Ziqiang Night Market and Ye Xiang Dumplings

Like all Taiwanese cities, Hualien has a few night markets. I got a recommendation to go to Ziqiang Night Market, located in the middle of the city on Ziqiang Street. It's relatively small, but has a few lanes of densely packed food vendors.

As I was coming from the long bike ride, I was really thirsty and wanted something hydrating. Thankfully there are three or four highly affordable fruit juice vendors in the market. I asked for a fresh carrot juice with nothing else added. I saw the man juicing up five enormous carrots just for one small cup of sweet juice. It was only 40 TWD, a little more than $1 USD.  

There were some other interesting stands, such as this one selling marshmallow toast. We also saw a pizza place with a real brick oven!

The market is most famous for its BBQ, and there are numerous stalls selling the same product. A variety of foods (chicken, beef, tofu, vegetables) are all skewered on long sticks. You pick what you want, and then put it into a container to take to the checkout. Then all the food gets grilled in the back, and smothered in a thick and sweet sauce. The wait time is incredible - up to two hours, I've heard, for the most popular stall. We had to wait forty minutes. Fortunately, there is an updated queue sign which flashes the number of the order when it is ready.

Sorry for the terrible lighting in these photos! There was a bright red glow over the food from the lights overhead. As you can see, all the prices are clearly marked on each food. I got a stick of beef strips wrapped around green onion, and a skewer of green bell peppers. The sauce was way too thick and sweet - I don't think it's worth it to wait for so long!

Hualien is also famous for its wontons. We went to one of the oldest and most famous establishments called Ye Xiang Dumplings, open for sixty years. Like many restaurants that are famous for one thing, they only serve one item on the menu, and they are fast and efficient.

You order at the front counter, right across from where the experts wrap up the wontons. It's an easy process to order - there is no choice. The only menu item is a bowl of pork wontons. You specify how many bowls you want, and each bowl is $65 TWD (about $2 USD). Then you wait until the server brings it over to your table.

There were plenty of locals and tourists at this restaurant! These people were probably wondering why I was taking a photo of them. Even though a lot of people come here, the turnover rate is so fast that there seemed to be plenty of seating on a weekend lunch.

The wontons arrive in a matter of minutes. My bowl had nine plump wontons. They are so delicious! The meat is tender and flavorful, and lacks those fatty and chewy bits that some dumplings have. The wonton skin is smooth, silky, and really thin. Ye Xiang really has perfected their process over six decades.

We wanted to try their competitor shop, but unfortunately we ran out of time on this trip. Next time! I am still thinking about those wontons. You must try them if you go to Hualien. 

Taroko Gorge and Zhuilu Old Trail

It's good to get an early start when you are in Hualien, in order to make the most of the daylight hours to see all the outdoor sights. We started the morning at around 7am, and look how bright the sun was already! The streets around the train station reminded me of the vintage ideal of an old town in the American West, with the mountains in the background.

We went to Taroko Gorge on the second day, arguably the most popular attraction in the area. It's a national park in Taiwan, with lots of geological features like cliffs, valleys, and rivers. The park is located about an hour away from Hualien, and there are numerous buses that will take you into the gorge. 

We decided to hike the Zhuilu Old Trail - possibly the most challenging of the hikes in the gorge. It's 3 kilometers to the top of the cliff, and the path all the way up is quite steep and rocky. The trail starts at the Swallows Grotto point of Taroko.

We started off the hike quite easily - across a narrow bridge strung across the gorge. 

It's basically all uphill from there! I took some photos of the scenery as we ascended, though most parts of the trail had dense trees and shrubbery that blocked the view. We were lucky, as it was a beautiful breezy morning.

Here below is the 1km point. I felt pretty despondent, as it had already been a really tiring climb and we were only one third of the way up!

I could only hope that the views at the top would be worth the effort. We slowly ascended, one foot at a time, taking multiple breaks for water and snacks to keep up our energy levels. 

Finally, at a little shy of 2 kilometers on our climb, we reached the rocky part that hugged the cliff face.

The path turns a bit narrow but the ground always felt steady underfoot, and there are railings most of the way through for safety. 

I took a shot upwards at the cliff - look at how beautifully blue the sky is!

Here's the 2.8 marker - almost there! The last part of the hike wasn't too bad because of the flat terrain and beautiful views.

The trail actually ends for past the 3.1 kilometers, but when we visited it was closed off. The end is a nice shaded resting area with some benches, a good place to recuperate before starting the hike down.  

Finally we made it back to the starting point! I felt so good to be back on level ground after the difficult way back down to the bottom.

It's quite a difficult hike, and it took us perhaps 4 or 5 hours, including break times. I think it's worth it if you enjoy hiking and have some endurance, and want to see great views from the top of the gorge! There are other interesting sights in Taroko as well, and some decent but easier hikes. Tour buses usually stop at most of the popular locations, so you just need to make sure you get the bus times to plan out your day. One last note - for the Zhuilu Old Trail, you will need to apply for a hiking permit ahead of time in order to be let onto the trail.

Qixingtan Beach

Last week I went on a four-day trip to Hualien, a city on the east coast about two hours outside of Taipei. Hualien is most noted for its nature and varied geological formations, included a beautiful pebbled beach called Qixingtan. 

The beach is along the coast and can be accessed by a beautiful winding bike path. We rented bikes in the city for 150TWD ($5 USD) for the entire day. Then we rode the bikes in search of the bike path that would take us to the beach. 

Hualien is a relatively quieter and laid back city, so it is not too difficult to get around by bike, even for an inexperienced rider like myself. The bike path itself is glorious - wide curves, gentle hills, smooth pavement, along an interesting and diverse scenery of fields, agriculture, coast, and industry. 

Perhaps November is a low season for tourists in this part of Taiwan, but we found the path devoid of other cyclists, providing us with the freedom and space to go at our own pace through the hills. Eventually, the path leads down to the coastline.

 

Even on this grey and cloudy day, the water of the Pacific Ocean was breathtakingly clear and turquoise blue. It was such a peaceful scene, with barely any people in sight. 

   

In the distance you can see the mountains, shrouded by layers of clouds.

Closer down by the beach, you'll see that the ground is composed of smooth blue and grey pebbles, rather than sand. 

 The pale pebbles offered such a nice contrast to the blue waters.

Swimming is not allowed; the waves are really strong and come up unexpectedly strong. This crashing wave nearly caught us unprepared! Thankfully, I jumped back in time to avoid getting too wet.

If you ride the bike trail along the coast, going south towards Hualien, you soon come across some really interesting landscapes, like these old industrial mills. You get to have an unique look at the different parts of the city which are rarely seen in a normal tour. We passed by some old cows grazing at one point.

This row of nice palm trees were ironically neatly placed in front of a large landfill.

The bike path transitions into a concrete and drab cityscape, and then later enters a nice harbor area and a large park with more people.

We probably covered 30 kilometers on the bikes during the first day, well worth the cost of the bikes. It was definitely the longest distance I've ever ridden a bike at one time, and while it was immensely tiring, it made for a memorable experience and it was a fun way to get to know a new city. 

Yeliu Geopark

We finally made another day trip out from Taiwan! We went to the cape of Yehliu in the north. It's near the city of Keelung, and the coastal area is full of ships and harbors. The bus ride from Taipei took only about an hour.

We got off the bus at one of the fishing harbors in the area. Colorful ships floated around in very dirty waters. There is a large fish market in the area, and I do hope they get their fish from waters further out from the polluted shores!

The entire town near the water appeared a bit run down, and the cloudy weather on that day contributed to the grimy feel. I've noticed that a lot of the smaller Taiwanese towns outside of Taipei tend to have a more industrial feel and aren't as modern or well-maintained as the capital.

The main attraction in the area for visitors is a large geopark with cliffs and interesting rock formations, called Yehliu Geopark. I paid $80 TWD (~$3 USD) for a ticket. There were so many busloads of tourists at this park that I wondered why I hadn't heard of it before.

These spires of rock take on interesting shapes. This one is called the Princess's Head II. Do you see the shape, with the hair pouffed up in the back? There is also a Queen's Head.

The park reaches out to the sea on a peninsula. You can walk along the path with white foamy waves crashing alongside the rocks.

There are so many more rock formations. Tourists like to pose with the different rocks, but there are lots of strict security guards in the area who will yell at people who touch the rocks and tell them to stop. I guess people's clumsiness can erode and destroy rocks just as much as water can.

I really enjoyed watching the waves. The creamy foaminess of the water as it collided with the rocks reminded me of a milky latte.

The sides of the cliffs showed off layers of colorful sediment. It reminded me of the geological processes I learned in high school Earth Science class.

I went down into the area with the different rock spires. It was really difficult to take photographs without people in them, since tourists were climbing all over the place and getting yelled at by the security guards.

Yehliu Geopark is a really unique attraction close to Taipei. It was a fun and inexpensive day trip, and we capped off the day with a visit to a large night market in nearby Keelung before heading back to Taipei.