Hualien & Taitung

Last week we went on a three day vacation to the east side of Taiwan. We left our house at 5 am, Tuesday morning, and started our adventure. Once we made it to the train station in Taichung we headed to Taipei. Then from Taipei we had a three hour train ride to Hualien. Our total travel time was about 6 hours, this is considered a long travel time in Taiwan.  When we arrived we were picked up by our tour guide at the train station and he took us to lunch. Here is a picture of Justin's salad.... He thought it looked so yummy.

 And yes he loves the little octopuses. 

After our lunch our first stop was to Taroko National Park. The name, Taroko, means "magnificent and beautiful". The Taroko gorge was the main reason for us to visit Hualien. 

The boy next to Noah is Jack. He is the son of Justin's co-worker. He is 16 years old so he was way to cool to smile in any pictures. 

 Noah petting the lions head, it is supposed to make him smarter.

 Taroko Gorge..so beautiful!

This is called the "Eternal Spring Shrine". It was built as a memorial for the 212 veterans that died while constructing the road that runs through the park. The road is the first road that was constructed that went through the mountains, from east to west.

 Don't they look cool? We had to wear hard hats to walk through the park. They have frequent rock falls that could be dangerous. Below is a picture of the road going in and out of the mountain side.

After our long day traveling and visiting Toroko we headed to the "Promised Land Resort & Lagoon". I have never been a resort kind of person. Mostly when I travel I prefer to pay for a cheap room and spend more money on adventure. But after our stay at Promised Land I think I am having a change of heart. It was fantastic. There was even a boat ride around the park.  Below are pictures from the patio in our room.

Dinner was delicious, this was Justin's plate!

 They even had horse back riding! We didn't have time for it but it was fun to pet.

The next day we headed for Carp lake. We didn't get to spend much time there but it was a neat place to stop. The second day of our trip was mostly driving but we did stop and spend some time out and about.

 Hello Kitty is very very big in Taiwan. 

After the lake stop we made a quick stop at local university. It was a very nice place, so calm and relaxing. I would love to study in an environment like this. They even had a small pond area for the students to sail or kayak around.

I don't know where our next stop was, which town. It was a very old area of Taiwan that has lots of old building built by the Japanese. It also had lots of wood carvings that were so detailed and amazing. There was also a cute family of dogs there that were very friendly and playful so Noah took a second to pet one.

After the wood carving stop we went to a farm... we saw cows!! We got to pet baby cows and that was pretty much the entertainment at this stop. It was fun and Taiwan doesn't have very many cows so it was interesting to see.

Our last stop of the day, before going to the hotel, was to ride bicycles around the city of Guanshan. I don't know why I let Justin and Noah talk me into this, because usually I hate riding bicycles. But this time I actually enjoyed myself. It helped that I had an awesome bike with an even more awesome seat. The scenery was so beautiful.

 What is this? It looked like sod but it isn't. It took us riding around the town a bit to figure it out.

 It is rice. They don't plant by hand anymore, they use the rolls of rice starts and put it into this machine and it plants them. It was pretty interesting to see.

 Now to the hotel. Not as nice as hotel number one but it was still clean and friendly. Our room was a Japanese style room so we each had a mat that we pulled out onto the floor to sleep. The shower and bathroom wall was glass that overlooked the pool, kind of strange, I hope no one saw me shower,

In the evening, after dinner, the hotel had a paper lantern release. We got into groups of ten and everyone wrote there wish for the new year on the lantern. Then when everyone was ready we released them into the night. We have done this one other time but it was so windy that day it was dangerous. The one we did at the hotel was so peaceful, I took video you can see it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYoNrsCww4U&feature=youtu.be

Justin being silly!

 Good morning, time to start day three!

On day three we spent the entire day driving up the east coast of Taiwan. We were able to spend lots of time playing in the water and exploring the waters edge.  Our first stop was the foot bridge that I researched before we came to Taiwan. It was so fun to walk across. On the other side is an island with lots of tide pools that Justin needed to explore.

He found part of a needle fish skull, pretty scary looking.

Noah found a Brittle Starfish

On our next stop we saw a sea turtle.

Can you see the turtle swimming in the water? Probably not... I will tell you it is in the middle of the picture close to the bottom. It is above the rock just a bit. He was a pretty big turtle because we could see him pretty well from the shore. Every time he would poke his head above the water we could see him.

Our next stop was to go into a cave in this mountain. There was water in the cave so it was more of a boat tour. It was FULL of bats! Pretty neat experience.

This was our last ocean stop. I can't believe how beautiful it is. 

Justin & Noah were checking out the tide pools when a big wave came and sprayed them.

They enjoyed it.

 We made a quick stop at a river to take pictures.

And of course every trip includes at least one temple visit. Just as I was beginning to wonder if we would see any the drive pulls into this little temple for us to visit.

Justin has been wanting to see water buffalo in Taiwan since we arrived. He finally had his chance as we were stopped at a stop light on our way to the train station. Next stop home!