Day 10: 27 August 2016; Taroko National Park, Qi Xing Tan

I don't know if I should say that it was good that we 包车-ed (hired a driver) for 太魯閣國家公園 (Taroko National Park) or not.

Good because this meant less walking to explore the park, and that we could enjoy the air-conditioning in the car occasionally.

However, there are definite cons for this as well.

Firstly, our guide (not the driver) was nothing like a guide at all. Basically she sat in the car throughout the entire trip, and didn't even bother to explain to us about the National Park at various stopovers. I guess her job was literally just to 摆美 (look pretty?). Too bad we're not guys. Lol.

Next, because we had the 'privilege' to enjoy the air-con in the car, this made us rather reluctant to step out into the heat to explore the park. (Note: at that time we went, the weather was really really bad) But of course, we still went on various trails, to not miss out on what Taroko could possibly offer for us.

Moreover, as we had hired the driver for a limited period of time, we felt that we could not thoroughly wander around Taroko Park. We had to leave sufficient time to go to other attractions in the park, and we also had to return to the original place they dropped us off for the journey to continue.

Initially, we had hired the driver (sister of the owner of our apartment) for 1,600 NTD for 6 hours. But due to miscommunication, the 'tour' only lasted for 4 hours and we had to pay 1,500 NTD ??? Evidently our itinerary in the park was shorten, and we were overcharged from what was initially agreed on!! In the end, the owner pro-rated the price and refunded us 375 NTD, hence the cost of hiring a driver for 4 hours became 1,125 NTD. However, missing out on major parts of Taroko National Park was still a big loss to us, and we didn't have a good impression about this place.

With that, complaints aside, these are the places we visited in Taroko National Park, effortlessly:

清水斷崖 (Qingshui Cliff)

清水斷崖

清水斷崖 was entirely a touch-and-go place, where we just took pictures and left. Basically what you see is what you get. You can't get any closer to the cliff and everyone was just taking pictures from the viewing platform.

砂卡礑步道 (Shakadang Trail)

Entrance to 砂卡礑步道 (Shakadang Trail)

Good lighting & wind along the trail

We didn't walk the entire Shakadang Trail as we were afraid that we wouldn't have much time left for the other trails. However, it was a rather cooling walk and we would have continued to the end if not for the time constraint.


長春祠 (Eternal Spring Shrine)

長春祠

Entrance of the trail

Beside this entrance, there is a memorial for the people who lost their lives building bridges in Taroko National Park.

Somewhere along the trail with good lighting

Guess we were unlucky again since we were unable to reach the end of the trail as it was cordoned off due to falling rocks. (This happened to us before when we wanted to hike up to Wufengqi Waterfall.)


七星潭 (Qi Xing Tan)

七星潭

We went back to 七星潭 as it was already dark by the time we reached there yesterday evening. The second trip was definitely worth it though. We thoroughly enjoyed watching the strong waves crash onto the beach each time. XY and I wanted to touch the water (for the sake of it LOL), but we kept hesitating for fear of wetting our shoes hahaha. But in the end we still dipped our hands in it and kept our shoes dry!! (But it was full of stones)

That was all we did for that 4 hours. We went to the touristy places only as our guide claimed that there was nothing else to see in Taroko National Park. Pretty disappointing as I'm sure Taroko has so much more to offer us! If I'm ever going there again, I definitely opt to go by foot! Or maybe to take public buses (that takes forever to arrive).

We had dedicated our entire day for Taroko, and 4 hours was just not enough.

It was only about 2pm and we had no plans for the rest of the day already.

Yesterday, we had already spent most of our time walking along the same street in Hualien and we were already kind of sick of it. Yet, we wandered around Hualien city SO MUCH MORE today, we have no intentions of visiting Hualien anymore except for tomorrow's itinerary.

Ate the famous 包心粉圆 which was super good!! We wanted to eat it again another day, but it was closed and we settled for the sub-standard one, which was really sub-standard. -.-

This is the original one!! Not the next door's.

综合圆 + 焦糖炼乳

Afterwards, we went to Shi Hui's favourite place, called a secondhand bookstore with cats in it. We took quite a while to walk there from the dessert store, but at least the bookstore looks vintage-y and nice! I was bored to death in there, but endured it for the sake of that girl. T.T

Ate an apple while they read their books~

One of the cats in the bookstore

Missed having some Jap food so we had Coco-ichibanya for dinner!

To end the night, we went to 東大門夜市 (Dongdamen Night Market) (变肥#5) to take a look at how it's like, but it is actually 福町夜市 (Fuding Night Market) ???

It was already drizzling when we made our way there, but half way through, it started to rain heavily!! T.T

In the end, we stopped by 福町夜市 to watch some on-going dance competition instead of buying any street snacks there.

Then, XY decided that we should save on the 100 NTD cab fare, so we walked back to our apartment in the heavy rain for 30+ minutes!! Our shoes were totally goners. -.-