Taiwan 2018 Day 3 & 4 : Yi Lan -> Jimmy Park -> R.Den Dessert Factory -> Village Churrasco -> KaVaLan Distillery -> Su Ao Township ->Hua Lian -> Qi Xing Tan -> Taroko National Park ->

Day 3 :

Good morning!

Breakfast in the hotel and time to check out and continue exploring the Yilan.

We are taking bus somewhere today?

Haha! Nope! We are not taking bus today but we are actually at the Jimmy Park ( 幾米公園 ) of Yilan!

Address : No. 240號, Section 1, Yixing Road, Yilan City, Yilan County, Taiwan 260

Operating Hours : 24 Hours

The Jimmy Park is actually name after a famous pictorial book writer, Jimmy.

Everything in the park actually appear in the book before!

Since the park is quite empty, let's have some group photos with their main character!

There is a souvenir shop there too.

This Yilan train station is also famous due to it's exterior design! So nice right?

Address : No. 240號, Section 1, Yixing Road, Yilan City, Yilan County, Taiwan 260

We ended the park tour at this Dui Dui Dang Sen Lin ( 丟丟噹森林 ) and while waiting for Ming Ge to come, we did some 'tourism campaign photo' for this park! Haha!

Address : No. 236, Section 1, Yixing Road, Yilan City, Yilan County, Taiwan 260

Operating Hours : 24 Hours

And last campaign photo with Ming Ge before we head off to next destination.

Next, it's shopping time!

This Ju Zhi Xiang ( 橘之鄉 ) sells all the plum and Kimquat drinks.

Address : No. 33號, Meizhou 2nd Road, Yilan City, Yilan County, Taiwan 260

Operating Hours : 8.30am to 5.30pm ( Monday to Sunday )

Free Kimquat drinks outside to try! It's cold outside and a small cup of warm Kimquat drink is the best!

Next will be the getting some freshly bake honey cakes and biscuit. from R. Dem Dessert Factory ( 亞典蛋糕 ).

Address :  260, Taiwan, Yilan County, Yilan City, No. 122, Meizhou 2nd Rd, Yilan City Yilan County, Taiwan 260

Not a fan of cake so I didn't get anything but instead, this ice cream attracted me! Why? What so special about the ice cream?

Nothing special! Just find it cute when they decorate the ice cream into a bunny and I always wanna have some ice cream during cold weather! Haha! Yes I'm weird!

Can't remember who bought the Tiramisu but look at the cute packaging!

And next, local snacks from this Yao Kao Shan Zhan Village ( 宜蘭窯烤山寨村 )! Basically all of them are next to each other so we just walk from one shop to the other.

Address : No. 140號, Meizhou 2nd Road, Yilan City, Yilan County, Taiwan 260

Operating Hours : 9am to 7pm ( Monday to Sunday )

Wishing pond outside so how can we miss it right?

Looking at this container, can you guess where are we now?

By looking at these beautiful hand painted container, you will think it has to do with some wine or alcohol right?

And yes! We are now at the KaVa Lan Whisky Distillery ( 金車酒廠 )!
Only today, I get to know that KaVa Lan Whisky is actually from Taiwan and is the first whisky maker in Taiwan!

Address : 264, Taiwan, Yilan County, Yuanshan Township

Exciting shopping time for Teresa only! Haha!
Oops! I think I make her sounds like she is some alcoholic!

I got nothing to do so I walk around looking at those unique packaging! Look at this! Like a test tub ya?

And this Whisky cost 10000NTD ( SG$470 )!!
Not the most expensive I know but still...

Another unique bottle that I found! Price is so much more cheaper then the previous one.

Why are we the fish port?

Of course we are here for some seafood lunch!
Our initially plan was to eat at another seafood restaurant but it is close so Ming Ge just randomly pick this restaurant, Ah Dun ( 阿敦海鮮小吃 ) for us.

Address : No. 51號, Yugang Road, Su'ao Township, Yilan County, Taiwan 270

Operating Hours : 10am to 9pm ( Monday to Sunday )

One thing we like is this place is not flooded with tourist so at least we know they will not charge us too unreasonable price.

Noodle is not bad but less salt will be even better!

This sotong ( squid ) ball is very nice and with sotong bites inside!

This is not bad too but more shells then meat!

After lunch, coffee on the go!

Ming Ge suddenly ask us to alight the car and ask us to follow him into this school!
School? Can we go in like this? No need approval or register?

Address : No. 209, Section 3, Suhua Road, Nan'ao Township, Yilan County, Taiwan 272

Ok... I guess all this approval and registration only happens in Singapore school because we literately just walk in like that and there is no gate at all!

This school is just so pure and quiet.

  When we are there, the students are all having lesson, we didn't want to disturb them so we didn't walk any further in but just took some picture outside and left the school.

Toilet break at the Dong Ao train station!

BUT the toilet is soooooooooo smelly that I stop and stand outside the train station! I rather not go to the toilet... Seriously...

Do you find this place familiar? If you did read my past post, you should know where we are now and where are we heading to.

Here I'm back to Cingshuei Cliff ( 清水斷崖  ) again!
I was here 3 years ago?

Address : 972, Taiwan, Hualien County, Xiulin Township

Seeing us at this Cingshuei Cliff meaning we are finally now in Hualien!

Checked in our hotel at Hualien, Chun Mure ( 春沐七星潭渡假海岸旅店民宿 ).

Website : http://chunmurehotel.com.tw/

Address : No. 69號, Qixing Street, Xincheng Township, Hualien County, Taiwan 971

The lift is so small that it fits just the four of us and our luggage ( stack up nicely ) only.

Our room are at the highest level!

Tada! That's our living room!

Bed room 1...

Bedroom 2...

Our super big bathroom!

And a super big bath tub!

Shower area in the big bathroom...

View from the bathroom.

Nespresso coffee provided too!

We are done exploring our room and we went down to Ming Ge's room to have a look at his room.

So his room for 1 person is very simple buy nice too!

Out for dinner now!

Ming Ge brought us to this famous oyster omelette place, Hai Pu ( 海埔蚵仔煎 ) to try their omelette.

Address : No. 88號, Ziyou Street, Hualien City, Hualien County, Taiwan 970

Operating Hours : 5.30pm to 11pm ( Monday to Sunday )

Here comes the oyster omelette! I don't eat oyster but I do like to eat their omelette! Haha!

After having the oyster omelette, we walk over to the Hualien cultural and creative industries park  ( 花蓮文化創意產業園區 ) .

Address : No. 144號, Zhonghua Road, Hualien City, Hualien County, Taiwan 970

Operating Hours : 11am to 9pm ( Monday to Sunday )

There is performance on the small stage but too bad not alot of people around to support him.

Inside the culture and creative park, there is 2 area where you can buy their creative items.

Buying some bath bomb for our bath tub later!

Handmade leather products.

Very vintage and local items selling here but it's close so we couldn't go in to have a look.

Another area for shopping.

Look at this hand made soap!

And the eating continues after a short shopping.

Ming Ge told us this Dai Ji Bian Shi  ( 戴記扁食 ) sells very nice dumpling ( a.k.s wanton in Singapore ).

Address : No. 120號, Zhonghua Road, Hualien City, Hualien County, Taiwan 970

Operating Hours : 10am to 8.30pm ( Closed on Wednesday )

Closed every Wednesday.

Our wanton is here! Ok, not very fantastic but not bad too. We can get this type of wanton everywhere in Singapore.

Freshly hand made everyday.

Just oyster omelette and dumpling is definitely not enough for us! So we walk to the Feng Kuang Rou Chuan Wang ( 花蓮肉串王 ) ( direct translate by me as Crazy Kebab... Haha! ) store which is just 2 or 3 stall beside Dai Ji.

Address : No. 122-1, Zhonghua Road, Hualien City, Hualien County, Taiwan 970

Operating Hours : 4pm to 12am ( Monday to Sunday )

Just Kebab is enough? Of course NOT! Haha! We order other food from the stall beside the crazy kebab stall too!

These kebab is surprisingly yummy! They just look so normal but they all taste so good!

Finally, lastly, we had some noodle and a big plate of stir fried vegetable to end our dinner!

And the way we eat gives Ming Ge a shock of his life! Haha! He rise a white flag to show that he wanna surrender and ask us when can we stop eating! Haha! We really laugh so hard when he told us he never seen girls eat so much like us! But we really think that we didn't eat a lot today!

Time to digest our food again so Ming Ge brought us to this old railway park ( 舊鐵道文化商圈 ).

Address : Lane 551, Zhongzheng Road, Hualien City, Hualien County, Taiwan 970

And then he brought us to try this Gan Guan ( 鋼管紅茶,  a.k.a steel pole or also the pole that use for pole dancing ) red tea.

Address : No. 201號, Zhongshan Road, Hualien City, Hualien County, Taiwan 970

See those steel pole? This place is well know for their tea that flow from those steel pole.

Quite a wide choice.

I had their pearl milk tea but find it not fantastic compare to those famous milk tea chain out there. The taste of the tea leaves is not strong and pearl is not as chewy as CoCo ( Taiwan's milk tea brand ).

They have Guang Nan wholesale here too!

We told Ming Ge that we are still hungry so we wanna get some bread from the bakery and he drop us outside this Louisa café ( 路易．莎咖啡 ) so that he can get his coffee and we can get our bread from the bakery ( a few shop ) next to the cafe.

Address : No. 79-3號, Minguo Road, Hualien City, Hualien County, Taiwan 970

Operating Hours : 9am to 10pm ( Monday to Sunday )

Actually we are not hungry at all! It's Ming Ge's birthday tomorrow so we wanted to get him a cake so we lie to him! Haha!

Back to the hotel and we decided to go to Ming Ge room to surprise him!

Surprise succeed!
Happy Birthday to Ming Ge!

Bathtub party!

  My happy loot today! I always buy a Porter International bag from Taipei but this time round I bought it in Hualien because I'm afraid that I might not get this design in Taipei and also they will deduct the tax on the spot so I need not go to the airport to get my tax refunded!

 

 

 

Day 4 :

Good morning!

Our hotel is a small hotel so there is not place for breakfast so they actually give us voucher to redeem our free breakfast at this local breakfast restaurant call Hong Ye ( 弘爺漢堡 ) .

Address : No. 121-2, Huaxi Rd, Hualien City, Hualien County, Taiwan 970

Operating Hours : 6am to 1pm ( Monday to Sunday )

Cute cup!

And again we tried different type of breakfast. Their breakfast are actually in a very big portion and taste is not bad too!

After a super full breakfast, time for the beach!

CiSingTan ( 七星潭 ) is a famous beach at Hualien.

Address : No. 5號, Lane 79, Qixing Street, Xincheng Township, Hualien County, Taiwan 971

I didn't get a chance to come Qi Xing Tan last time when I came to Hualien and glad that we made it this time!

Beaches are always with fine sand but the unique part of Qi Xing Tan is there is no sand here! This beach is all filled with pebbles in all size and colour!

Warning : I'm going to flood you all with all our group photo! Haha

Can see we are trying to do ' L.O.V.E'?

The beach is so beautiful that we can't stop taking picture here!

When you travel with the right group of people, you enjoy every silly moment! Haha!

Time to check out our hotel.

After checked out, Ming Ge drove us further down of the Qi Xing Tan.

Few van selling some snacks there.

There is more rocks here compare to the previous area where we were at.

Photo time again!

We can't take too many proper picture so here comes all the silly picture again! Haha! But we enjoyed being silly!

The journey continues...

Back to Duan Shui again but another side and nearer to the cliff.
Not on purpose to specially come back here but we need to pass by here so Ming Ge ask us to take some picture here, so we did!

We had some special lunch today! Haha! Guess where?
Yes! 7-11! We didn't have a lot of time so we get ourselves some quick bite in 7-11.

Guan Dong Zhu to add on our meal!

7-11 in Taiwan do have lots of nice food!

Now 7-11 is giving out this hello kitty stamps with every 50NTD ( SG$2.3 ).
What can we do with all this stamp?

Tada! We can use the stamps to change to this! 6 stamp and top up 129NTD ( SG$5.80 ) for a random Le Creuset X Hello Kitty bowl.

Look familiar again? Yes! I'm back to this beautiful Taroko National Park ( 太魯閣國家公園 )!

Address : 972, Taiwan, Hualien County, Xiulin Township, 富世村富世291號

Operating Hours : 8.30am to 5pm ( Monday to Sunday )

Water is slightly more blue then the previous time I came because at that time, Hualien just had typhoon, therefore the water is more muddy.

Helmet collecting station to collect our helmet.

Toilet break first. The moment Ming Ge stop us at this rest point for toilet break, I straight away told him I found the road ( to this rest point ) look familiar, looks like I've been here before but actually I didn't come to this rest point before. But when we alight the car and walk to the toilet, I saw a signboard showing the direction to Leader Hotel! Leader Hotel is the hotel that I stayed before during my previous trip! Omg I can't believe I can still remember the way there!

Toilet break, helmet on, ready to go!

The Swallow hole.

Finally I'm not seeing greyish ( muddy ) water!

Very fast it's dinner time again! We just randomly pick this Japanese BBQ restaurant, Shi Wu ( 石屋燒肉火鍋 ) , to celebrate Ming Ge's birthday but it was fully book today.

Address : No. 644之2號, Zhongzheng Road, Hualien City, Hualien County, Taiwan 970
Telephone for reservation : +886 3 835 2311

Operating  Hours : 11.30am to 3pm, 5pm to 11pm ( Monday to Friday )
11.30am to 3.30pm, 5pm to 11pm ( Saturday and Sunday )

Eh? You must be thinking didn't I said it was full house? How come we manage to eat here?
The story goes like this...
When we are told  that it was full house, I randomly took their name card ( my travel habit ) and left the place, drove back to the town area where we were yesterday, to see if we could find other place to celebrate but our heart somehow stays in Shi Wu, so we wanna try our luck, we give the restaurant a call to check if we could have a table like in 30 mins later and they say YES! Luckily I took their name card! Omg! We are totally in joy and we straight away fly ( I mean drives of course... ) back to Shi Wu!

So basically this place is a buffet style! 499NTD ( SG$22.70 ) is a very reasonable price for Japanese BBQ buffet isn't it? Many dish to choose from too!
 Oh ya! There is discount for birthday person so Ming Ge get his discount for this meal!

Let's eat!!!

Look at those prawn! Yummy!

Steamboat included too!

Free flow of ice cream too!

Haha we had some BBQ mash mellow too!

Guess what is this? At first we totally have no idea what is this, after asking the staff we get to know it's rice cake and we suppose to BBQ it too.

So we follow the instruction...

After BBQ, the rice cake become so soft and chewy, dipped into the condense milk and peanut...
OMG! It's so yummy that we ordered a few more plate of this rice cake! Haha!

After a yummy and happy dinner, finally we reached our home for tonight, Hai Yue B&B ( 海月民宿 )!

Address : 974, Taiwan, Hualien County, Shoufeng Township, 176號

The main living room and that lady in this picture is the lady boss of the B&B.

Our room!

Bedroom 1...

Cozy area in bedroom 2...

Bedroom 2...

Bathroom...

Balcony with sea view! Everything is good for the room but the only thing is there is no lift ( of course right? Since it's not a hotel... )  and we had a hard time carrying our luggage up to our room! Haha! We had a good exercise!

Now let me show you all what we have changed in 7-11 today using those Hello Kitty stamps!
Super cute bowl right?! Haha! Although it's random pick, we still manage to get mostly different design but of course we do have some which is the same one too!

Before heading to the bed, we went downstairs to listen to the sound of the sea waves and enjoy the night breeze in the garden!

So relax so good... I wish everyday is like that...

Anyway, good night people!