butterfly that stopped and allowed me to take picture of it. Coolness.

That's 陈大叔 in blue. A very fatherly figure.

Then we had our lunch at this restaurant, where I felt the food was VERY nice.

After lunch, we began our tour around Taroko Gorge.
We went to this place called 燕子口 and saw over 100++ of 燕子 that day.

陈大叔 couldnt help but exclaimed how lucky we were again cos' he said
usually there's only 3-4 of them flying around.
Ho!
Other than that, we saw a lot of stones formation, caves, valleys and rivers.
But here's the selected few.

After which, we went to 七心潭 to enjoy the breeze.
And to see their stones. Not forgetting to take pictures of ourselves!
But due to the WIND, we all looked super chui.
Thus, presenting our shadows instead. Heh.

The sky was very clear so there's no need for photoshop. HA!
We saw some fighter planes and helicopter too,
which 陈大叔 said it's a VERY rare sight (again).
So we started to question our LUCK in Hualien. Haha.
I was hoping that we will find some gold bar along the road side or something.
=P

We had our dinner thereafter, before making our way to buy 20 bags of Muaychee.

Then, came the highlight of the trip at Hualien.

放烟花！
We will NEVER get the chance to do that in Singapore so I thought the experience was priceless. Though it did cost us 200NT each. Heh. But it's worth every cent of it.

Took a few video of it and here's one of them. Hopefully it can be viewed.
.
.
Saw their Aboriginal group dance at night and took a stroll along their
night market.

We then came back to Stone House, where the famous 刘阿姨 played host.
Stones were drawn and watermelon were ate before we called it a night.
I drew a sunrise btw, hoping that I'll get to see one soon.

刘阿姨 told us that we can viewed the next morning's sunrise from our room's balcony and true enough, we DID!
Kakasea, no more clouds blocking this time! HUR!

It has been a while since I saw the perfect sunrise.
=)