Logged on to my account and was greeted with a page view count of 30,061! Finally reached the 30k milestone! What an achievement for my humble personal blog! :D
Anyway, this post is a continuation of my Taiwan trip! Day 1 & post here!
We overnight in Naluwan hotel in Hualien, Taiwan. The hotel is furnished in a old-fashioned motel style, with tribal paintings and redish orange hue linens.
8am head out from Naluwan after our light breakfast at the hotel.
Poodles representing the Hualien city? I wonder what is the significance behind poodles..
OTW to Taroko's Gorge National Park
Reached the Taroko National Park information centre after 30 minutes drive.
Our tour guide is especially considerate of the tourists' bladder level. He's always stopping for regular toilet breaks for the elders :D So, this was actually our toilet break.
Hung around and took pictures here and there until 9am.
Narrow drive to the Taroko National Park
Pristine turquoise blue river water!
We arrived at the Eternal Shrine! It's so pretty, like in ancient Chinese dramas!
Took this with my DSLR at maximum zoom!
It's cold up there!!!
Another shrine beside the Eternal Shrine located much higher!
Our tour guide told us to be careful near the walkway (seen in the pic, bottom right) to the Eternal Shrine and advised us not to walk to the shrine as it's very slippery. He encountered a situation back then when an elderly tourist from his tour fell, and had to be admitted to the hospital and hospitalized for a few months.
If you look closely, you will be able to see the walkway at the middle left of the pic.
I couldn't even make it down to the walkway. The stairs was so slippery that I missed my footing twice! I got so paranoid and made my way back to this stone. My parents walked down and took a few closer pics of the river thou :D
After 30 minutes of taking photos, we head to the Linzhi & Tea Center that was part of the tour.
Large mushroom-sized linzhi
It's larger than my palm! Apparently this is a real linzhi! This linzhi feels pretty fake to me thou lol.
More tribal wall deco and costumes!
Left the place in a jiffy to take pictures with the family outside the tea center! We weren't interested in linzhi at all :p
Hehe a picture only possible when there is the five of us (or five hands hahaha)
Lunch at 12pm at a restaurant opposite the Xincheng Station. I came to love Hualien and Yilan dishes! The food is so healthy and mostly vegetarian! They serve the dishes with purple/red rice too!
Vegetarian fish cakes
Steamed pork dish. It taste too porky for my liking.
Fried omelette, aka my favourite telur dadar ♥♥
Eight dishes for a table of eight people! Omg we were stuffed at the end of every meal! :D
Taiwan's speciality: Pineapple tarts!
Hachiko look-alike in front of the Xincheng train station! She was sitting still for me to snap a picture of her!
We took a train back to Yilan because the tour guide wants to avoid driving past the same winding road (yesterday night) again, so the bus with all our luggage were on the way to Yilan (with an hour head-start from the moment we had our lunch), whereas we took one-hour train ride to Su'ao town in Yilan. I applaud his planning skills! :D
What is this? Written in Chinese, I can only identify the word "水" (water) and "大" (big).
Anyway this structure gave a creepy feeling, as if something that just came out from movie with dystopia setting, post nuclear power plant leak :/
Moving on, a few minutes drive to the Jimmy Artwork Square outside the station.
All I see is a butt crack, not a bag HAHAHA
OMG THIS BABY! SHO CUTE I CANNOT TAHAN ♥♥♥ Look at dem chubby cheeks!
Jimmy's characters waiting for the next bus :D
Looks like the paperback cover of the first Harry Potter book!
Younger sis was feeling lazy so she stayed in the bus while we all went to check out the flea market outside the Yilan information centre.
So colourful! All the street vendors are so nice! Perfect place for photographers to take pictures of tiny trinkets!
So many unnecessary stuff that will look so good on my table hahaha! Confessions of a hoarder :p
Painted steel mugs!
Postcards, keychains and needle felt!
Painted rocks
My eyes were glued to this stuff! Love the crystal with the flower!
Washi tapes! I love them but I don't know how to use it to its full potential lololol.
4.30pm reached our accommodation for the night, apparently this is a Yilan highlight! Toucheng Leisure Farm: A hotel + animal farm.
Nothing grand, just a humble desk make up the reception.
The outdoor seating area
The tour guide demonstrating how to cook your own noodles! Free flow noodles!
One of my favourite meals in Taiwan! Perfect meal to have in the chilly Yilan countryside. Noodles with braised minced pork and meatballs. We filled our tummies before heading to the animal farm.
Unfortunately, at the countryside, it was always drizzling. The sky got dark very quick despite it being only 5pm!
In this shot, it was actually pitch dark! There was still some light, but it was too dark to capture a bright shot. I took a high ISO pic anyway, and hoped for the best in my post-editing. This was the outcome! At least you can see the water buffaloes!
High noise! It was hopeless to take many shots in that lighting without external flash!
Used flash! We plucked a few mandarin oranges!
We saw goats, ducks and pigs along the way too! Then, we head back down because it was too dark to look at the path!
Started our BBQ buffet at 6pm until 7.30pm!
Mostly vegetarian dishes here.
What is a Taiwan trip without lantern making? We got the opportunity to make our paper lanterns from scratch at the leisure farm after our dinner!
The staff demonstrating on how to make a paper lantern. A tip would be to video the process, then you can rewatch it later. It was impossible to memorize the steps!
Beautiful Chinese calligraphy!
After writing our wishes, it is time to light it up and fly the lantern!
Watched our lantern float away into the distant sky! Pray hard for our wishes to come true! :)
Overall, I love this countryside leisure farm experience. I just wished we had a chance to go to the leisure farm when it was brighter because I have night blindness! Next morning, we head back to Taipei for the last day of the tour, and the start of our free and easy trip around Taipei! :D Look out for the next post, Day 4 in Taipei!
Signing off ♥
( = ^ ㅅ ^ = )
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