Our hotel in Ximending in Taipei is apparently very popular among Singaporeans because of its excellent location & cheap clean rooms. We were right smack in the shopping district & it was bustling even at midnight on weekdays. The energy in Taipei is so infectious!
The hotel breakfast was however quite blah.We opted instead for fresh soya milk & rice rolls with egg, bacon & dough bits from this roadside stall. I dont know how they handle the morning crowd plus 2 clueless irritating tourists who cant read vertically & still be so friendly & cheerful. Totally yummy!
Yehliu Geopark, a short bus ride away from Taipei, on the north coast of Taiwan.
These funny rock formations have become somewhat of a geological wonder.
My mum & me!
We also made a trip to Wulai, a mountainous area known for its hot springs.
My mum jumped from 17deg to 41deg to 36deg waters & got all red & healthy while i merely soaked & let my fatigue wash away from me. Because it was the low season, we were the only ones in the spring & stayed until our fingers became all crinkly.
It was also the calla-lily season up on Yangmingshan, the backyard mountail of Taipei & we joined the hordes of Taiwanese picking lilies in the cool crisp air.
Until now i have no idea if these colors are natural or not... but it certainly makes a beautiful rainbow bouquet!
I spent one night in Hualien, which is 2 hours away from Taipei by express train & on the eastern coast of Taiwan. It's a beautiful county & the people are soooo kind! We walked around the seaside & got a room facing the Pacific ocean. The owners, a very funny couple brought us to the mountain gorge the next day.
That night, we went to a local night market & bought real fireworks to set off on the beach!
Seemed easy enough. We got the big rectangular package with 19 shots, just light the wick at the side & stand back. But we had visions of the box exploding in our faces & so a nice Taiwanese boy helped us & even told us not to be scared LOL.
It was my first time seeing fireworks at such close range & so low in the sky. they felt like they were raining down on my head... everyone should try it once in their life!
My mum enjoying an iced dessert at a 24hrs roadside stall.
The next morning we piled into a car & drove an hour into Taroko Gorge national park. It was formed over a hundred million years from the collision between the Eurasian plate & the Philippine sea plate, together with erosion from the Liwu river. Seeing that the owner's wife grew up in Hualien, she told us stories about the gorge & how they used to play there as kids.
It was immense, breathtaking & the marble rock is so beautiful... you could stare forever at the lines & marvel at how nature by its sheer force & the passage of time made sediment & sand into amazing hard smooth marble.
We had to wear helmets as the gorge is very prone to rock falls. I really admire Chiang kai-shek, former president of Taiwan for opening up the gorge & painstakingly carving roads in the side of the mountains for tourists to admire this work of nature. If you had seen first hand the height, the width, the harsh terrain of the gorge, you would have agreed that it was an arduous task. I apologise that my lousy camera could not capture the magnificence of the gorge. It is really a sight to behold.
If you are ever in Taipei, drop by this steamboat place called Ju-Xian for its collagen steamboat.. you can order lots of seafood & meat, then dump a whole bottle of collagen powder into the soup; very popular among females & the owner was so so nice we stayed to chat with her long after we finished.
I always thought Taiwan was just about night markets & Asian pop but this trip opened my eyes to its great abundance of nature & its beautiful coastline... not to forget the Taiwanese themselves. Having travelled to many places in Asia before, i know how to tell genuine kindness from commercial gestures & in my humble opinion, i think they're a lovely lot of people :)
