wordspics.com Of Foods and Travels

My troubled current thoughts. Messy, isn’t it? Sigh…

We were supposed to have a whale watching session in the morning. However, the weather wasn’t ‘friendly’ at all and hence, the plan was cancelled. And we slept till late morning before we checked out of our room. Without having much preference, we ate whatever we could find on that morning itself. Neither did we go out of our way (to the train station) to find for food.

What we ate was rather usual meal for Taiwanese; rice with pork chop and vegetables served on a box. There weren’t much to complain about as there weren’t much choices to choose from. I didn’t take pictures of my first meal of that day not because of the being common but because of laziness. Hehe.

However, I did take my second meal because I was waiting for them (my travelmates) to check out the train’s schedule. It is rather common to have braised hard boiled eggs as part of meal/snack everywhere you go to. I guess it is easy to make and delicious to consume. Other than having eggs, I went for sandwiches as well. Nothing special about as it tastes normal to me.

Our second last stop was Jiufen. We took a train and reached to the destination around late afternoon. Once we were there, we went straight to the information counter to search for accommodation. Having budget in mind, we stayed in guesthouse which is located at the hills. It took us around 20 mins to reach to the guesthouse from the train station. It might take longer if wasn’t for the driver’s death-defying ‘skill’.

We left our bags in the room and walked around while waiting for the car to pick us for sightseeing. Our first (and only) stop was this waterfalls. A unique base which is in orange colour due to the deposits of copper and iron from an old mining area. We stayed quite awhile as we need to get the right settings for the camera and all before we moved to another location; which was the night market.

The distance between our ‘crib’ to the night market wasn’t near at all. It was like driving from Jalan Bukit Bintang to Kota Kemuning (or maybe further). We took the same car to the night market with extra charge. The driver left us at the market and we wandered around searching for food to eat. And yes, you got it right… The choices were almost the same as like any other night markets.

But this time, we tried fried crabs for a change. They were literally everywhere in the night market. And they were as common as BBQ chicken wings. Crunchy, salty and cumbersome, that’s all I got to say about the crabs.

The French labelled them Escargot. But we named them snails. Though I ate curry snail once back in the UK, but I didn’t wanna try them again. Somehow, it didn’t look that appetizing at all.

They do sell curry too. The curry was directly opposite of what you get in Malaysia. It was sweet and lack of curry flavour.*sarcastic mode on* In honour of the great cook, we didn’t finish that very plate because it was so ‘delicious’ *sarcastic mode off*.

Yet another common dish in Taiwan. They can be as simple as possible by serving one piece of braised pork meat with rice only. Even though of their simplicity, the dish actually taste quite good… without the bamboo shoots, of course.

We bought other usual stuffs to fill our stomachs. Stuffed, tired and bored, we called the driver to send us back to our ‘crib’. But before reaching to the ‘crib’, we stopped at 7-11 to buy some booze for card games at night. Hehe.

Since there were lots of things to see, we stayed for another day in Hualien. One of our agendas was to visit the ever famous Taroko Gorge. It is one of the must-go to spot if you are in Hualien.

Taroko Gorge (太魯閣: Tàilǔgé) [1]) is an impressive 19-km-long canyon, situated near Taiwan‘s east coast. The area of the gorge is also identified as Taroko Gorge National Park (太魯閣國家公園; Tàilǔgé gúojiā ) – Wikitravel (link)

It would take long time to reach to the said site if we were to opt for public transport. So, it is wise to hire a car as transportation of the day. Besides, I think it would be cheaper to rent a car/driver if you have more than 2 travelmates alongside with you. The guesthouse that we stayed in provided us with transportation throughout our stay in Hualien and so, the driver picked us up in the morning.

But before that, we went to for a quick breakfast as we were told that our lunch will be quite late in the afternoon because of the hiking and sightseeing which will take us more to 4 hours to complete. I guess I don’t need to show you what we ate as I said before, the breakfast is the same like previous days.

It rained throughout the night and hence, the day was rather cloudy and the road was slightly damped. We stopped at the entrance to take some photos before we proceed with our journey into the ‘forest’.

We did stop quite alot and we did walk alot too. The driver left us at several spots for us to walk up the hill. Though it was tiring for most of us, the walking part was worthwhile as we get to see the nature and the rivers and the rocks. Hehe.

Our final stop was here. IIRC, it is called Cave of Water Curtain. To get to this spot, we hiked (or walked) for more than 30 minutes. Deep inside the cave/tunnel, there is natural (and cold but not as cold as the one in UK during winter) water flowing from above.

It was really refreshing and if you are crazy enough (like my travelmates), you can walk thru the gushing cold water and shower. Haha. Oh yes, you will get wet even if you have your raincoat on. The water was crystal clear and can be treated as drinking water.

We left the national park slightly after 2pm to grab our lunch. Instead of having our lunch inside the park, we opted to have it outside as recommended by the driver. Nothing to shout about except for the odd looking dessert whereby you can customise whatever you want to put on top of the ice shavings. We went back after the meal to take a rest before we headed back out for night market to search for dinner, which was like any other night market as they offer almost the same type of food. Hehe.