Hanging Out in Hualien

Our second breakfast in Taipei did not disappoint. We ate more dumplings, steamed buns, fruit, and noodles. While at breakfast, Tim tried pulling up our train tickets to Hualien, the next stop on our itinerary...but the tickets were not appearing. Hmm. Slight wrinkle in plans. We opted to leave our hotel earlier than anticipated so we could get to Taipei Main Station to figure things out.

Once again, we hopped on the Taipei Metro. Taipei Main Station must be enormous, because we walked a ways to get from the Metro to the Taiwan Railway side of things. (Taiwan's High Speed Rail also converges at Taipei Main Station, as does the Taiwan bus system.) Tim talked with a Taiwan Railway ticket agent, realized he mistyped one number incorrectly from his passport on the train ticket, and walked away holding our four tickets in hand. Crisis averted!

Because we had some time to kill before our train, we came up out of the Main Station and walked around the above-ground railway and bus terminal for a bit. The people watching was fabulous. I love how people dress here, and I love how kind and friendly they are to each other.

About 30 minutes before our scheduled departure time, we walked back underground and hit up...a 7-Eleven. 7-Elevens are ubiquitous around here; and they're pretty amazing. The kids and I picked up some food for the train ride, while Tim hit up the sushi shop next door.

At 10:19am, we were on our train to Hualien, a two-hour ride to the east coast from Taipei. The train was kinda empty, which was great, and we all loved looking out the windows and taking in more of Taiwan. 

Waiting for our train to Hualien.

We've got this car (mostly) to ourselves!

Lunch on Taiwan Railway.

We pulled into Hualien at 12:41pm and decided to walk to our hotel. The mile-long walk was easiest for Wyatt, who, as you know, only packed a few items of clothing in his Cotopaxi bag. ;)

We made it to Hualien!

Walking to our hotel. Two of us have full packs. One of us has very little in his pack.

We arrived at our hotel too early to check in, but we were able to drop our bags and go explore a bit. Our exploration took us down to the rocky beach and then back through town, where we (naturally) bought some boba drinks. We took a short break in our hotel room and then headed out for dinner. After dinner, we checked out the Dongdamen Night Market, which looked similar to the Raohe Night Market, but with a lot less people. And ohmyword, you could smell the stinky tofu from stalls away. That stuff is POTENT, people. 

More boba? You bet.

Even at the Night Market, there's Uber Eats.

And sometimes a very cute dog, helping his owner sell guava.

Walking around Hualien on Monday, we could tell that this place used to be a lot busier -- just by the sheer number of hotels, shops, stalls, and restaurants. In April 2024, a devastating 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck near Hualien, and sadly did a ton of damage to the nearby famous Taroko National Park. So many international and Taiwanese tourists used to come to Hualien, and then visit Taroko Gorge from here. But there is now extremely limited access to the park, and it could take another several years for rocks to be moved and reconstruction to take place. The whole situation has clearly taken a toll on Hualien.

We fell into bed at 8pm Monday night...on still-hard mattresses, but not as hard as Taipei.

***

Tuesday morning, I woke up and left the hotel for a run. I ran down toward the beach again and hopped on a bike path. Gosh, it was beautiful! 

Scene from my run.

Seen on my run.

Back at the hotel, we all got ready and then hit up the breakfast buffet. This buffet also did not disappoint. But it was a quick breakfast this morning, because we had an outing to participate in.

It's breakfast time. And for a little while, we had the buffet to ourselves.

Before leaving the U.S., Tim booked us on a river tracing journey. River tracing is canyoning, where you wade, hike, and climb your way through a river. And Tuesday morning was our river tracing time.

A guy named Suxhi picked us up at our hotel at 7:30am. Since he didn't speak English and we didn't speak Chinese, Google Translate sure came in handy. We drove for about 20 minutes to a 7-Eleven (yeah!) where we went to the bathroom and met others in our group. We all caravanned for another 10 minutes to a random river spot. There, we met our guides from River King and followed hand motions and the examples of the Taiwanese guests to get ready to head into the river.  

Getting ready for the river.

Thankfully, shortly before we entered the river, we learned there were a couple English speakers in the group of Taiwanese guests. They helped translate the instructions for river tracing. This whole Taiwanese crew -- a friend group of 9 -- was the friendliest! We were also joined by three other Americans, but they were doing the full day of river tracing and the rest of us were doing a half day.

We had a lot of fun river tracing. The scenery was beautiful, the people were wonderful and funny, and everyone made it back in one piece. Hot noodles awaited us upon our return to the random river spot, and our new Taiwanese friends gifted us snacks and candy. Literally, Taiwanese people are the best people. Can the whole world please conduct themselves more like the Taiwanese?! 

The river tracing crew.

We are going to start posing like this for all our photos.

We love our new friends!

And we love the treats they gave us! Still feeling the warm and fuzzies from their kindness.

Suxhi dropped us off at our hotel, and we headed right out again to try and rent some bikes. We wanted to go back to the bike pathway I had run along this morning. The front desk staff at our hotel directed us to a local Giant Bicycles shop, but once there, we learned they didn't rent bikes. That shop directed us to another Giant about a mile away. We started walking there, but the sky darkened and we didn't want to get caught in rain on bikes. Instead, we walked over to the pathway and retraced some of my run this morning.

When the "when are we going to be done with this walk?" questions started coming more frequently, we veered off the pathway onto a main street and hoped to find a taxi to take us back into town. Buuuuut no such luck. We walked the whole way back, even passing a stinky tofu outdoor restaurant (I mean, the smell is really bad...but people love it).

We bought boba toward the end of our walk and then walked extra to find a trash can, which we could not do. There were no trash cans anywhere. So, we headed for Starbucks, thinking surely, there would be a trash can at Starbucks. Which there wasn't -- nope, not one at all. So, we headed for the Starbucks bathroom. There was one teeny, tiny trash receptable by the bathroom. We tossed our boba cups in there...that may have been a huge sin, but this whole no-trash-cans-around situation is really confusing (and I should probably google it).

Smiles with our boba. No trash cans in sight.

Everyone was ready for a hotel break following our long walk. Lucky for us, there were laundry machines at the hotel -- complete with free detergent! -- so we did some laundry. We also played several games of foosball in the lobby. Hualien really knows how to entertain.

For dinner, we walked a few blocks to Zhou Jia Steamed Dumpling. It was the fastest dinner any of us have experienced, and it was SO GOOD. We shared 10 pork dumplings and 10 xiaolongbao buns (total of $5), and we were in and out in about eight minutes. These places right a tight ship -- and they have lines of customers to feed. Dessert was courtesy of 7-Eleven (of course).

Dinner!

If you ever visit Hualien, eat here.

Thanks for another great visit, 7-Eleven.

We'll sleep well tonight on our kinda hard mattresses before another travel day tomorrow.