Alex, Carrie, Yachi,
Left for LAX at 7:00, got to airport at 8:30. Checked in at the EVA Air, got seat assignments, and waited for boarding. Went to DFS to get XO for Baba, Wine for Tom our host for the side trip to Hualien, and cigarettes for A-Gong. Proceeded to gate at 11:00pm and boarding begins at 11:15. The flight is scheduled to take off at 11:45, but slight delay forces take off to 12:13 so we do see some of Sunday.
Flight takes off at 12:13am.
Distance: 6794 Miles - 10934 KM
Arrive CKS airport at 6:30am. Make our way through Immigration and Customs. Baba, Mama and Gefou (or Jiefou in standard Pinyin) are waiting for us. Get the stuff loaded into the van and car and head home. Get stuff unloaded and start handing out the gifts. Carrie and Sarah are having a reunion with the family so I take Dina (my mom) and Bud (my dad) for a walking tour of the city. We walk down to the night market section of Chutung (Judong) and do some window shopping. Got back and crashed at 3:00pm slept till 5:00am the next morning.
Not sure what I did this day as my notes are blank. Will look at the pictures and fill this day in.
Went with Dina shopping at the open market. Had dinner at uncles restaurant.
Stuck around home in the morning. In the afternoon Carrie, Bud, Baba and me went to visit Baba's adopted daughter. Went by the Temple (don't have the name with me), looked around and had some noodle soup. Stopped by an aunties to pick up some sausage, and went home. New Years prayers started at family shrine at 11:00pm. Went to a local temple at 1:20am the 4th to make offerings.
Got up at 7:00 am. New Years preparations are under way. Went to the night market in Hsinchu (XinJu).
We make a trip to 5 finger mountain, to visit the temples there. Come home for lunch (lunch is always at 12:00 and dinner is at 6:00). Us and some uncles, aunts and cousins head to San Ying to visit the wood carving museum. Traffic is really bad so we miss the museum. Did some shopping at the various wood shops near the museum. Start heading for home and stop at Miaoli for dinner. Get to bed at 10:30.
Get up at 7:00. We go to Beipu to visit some relatives, but we bypass the relatives and visit the tea museum near by. Get back for lunch.
Head to Taipei, we park at the Chientan MRT station, and take the MRT to CKS Memorial Hall. What amazed me was during the flag lowering ceremony EVERYONE came to stop and turned to the flag. Take the MRT back to Chientan station, and hit the night market there. Stop in a department store to grab a bite to eat. Head back to the cars and head home.
Went to visit my wife's family's mountain finally. Went to Hsinchu for a good bye lunch for Bud.
He's heading home to take care of the business. Headed to the airport to get Bud on the plane. Came back and went to an uncles (Mike) for dinner. Finished there came home and went to sleep.
Carrie went to visit relative. We had lunch then went to Chupei (Jubei). We went to Carrefour which is a big market. Came home and then went to Dageae's home to spend some time before going to an uncles house for dinner. Came home watched some TV and went to sleep.
Hung around home in the morning. Mid morning went to ShihMen Dam, and swung by TzuHu or Kindness Lake (or Lake Mercy) and Chang Kai-Shek's tomb. Got back home about 1:30 for lunch and a rest. We then went to NanLiau for the fish market. Since the evenings meal is HotPot (or Shabu Shabu) we get some good fish plus other fish dumplings for the HotPot. We get home and start setting up for the evenings meal. Uncles and Aunties start showing up, plus Thomas who is a friend of my sister-in-law Ting. The HotPot is really good and everyone has a good time.
Hung around home, and walked to the shops. The God of Money came by to bring prosperity for the New Year.
We kind of took a vacation within a vacation. We are headed to Hualien for the weekend, so we get all the cars in the caravan lined up and ready to go. There is 6 cars in the group and we leave Chutung at 6:20 am. In the past this drive would consist of driving south a little ways to catch the Cross-Island Highway, and shooting straight across (more or less) to Hualien. But with the earthquake the Highway is closed so we need to take a "more scenic" route. The route went like this:
We head north to Taipei to pick up DC's sister. From Taipei next stop is Pinglin for a pit stop. From Pinglin to Ilan. In Ilan we stop at a park for a rest. At 11:50am Hualien is 133km away. From Ilan we head to Suao for lunch. Lunch is at a seafood place. When we leave Suao at 1:45pm Hualien is 113km. From Suao we head to Taroko Gorge Gate where we make a pit stop and do some shopping for trinkets. We get to Hualien at 5:30pm, and meet up with our host. Our host Tom and his wife are the parents of Idjian, who is married to Carries cousin Tsung-Hsien.
From their house we head to a restaurant for dinner. All of Tom's family and friends are there so we take up 4 large (seats minimum of 15 people) tables. Seating at the beginning of the meal is fairly orderly and people are seated by importance. I get to sit at the head table for a while as the toast start to happen. During the meal the seating is fluid so there is a lot of switching seats to visit with everyone. At the end of the meal it's chaos.
We leave the restaurant and head to the hotel to get checked in and get stuff dropped off. The group then split into 3 different faction, 1 set went to sleep, 1 set went to coffee shops, and the final set went someone's house for Karaoke. I was in the final set so we sat and had tea while people sang (I did sing one song). After that got back to the hotel and slept.
Note: Hualien is a great city to use as a base for your travels
around Taiwan. Within blocks of the train station there is a night market,
hotels, restaurants, and all forms of nightlife. Taroko gorge is close by, as
are hotsprings and other great day trips. For more information about Hualien
check here:
http://www.hlhg.gov.tw/ke.htm
We're up at 7:00am and checked out of the hotel. Everyone starts getting the cars ready for our drive to visit Taroko (pronounced Tai Lu Gu) National Park. We head out at 8:30am. Are first stop is at the Taroko Visitor Center near the Taroko Gate.
Additional Park Information
Taroko National Park or Taroko National Park
I had thought that the parts of Taiwan I had seen were beautiful but Taroko really blew me away. The granite gorge is amazing and beautiful beyond words. The roadway travels along the walls of the gorge so around every bend you get an awesome view. My father-in-laws Mazda MPV had a sunroof, so I had my head stuck out taking photographs (shot up about 5 rolls of film in 4 hours). We stopped in Tienhsiang for lunch at the Tienhsiang Youth Activity Center. They have really good food at a good price, also rooms are available here for sleeping.
After lunch we headed about 1.9km to Wenshan Hot Springs. The head of the trail is up the road a bit from the parking area. So we got dropped off at the trail head and someone drove the car back down to the parking area. Since the hotsprings are down at the river level, it's a down hill hike. It's a combination of stairs (Note: The hotsprings are not wheel chair accessible), switch backs, and a suspension bridge. The last set of stairs is really steep and wet so care is needed.
Once down at the river you strip down to your bathing suit (remember to bring one, I didn't and missed a good soak), and find a spot that's not too hot or cold and soak. Also bring stuff to eat and drink as a picnic, one group brought down an LPG tank and stove, and made hot pot.
So the check list for the hotspring is:
Bathing Suit
Towel
Rubber flip flops for walking around
Food
Drinks
After Taroko Gorge we head back to Hualien and Tom's house. At this point I get to start driving, so we head to Fenglin to visit Tom's farm. After the farm we go to a local restaurant to get some food. Beer and Karaoke are the driving force at the restaurant.
After the restaurant we drive south to Raiwei (actually spelled Rueisuei) to go to the hotsprings there. We get checked in to the hotel there, but room choices are limited (since it's a fairly popular spot there were a lot of people). We end up with a "Tatami Room", it was basically a 12' X 12' room with tatami mats on the floor, and a stack of cotton comforters (or futons) to make ones bed from. The bathroom is down the hall, and the hotspring soaking tubs are in the other direction. Mama's room had a tub that had hotsprings water available for a soak, so I soaked for a bit there, then went outside to the picnic area where Tom had set up for midnight snacking. Tom was making tea, and people were bringing bottles of whiskey, brandy and other spirits. There was also chicken, sausage and a whole bunch of food there also. So the midnight picnic lasted for me at least to 12:30, and then I curled up and went to sleep.
Our last day in Hualien we went to a place called "Hinoki". Hinoki
is the Japanese term for the wood "Cypress". It applies to the Chi-Yeh
Cypress Museum, which was founded by Mr. Lin Chin-Yu. Mr. Lin has invested over
$NT 40,000,000 in the creation of the museum. A lot of that money went into
buying the pieces that are on display. Most of the pieces are 1,000 to 5,000
years old; the rest of the money was used for the construction of the museum
itself.
Some of the pieces are very large, while some are quite small. But Hinoki is not
just a museum; it's also a restaurant, steam bath and gift shop. I didn't get a
chance to try the steam baths, though they are suppose to be therapeutic. But, I
did try the food and the gift shop. The food is cooked using Cypress so there is
a faint aromatic wood flavor that permeates the food. The food is very good, and
filling. The coffee here is some of the best, and other drinks are available.
The gift shop has carvings, sculptures, various cypress medicinal items, pillows
stuff with cypress shavings, and the list goes on. Admission is free, and the
prices in the restaurant and gift shop are good.
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