Taiwan: “The Most Beautiful Scenery in Taiwan is People”
Continuing with stories of one of my favorite countries, this part of my travel is filled with soaking in hot springs, biking around the country side, eating good food, and meeting people along the way. Tough life ;p
From Taichung, I took the train all the way to Hualian in East Taiwan. After getting recommendations from the tourist bureau, I went with the hop on hop off buses from Taiwan Trip (http://en.taiwantrip.com.tw/) in combination with taking trains all around the Eastern and Northern parts of Taiwan. Here are some highlights:
Taroko Gorge
Taroko Gorge is very close to Hualian, it is perhaps the most visited tourist spot in the East part of Taiwan. It reminded me of some Chinese poems I read in school describing dark green trees and inky water. I never grasped the image until I went to Taroko.
ChiShang （池上）
ChiShang is famous for it’s rice fields made famous by a coffee commercial starring Takeshi Kaneshiro. I rode around the golden rice fields on a bike and had rice bento for lunch.
Beitou (北投)
Beitou is the hotspring paradise in northern Taipei, it has many options for hotsprings starting from $5. Going during non-peak times (M-F before 5) means I got to enjoy all the pools by myself! Also near the area is an old street (九份老街） packed with snack stalls.
Yilan (宜兰）
One of the nice surprises I found was Jimmy’s park in Yilan. Life size displays of book characters were everywhere, great place to take pictures 🙂
People in Taiwan
People I met in Taiwan were very warm and friendly. When I visited cafes and small restaurants, the owners or wait staff usually took the time to chat with me. An old couple running a cafe in ChiShang learned that I was travelling alone and they immediately worried about me getting lost.
While I was staying at a hostel in Taidong, I met Leo from Taichung, he was going on a solo motorcycle trip around Taiwan. His goal is to backpack around Europe and he was using the motorcycle trip to get over his shyness. He set up a goal to meet 100 people during his trip and he took polaroid pictures with each person he met on the road. I was glad to be one of his new friends.
Another cool person I met was Mr. Wong, a retired teacher from Guandong, we both took the Taiwan Trip bus and when we chatted, I felt like I had a personal philosopher and history teacher! Mr. Wong was young at heart and a lifelong educator. He enthusiastically showed me pictures of his family and told me I was the same age as his son. He called me “Little Lee” (小李), and insisted to buy me ice cream lol. When we visited the train museum, he told me history stories and recited a few poems. He also asked me to take pictures of him walking on the train tracks so that he could send the photos to his family. He told me that life was like the four seasons, if the first 30 years was spring, the next 30 years would be summer, and now he was in his autumn years. To him, he liked the liveliness of his summer years, but he liked his autumn years better because of the maturity and harvest of hard work. Before we part, he gave me a round pebble that he picked up from the lake and told me to think about how every drop of water channeled to the lake and how our worries were so small compared to all the big things happening around us.