Chising Tan Beach Area

Taroko National Park -  The last stop of our Taroko day tour was Chising Tan Beach Area.  This is beach is full of stones and we picked some beautiful stones back to Singapore.

Pax sitting on the beach

Beautiful Beach

Eternal Spring Shrine

Taroko National Park -  Our next stop, Eternal Spring Shrine was built in the memory 250 workers who lost their lives while building a highway through the Taroko Gorge to join the east and west coast of Taiwan. Eternal Spring Shrine is a Zen monastery and has been built close to the waterfall.  It is a Chinese-style structure linked to a bridge, and besides it is a stream that plumments into the river valley below. 
That is what the Eternal Spring Shrine looks like from very afar...

and we are going to walk a distance to this magnificent shrine.

When we reach the Eternal Spring Shrine, it was a sight to behold.  The fresh mountain waters was gushing out from beneath the shrine.

We touched the cool gushing water...

We also walked up the stairs very tiring to the Changuang Temple; and had to quickly rush down to our tour bus.

Tiansiang

Taroko National Park - Our 4th Stop - Tiansiang (lunch stop).  About 19km from Taroko and at an elevation of 450 meters and the former home of the Tabido, a group of Taroko tribes.   Its name commemorates Wen Tian-Xiang, who lived in the 13th century and was the last prime minister of the Song Dynasty.

Tiansiang visitor centre

The original lovely Pudu suspension bridge was reconstructed into concrete in 2003 due to the safety reasons

Tiansiang Suspension Bridge

Tiansiang Suspension Bridge

Tianfeng Pagoda

Outside Silks Place Taroko - the only 5-star hotel situated in Taroko National Park. 

Taroko National Park

Hualien - We had breakfast provided by the Hotel and it was simple and the food was cold, had to ask the server to reheat some of the food.  The Taroko tour began @ 8:30am with the min-bus waiting outside the Hotel.   The tour cost NT750 per person w/o lunch; below 12 is NT650.   The bus driver is also the tour guide - very productive.

Susan wanted some fruits and so the bus driver stopped by one of the fruit stalls along the way to the Taroko National Park.

Choosing bananas

Taroko Gorge is carved by the Liwu River through marble mountains, forming spectacular canyons whose precipitous cliffs are draped with waterfalls and overhung with lush jungle vegetation.

The entrance to the Taroko National Park.  The name, Taroko, means "magnificent and beautiful". Long ago a Truku tribesman saw the beauty of the azure Pacific when he walked out of the gorge. On seeing the magnificent scene, he cried "Taroko!". And so it became the name of the place.

My family

Our min-bus

Iconic Tarako Entrance

The next stop is the Taroko National Park Visitor Centre.

Taroko National Park visitor centre

The visitor centre is also a good place to collect all the maps of the location.

At all railway stations, bus stops, visitor centre there is always a stamp or chop area for adults and children to stamp or chop iconic symbol onto paper or book which they brought along.  My youngest son happened to bring along a small book and by the end of the trip it was filled with iconic symbol of Taiwan and places that we visited. 

Taroko Dam

The bus driver stops here to collect safety helmets for us to prevent falling rocks from hurting us.  The safety helments are provided free of charge to all visitors to the park.  You will see one of the workers disinfecting the helment, cleaning the helmet and another packing into the pink bags for distribution.

2nd stop area - Pulowan Recreation Centre....my son busy stamping on this book.  Lots of stamps.

It was a beautiful and sunny day...3rd Stop - Swallow Grotto Trail.   There are 2 Swallow Grotto Trails - Big and Small.  The bus driver stoped at the Big Swallow Grotto Trail.   The trail is named such because there are many swallows living and flying around.     We had to wear helmets incase of falling rocks.  

We were fortunate because the Taroko National Park was just opened only 2 days ago because of landslide and falling rocks.   Falling rocks have claimed many lives over the years.  

 http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/local/hualien/2011/10/09/319252/Falling-rocks.htm

Mochi Taiwan

Hualien City - Hualien is famous for its Mochi.  Mochi is it is called 麻糬, Hokkien môa-chî or Mandarin máshu.    It is glutinous rice pounded into paste and then commonly moulded into a shape of ball with stuffings from sesasme seed, red bean, green bean, peanut, etc.

Famous Mochi store near our hotel.

Freshly and daily made and taste delicious - NT10 per mochi ball.

Hualien Delicious Fish Soup

Hualien City - By the time we reach Hualien city and checking into our Hotel, we feeling a bit hungry and so we just walked around the city looking for food.   We came across many restaurant that was  void of patrons.  We walked further and across the road and came across a restaurant that had many patrons and was going a roaring business.  I thought it must be good that locals are eating here, so we walked in and found seats for us. 

This is what I orders, fish stomach soup with hot rice - so fresh and delicious. 

Train bound for Hualien city

Kaohsiung - After a hearty breakfast, we rested in the hotel before heading the Train station to board our train bound for Hualien City @ 1pm.   

Waiting for our train to arrive.   Kaohsiung has an area for female passengers travelling at night.

Here comes our train and it will be a long ride of 5hrs to our destination - Hualien.

Our train cabin and we had reserved seats...

Nice Desert Shop

Kaohsiung - After crossing the ferry from Cijin Island, we ate some desert from a famous desert shop near the ferry termnal. 

This desert shop has unique character with many signatures and graffiti scribbling on their walls and ceilings.

This mango ice shaving desert uses lots of condensed milk and ice shaving were made from milk.  After our desert, we walk to the MRT station and take the sub-way back to Kaohsiung Bus terminal MRT station.

Fun at Cijin Island

Kaohsiung -  We had our hearty complimentary breakfast at Kindness Hotel and the spread was very good.  Today, we set forth walking to Cijin Island, but before that we went to Sanmin street.  It was so crowded with many tourist, with hawkers selling food and many sundry products.

We took the ferry across to Cijin Island from Gushan Ferry terminal....

Ferry to Cijin Island

Scooters and bicycles on the lower deck and passengers on the upper deck.

Images from the deck of the Cijin Ferry.

We arrrived at Cijin Island.

We had a quick lunch and rented a Quad-Tandem bicycle for 3 hours to cycle around the island.  It was so fun.  

We had a map to navigate around the island and we first pass by the Tianhou Temple, then cycled to Cihou Lighthouse

Cihou Fort

View from the Top of Cihou Fort

Cijin Shell Museum

Cijin Seaside Park

We completed 3hrs cycling on the Quad tandem bicyle, laughing at one another.   It was a tiring and fun ride and everyone contributed their energy to the cycle.   When we returned the bicycle we were their last customer before closing shop.

Shop owner packing the bicycle

Cijin is famous for their seafood and we had our dinner there.

A kind of seashell dish