Hows about... Hualien?

There is a town on the eastern side of Taiwan called Hualien.
It probably wouldn't be much of anything,
but due to it's close proximity to one of the natural wonders of the world,
it is quite the bustling metropolis.

For our 2nd three day weekend,
we visited this town,
and we planned to visit the nearby Taroko Gorge.
(That's the natural wonder I was talking about.)
This plan was foiled when the Gorge was closed because of rain.
We were only able to hike a few of the lower trails.
It was still incredible!

In order to get to Hualien from Feng Yuan,
we had to take a train down to Xinwuri -

Where we walked to the high speed railstation -

[That blue thing is the track for the high speed rail]

Where we caught the high speed rail to Taipei -

It was actually Banqiao, not Taipei...

But anyway,

There we walked to a different platform -

 To catch yet another train to Hualien.

[There were some stunning views on this ride.]

[Unfortunately... standing room only...]

And then we had to walk around a bit to find our hostel -

But we made it eventually!

Here is what our hostel looked like:

[Our room]

[The View from our Room]

 My first order of business after we checked into our hostel

and ditched our ridiculously heavy bags

was to get a new camera.

Because mine was...

Incompetent.

To say the very least.

So I got this one -

 

It is... So cool.

You could probably tell that from my face.

Anyway.

Moving on.

So because of this nifty new camera,

I have a ton of pictures.

Far too many for one post.

So, that is all for now...

But there will be more to come soon!


Before I go,
I'm sure you are wondering the reason for this three day weekend...

Right here -





October 10th
[That's 10/10 day, in case you didn't catch that]
is Taiwan's birthday!

Happy [extremely late] Birthday Taiwan!!
And Thank You for the holiday!