10.0 Jiaoxi homestay 礁溪民宿 + 五峰旗瀑布

Next morning, the home stay lady boss fetch us to the Hualien Train Station( 花蓮車站). We brought a ticket to Jiaoxi Station (礁溪車站). Ticket Price NT$243 for 1 hour and 20 minute train ride. We pay most of our Train Tickets using credit cards.

There are very beautiful seaside views along the journey to Jiaoxi.




Jiaoxi township is famous for hot springs. Almost all hotel or even house have hot spring inside the building itself. At the entrance of the train station, there is a public hotspring for soaking our feets.

I booked this hotel<青禾溫泉家> which cost us NT$1600 per night. Free transport from the train station to the hotel. We got some information of some tourist place and we rent a bike (NT$350 24 hours + fill back the oil tank) to go around. I would not recommend renting a bike because it is not a small town as in Kenting. It is very big town and when we travel from place to place, we tend to get lost on the way.

First, we visited the Wufongci waterfall (五峰旗瀑布)

Yummy yummy BBQ sausage.



Saw this funny road sign on the road.

9.5 Hualien East Coast Trip 花东海岸之游 Part 2

After a series of seaside visit, we then reach the AnTong Hotspring Hotel (安通温泉). The hot spring does smells hydrogen sulfide a little bit. It’s very good for external injury and skin disease.The temperature of hot spring is about 66 C (150F) You can either select a public or private hot spring area. It is so refreshing after a hot bath of hotspring at there...

Ruishui farm (瑞穗牧场).

Ruishui farm is famed for its fresh and delicious milk extracted daily from the cows. The cheese made from the Ruishui milk certainly is irresistible.

光復糖廠 Guangfu Sugar Refinery

There is always room for ice cream and the Hualien Sugar Factory. It was once the industrial focus of the Rift Valley and now currently a tourist center that is worth a visit. There is a small lake and lots of local food to grab.

Our dinner was famous pork leg (满妹猪脚). It is located at a rural area yet there is so many people. For those who loves pork leg ~ you must try this~!

Its getting dark and we have a small walk at Nanbin Seashore Park (南滨公园夜市). A very small night market beside the beaches. Later we pass by this Soya bean shop and have some tofufa before we head back to the homestay.

9.4 Hualien East Coast Trip 花东海岸之游 Part 1

We took a day trip at Hualien East Coast Trip 花东海岸之游. Hualien public transport is not convenient. You can either hire a driver to drive you around places to visit or take a travel bus package.

At the early morning, we visit the Chishingtan Beach (七星潭) . It is located at the north of Hualien City (follow the bike path from Nanbin Seashore Park). No swimming and beach activities on this beach, as the tides and currents are quite dangerous, the bottom drops off steeply.

The beach does not have much sand, mostly pebbles. I heard the pebbles are from wash down from the mountains of Taroko Gorge.

There is a Chishing Fish Museum (七星柴魚博物館) at near the beach. We didn't visit the museum as we are not interested. One thing good in having a personal driver is we can select those places we wanted to visit.

The driver later drive us up to a small hill where we can see the whole Hualien City view.

Here is a beautiful view when we are driving down the hill.

This is the Hualien Ocean Park. It's something similar to the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium at Kenting. Adding more features such as ferris wheel,cable car, and some theme park. The ticket price is NT$890. We didn't visit this park as we think it will be more or less the same as in Kenting.

Along the road, we saw alot of these bicyclist along the road.



Next is our favorite spot -Stone Stairs Beach (石梯坪). The beach are form by rocks that looks like stairs. Love the blue waters of the beach.




There some small lakes around the stones, we enjoy viewing the small fishes and seaweeds around the small lakes. The water are crystal clear.

The current of the sea is just so powerful. See how the water splash on the gap of the rocks ~

There are some workers collecting sea shells on the dangerous beach. Please do not go so near to the beach. We even saw some news reporting people die because of this powerful sea.







Next we reach the Long Rainbow Bridge. During summer, the water will rise and they will have 4 hours of river rafting trip from the hills down to this bridge.

We now reach the Eight Goddess Cave八仙洞. We were too lazy to visit every caves. Instate we visit the one that is more nearer to us.

Our New Home

Got the keys of our new home on April 2010 after we came back from Taiwan. Hooray!~

I was super excited and started to read thru forums and website for my new home design and layout.

The renovation fees are just a bomb to us.

A double story landed house, full renovation + design will cost RM80K-RM120K. How could I afford that? We do not have much left after the down payment of the house.

So we decide to keep the renovation to be the most basic ones, such as kitchen cabinets, masteroom cabinets, windows grills, lights and lamps, fan, air con ...

Will be adding more and more from time to time.

I'm still thinking what style and concept for my new house.

There is so much hidden cost in buying a house. Even the transfer name of TNB (electrical) cost us RM800.

Although we are spending and spending much of our hard earn money, but it's worth to have a home of our own, a place to rest.

Something more exciting that I will have a work room aka craft room~!

9.3 Hualien Homestay 花蓮民宿

The journey from Taroko Terrence Visitor Cente to Hualien (花蓮) is 30 minutes car ride. At Hualien, we stay at the driver's home called 湘荷居.

The driver contact person is Mr Wei (Tel: 0975-337234). Msn: park884734@hotmail.com

It is located at somewhere near the railway station. NT$800 per night which is consider very cheap for weekends. They even serve us simple breakfast. The owner was good enough to gave us a 6 bed room for our 2 days stay at Hualien.

Later the driver brought some onion cakes (葱油饼) for us. They claim to be the famous food in town. To me it tasted like roti telur. Oh my ~~ it was very tasteless and I missed the curry that we dip for the roti telur.

Dinner time:

The driver took us to this famous baozi and dumpling shop - 公正包子，水饺. Taste great. I even see a couple eating 2 dozen of baozi and dumpling. We just ate some as we are leaving our stomach for other foods. We enjoy the chicken nuggets (香酥鸡) along the street too.

Hualien is a smaller town compare to Taipei city.

9.2 Taroko Gorge National Park(太鲁阁国家公园) Part 2

Next we reach Jiucyudong tunnel (Tunnel of 9 Turns) 九曲洞. It's a walking path for visitor to enjoy the beautiful scene of the hills, cliffs, narrow valley and rivers.

Almost three quarter of the walking path is close due to path is not too safe as anytime the rocks might fall down. For safety precautions, we have to wear a helmet in the 15 minutes walk at the Tunnel of 9 Turns.



At Yanzihkou (Swallow Grotto) 燕子口, we can see small holes around the rock cliffs where those are the home of the swallow. The driver stop us a the main entrance and there is a walking path for visitors to walk along.

We can have a closer view of the rocks, cliff and the rivers here.

Another destination: Changchun (Eternal Spring Shrine )長春祠. Another beautiful landscape that we can only take picture from far.

We reach Taroko Terrence Visitor Center around 3.30pm which is the last stop of our Taroko Trip. Taroko Terrence Visitor Center consist of exhibition areas, such as Our Environment Hall, Humans in the Environment, Environmental Education Hall and Special Exhibition Room, and providing educational and travel related information.
There is a performance of the native people on the park even it was raining.

We can see the map on one of the exhibition hall that we drove a long way to reach our next station: HuaLian (花蓮)