Breath of fresh air (literally) in Hualien

We took an overnight trip to Hualien, which is a city outside of Taipei on the eastern coast of Taiwan. This region is breathtakingly beautiful, and is supposedly the place where the Portuguese sailors who first explored the area shouted the words "Formosa!", which means "beautiful" (or something like "well-shaped", as Marco explained) in Portuguese. Hence the original name for Taiwan: Formosa. One of the attractions here is Taroko Regional Park, and the area is also the native home of the Taroko people, one of the several aboriginal peoples of Taiwan.

We stayed at Crossing the Rainbow Bridge bed & breakfast, a "homestay" owned by a Taroko gentleman & his Taiwanese wife. There were also two resident dogs, "Ati" ("Little Brother", although she was a girl) and "Muffin". Upon arrival that afternoon, the hotel provided bicycles for us to ride to the Taroko Regional Park visitors center. They also provided us with afternoon tea, followed by a traditional Taroko dinner with all of the B&B visitors (who were all from Singapore). The owner had ferried the four of us in his car, and he took us to a shop afterwards to pick up some local Hualien pastries & mochis & of course, the local wines.

After a lovely alfresco breakfast, we went on a private tour with an English-speaking guide, who took us on an all-day tour of the park area. We learned from our guide that the B&B owner is actually a very well-known and highly-regarded Taroko member who has founded a lot of community services & organizations, has been highly-educated & a principal for 30 years and married outside of his group to a Taiwanese woman (all of which are very unusual for a Taroko minority), and has even spoken in front of the UN regarding minority issues. We didn't see him again that morning because he had left early to be a guest speaker at a university conference. Jeez... if only we knew what an importang guy he was, we would have asked him for a picture. And to think, all we did was ask him "do you know where we can get some booze around here?"

HIGHLIGHTS OF HUALIEN & TAROKO REGIONAL PARK:

• Discovering all sorts of crazy/cool-looking marble, quartz, and granite stones at Cingshui Cliff beach
  
• Walking the Shakadang Trail and wandering its riverbed... made of MARBLE
  
• Watching the birds swoop around the Swallow Grotto
• Lunch of indigenous Taroko foods at Buluowan Village hotel
• Seeing the Cihmu Bridge & the crown atop Frog Rock
• Crossing a swaying suspension bridge, Indiana Jones style
• Taking the rail equivalent of the "chicken bus": on the train ride back, our car also had several "country bumpkins" who spoke loudly, acted rudely, and snorted/spat their snot rockets without shame or aim. Gross gross grossness all around.
  

Pictures can be found HERE.