Hualien

I've heard so much about the county Hualien (located on the east side of mid-Taiwan), how beautiful it is and that one must go there. So, my and my parents signed up for a one-day-tour to Hualien. Hualien is famous for its marble, mountain landscape and five (out of 14) aboriginal tribes live here. The well-known Amis tribe is one of them.

It was a quite intensive schedule, we took a flight at 7 a.m and then we went by bus to a whole lot of stops. We ride along the mountain trail and visited the Taroko village, Tiansheng and had a traditional aboriginal lunch. The scenery was stunning. On the way back we saw an aboriginal dance performance (I enjoyed it a lot!). We also visited a marble and jade manufacturer and learned how to distinguish between fake and real jade. Finally, we stopped be the Seven Star Lake (which actually is ONE lake) before we took the train back to Taipei. To sum up, despite the short time we saw and did a lot of things and had a great day in Hualien!

The flight to Hualien.

The secret valley, a hiking trail.

At one section we had to wear helmet in case of rock fall.

Natural cavities caused by water in the mountain that now serve as habitat for birds.

The aboriginal meal which included soup, stick rice (inside the bamboo stick), chili, sea weed, roasted sweet potato, grilled fish, mushrooms and tomato salsa. I liked the fish and sweet potato the most.

It was a small garden outside the restaurant and I saw lots of giant spiders (about 8 cm in diameter). There were also many big beautiful butterflies that swirled around.

Traditional aboriginal dance. Obviously, one can hold hands in many different ways...

At the end of the show all people in the audience could go on stage and dance together. Fun!

By the Seven Star lake. Too bad we didn't have time to take a bath... (I still haven't swum in a lake this summer!)