Day 4 - 31st May 2012 - Hualien

We had pre-booked our train tickets to Hualien 2 weeks before this day to secure a seat in the train from Taipei Main station.

We departed early in the morning at around 9am to catch a 3 hr ride from Taipei to Hualien. I love train rides so this was something that I was looking forward to.

We were early and many pple at the station started to chat with us, knowing that we are tourists

Best friends want to sit together

Even their dads did so too

Our Minsu owners offer free shuttle from the train station and we were sent to our accomodation for the next 2 nights in only 15mins time. The place was lovely, minsu in Taiwan is a self-owned breakfast and bed inn and its a common accomodation choice for visitors.

Our minsu homepage
http://www.cypresshouse.com.tw/english/E.htm

We were supposed to have a cycling trip around the city on our first day in Hualien but the rain has not stopped since morning. So we decided to have our lunch first at one of the local food stall which is about 10mins walk from the minsu. I almost fainted on the stench just outside the food store as there was a sewage maintenance ongoing along the road at the same time.

The food was not too bad, but I didn't like the environment and the crowd there. Nontheless, having stayed 3 days in Taiwan, I have gotten a little used to this.

After lunch, we continued to be stucked in the minsu due to the rain. The boys were kept occupied with Uno game and beyblades. While adults were given good choices of cable TV in the minsu to catch up on movies.

When can we go out to play?

Finally, the rain were not as heavy at night and we decided to check out the city's night market. We had been briefed by the minsu owners which stalls to try and they were really good!
This one is my boys favorite - barbaque food (we ordered 2 rounds in total). Their sauce is very unique.

There are games in the night market to keep the boys happy (our caps were useful to move around in the night market to fend the rain).

Ethan saw sushi and asked to have some

The famous coffin toast

There were many flavours, we chose the honey chicken one

The boys continue to play wherever they are

Catching the beer game

PaPa decided to let the boys have a go at some of the games after dinner and Ethan enjoyed this beer game alot.

We retired back into our minsu after dinner and slept early for the next day trip out to Taroko Gorge.