Blogs from Hualien, Taiwan, Asia

Danes je bil dan za bicikliranje. Tako sem odbiciklirala ze do zelezniske postaje, da sem ob 10.02 sedla na lokalni vlak za Hualien. Ne mores ravno na vsak vlak z biciklom, ampak jih je dovolj, poleg tega je infrastruktura za moje pojme tukaj odlicna in je kar dober priblizek raja za kolesarje. Nasplosno je tole zelo bike frienldy drzava, opazam, saj lahko bicikel povsod vzames s seboj, stegne so opremljene s posebno linijo za kolesa. Le placati moras dodatno polovico karte, kar se policajki Celii zdi nefer, saj imajo nekateri vecje kufre, kot so veliki bicikli, pa ni ne placajo. Kakor koli, jaz se ne pritozujem, ker je cena se vedno nizka za moje standarde. Svojo biciklisticno odisedajo sem tako zacela ob 11.40 v Hualieni. Podala sem se skozi mesto na highway 9, ki pelje po ... read more

Kaksen dan. In brez skrbi, obisk v naslovu je bil povsem prijateljski. Ampak zacnimo z jutrom. Kot v vsaki soseski je tudi v Paulovi za katerim koli vogalom pac zajtrkovalnica. Tako sem se podala tja in snedla svoje preljube kitajske buhteljne pa seveda nai cha. Vmes je mimo prikolovratil Paulov sostanovalec Ryan in skupaj sva hvalila dobrote izpod rok lokalnih kuharic. Podala sem se na stop do centra, ker je PAulovo stanovanje pac precej oddaljeno od centra, nekako tako kot Dolgi most in center Ljubljane. Zastopala sem takoj prvi avto, kar me sploh ne preseneca vec, in tip me je zategnil direkt do zelezniske postaje - ki je v bistvu povsem na koncu te dolge dolge ceste, ki vodi do sem. Skratka, brez ovinkov, in ze si tam. Vse karte za vlak ob 8.35 so bile ... read more

Najprej zajtrk. Penny je skocila dol po sojino mleko, dan bing in tiste kitajske buhteljne (z zelenjavo, ker sem ji pojasnila, da za zajtrk pa res ne zelim se mesa). Ti so bili prvic polnozrnati, in tudi Penny je poudarila, da je to posebnost enega od stantov tukaj, da pac prodaja bolj take zdrave buhteljne. Super, pa sem ze mislila, da ne obstajajo. In potem spet hop na skuter, odkivat mesto podnevi. Kaohsiong je sel v zadnjem desetletju skozi renesanso, dozivel je totalen facelift, predvsem zaradi vizije prejsnjega zupana (prosim brez vzporednic). Ta je povsem spedenal mesto: reko je ocistil nesnage, zgradil ceznjo razne mosticke, spedenal parkce, sprehajalne promenade, kolesarske steze (!), vzpostavil ucinkovit MRT (kaj pravite na kaj takega v LJ?), organiziral vse za World Games 2009, odprl je pristanisce za turizem ... Sli sva ... read more

If you only have a few days to visit Taiwan, I highly recommend a visit to the eastern part of the island. Just outside of Hualien lies the beautiful Taroko National Park, a large park named after the impressive Taroko Gorge. Hualien is only a 3 hour train ride from Taipei. Trains leave regularly from Taipei Main Station and buying a ticket should be no problem. Try your best to get a seat on the left side of the train when heading to Hualien as the ocean views are striking. Hualien itself is a small and quiet city and doesn’t have much to offer in the ways of sightseeing but there are plenty of ways to keep yourself occupied. Hualien boasts a remarkable amount of stone quarries and many of the artists in the area utilize ... read more

When we woke up we decided to go to the hot springs that were "nearby". We took Eva's moped and had to ride through the freezing cold. Really it wasn't that cold, but the wind made it miserable. By the time we got there, 2 hours later and after a few stops for directions, I could barely walk. There are two hot springs places and we went to the first one we saw, Hoya Hot Springs. They have two buildings across the road from each other, one is a hotel, and one has the hot spring pools. We quickly changed and got in the cooler of the pools -- we couldn't bear to stick our icicle-like toes and fingers in the hot ones. So after we warmed up a bit we played around with all the ... read more

Today Ronald went out to scout prices for the train and/or bus to Hualien. It seemed that we needed to take a train to Kaoshiung and then a bus or train to Taidung and then another bus or train to Hualien. We packed and got in a cab (with help from Thomas and Bárbara) to go to the station. We got there at 13:50 and the woman at the counter sold us a ticket for 13:59 and it should take about 2 hours. When the train stopped and everyone got off, we had gone one stop too far. We were in Pingtung, so we asked a couple of conductors and eventually just took all our stuff with us to ask at the information counter. The woman sold us a ticket by train to Hualien leaving at ... read more

It was an early morning as the River Trekking company was to pick us up at the hostel at 7:15am. We quickly packed up our things and headed downstairs to the lobby area and waited for about 5 minutes. Then 4 men showed up and we decided they were the River Trekking company there to pick us up. They didn't speak much English and we were thinking how are they going to tell us directions or what to do later in the day. We hadn't eaten breakfast and thought we should get some food before we head out on an all day trekking adventure. We told the men in Chinese that we wanted some food and they quickly pulled over to a little shop along the road that sold baozi, bread with meat inside, very common ... read more