Meeting the beauty of Hualien

Traveling half Taiwan for Balloon festival and meet the beauty of Hualien’s forest and local culture. 

【Preview】

2020 Taitung balloon festival began on 11^th of July, while heading to Taitung for balloons, we encountered the beauty of Hualien’s forest and local culture.

【Itinerary】

• DAY 1
• DAY 2

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Day 1【Walking tour on SinCheng Old Street】

(Suggested duration: 2hrs)

At noon we arrived at SinCheng Old Street for lunch and a short walk in this historic town. Also we had the famous special lemon juice and ice Popsicle in Jiaxing Ice shop which is really helpful to cool down in this hot summer.

In the end of the street there is a beautiful Catholic Church which the shape is inspired from Noah's Ark.  Green ivy is covering the outside wall and there is a small garden in front.  The view is so stunning and it looks like a fairy tale scene.  And the historic Japanese shines, which remains here due to some history factors, doesn’t looks odd which they are sitting here together to look after the SinCheng people, also reminds people the peaceful power of equality and integration.

There is a hipster style grey building call “Etudes” and the owner is Coach Hu, of Sin Cheng elementary school baseball team.  He rent the old buildings and renovates them into a bookstore without selling books.  It provides the residents or visitors to borrow the books and also a place for the baseball team boys to stay after training and after school. Besides the baseball dreams, he also takes care of them on study, daily life and even meals as some of the boys may be lacking of looking after when their parents are busy working in other towns. Coach Hu is teaching them to face the music, embrace the dream and to practice the life.

【Taking a Tafalong tribe tour and tasting the gift from heaven to Amis - Red Glutinous Rice 】

(Suggested duration: 3~4hrs)

Next stop we came to the “Tafalong Red Glutinous Rice House” for a local tour, also to experience making fermented glutinous rice and Mochi (rice cake), and then to enjoy the special Tafalong style dinner.  The tour guide, “Xiao Tien” is a lovely local youth and she presented the culture and history for us humorously and enthusiastically

The name “Tafalong” is from the Amis language means “White crab”, as there are many white crabs in Matai'an River beside this tribe.  You will see the “white crab” symbols in many places here, and also their Mother Sun.

Xiao Tien introduced the woodcarving on the walls of this century-old elementary school “Tafalong elementary school” which is also her alma mater. These woodcarvings carve their legend stories of Tribe warriors and they also made from the abandoned tables of classroom.

Then she showed us the ancestral house of Kakita’an which was built with traditional manners using thatched straw and wood.  This Katita’an house was the main center to lead the tribe’s politics and religions; however it was declined after the society changes.  This house was even collapsed by a typhoon in 1958.  After many years, some locals tried hard to rebuild the house and their own culture and finally completed it in 2006.  This house is also listed as an important “culture landscape” by Ministry of Culture, to be protected and for people to learn more about the local culture and history of Tafalong.

After the tour, we experienced and learned the procedure of making fermented glutinous rice and Mochi(rice cake) with the treasure red glutinous rice.  This red glutinous can only be found here and it is said that it is the gift from the heaven.  The two awns on the rice ear are called as “wing of the angles”.  They planted the red rice in March and collect the harvest in July, once a year.  As it is rare corps, so it was only offered in some importance occasions such as festivals, weddings.

In dinner, we enjoyed the local cuisine with regional vegetables, salty pork and roast chicken, serving with red glutinous rice.  The aroma of the red rice smells good and it is chewier then the normal white rice.  The regional vegetables are fresh and flavorful.  It is my first time to try the bitter eggplant and leaves of Gac, the bitter eggplant is quite bitter in the beginning but it brings a bit vegetable sweet while chewing a while.  Leaf of Gac is also a bit bitter with lot of fibers.  The vegetable soup is light but tasty, and full of nutrition. 

This Tafalong Red Glutinous Rice House is a place where the locals welcome the guest, introducing their story and food to the visitors. 

More details or reservation please visit Tafalong Red Glutinous Rice House FB

Day 2【Dreamlike Yunshanshui Natural Ecological Village】

(Suggested duration: 0.5~1hr)

2nd day’s morning, we keep heading south.  It is really enjoyable driving on the Huatung Highway, on our right hand side is the Central Mountains and left hand side is the Coastal Mountains. One the way we found a famous spot “Yunshanshui natural ecological village” is near-by, so we stop by to find out how beautiful it is.

This park village is a private place but partially open to the public, and it is maintained by a group of B&B owners.  European styles hotel house, clear sky view with mountains and forest are reflecting on turquoise blue artificial lake, which provide a dreamlike stunning view to attract a lot of visitors for photography and check-in.

【As if backing to the busy Forestry village in Japanese period】

(Suggested duration: 3~4hrs)

We headed to the “Lintian Mountain Forestry culture park” which located in Fongling, Hualien.  It was called “Morisaka (means” the slope of forest”) back to the Japanese period and is recorded as the 4th largest forestry center in Taiwan (following the Ali Mountain, Taiping Mountain and Basian Mountain). 

The forestry here began in 1918 and started to build the transportation infrastructures such as railway and cableway to transport the Taiwan yellow cedar (hinoki), Taiwan red cypress (Maniki), also set up some dormitory house and living facilities.  Now in the park, people can also visit the original residence houses, which was originally the dining area, stores, fresh food shop, laundry, medical center, rice shop, ice shop, kindergarten, garages for forestry equipment, Maintenance center.  Here keeps the most-completed and well-reserved forestry historical equipment and buildings that provides visitors a great view of forestry history back to the time.

You will smell slightly fresh cypress aroma while walking in the park and visiting the wood houses along the route.  Some of them display the historic daily relics and forestry machines; some of them are now woodcarving artwork museums and some are transferred as local culture creative shops.  The environment of the park is quiet and cozy.

The most interesting spot for me is the rice shop which the park demonstrates the original rice shop with historic relics and wax figures making visitors easily to understand and see the historical view back to 50 years ago.  In the 40, 50s, it was lacking of supplies on the mountain area, but forestry workers can’t be starving to work.  Therefore the center made the contracts with the rice mills to keep supplying the rice for this Lintian village with reason price, and to ensure the people in Lintian wouldn’t be running out of food due to typhoon.   One of the welfare of the forestry staff was being able to purchase the rice with best price and paid by credit from their monthly salary.  Now, the visitors can also purchase limited Hualien local rice from this rice shop.

There are two Japanese style cypress café restaurants which are transferred from original dormitory for managers.  1st one offers hot foods such as set meals or hot pots and Café II offers beverages and desserts. It is really nice to be laid-back to enjoy the relax time in these historic wooden old houses.  After the rest, we can keep walking to the Morisaka trail to take a “forest shower” and also have a great view of the area at the look-out point.

This red cypress “Jhongshan Hall” was built in 1954 which was the main center for the resident here, where they held the all the events such as theater shows or graduation ceremonies here.  After purchasing the film player, this place showed 2~3 movies per week for free to the residents and even attracted people from other villages.

The trains and railway are also the popular photographing and check-in spots to the visitors. This treasure ancient gas locomotive of Kato Works which was contained the memories of Lintian Mountains and retired here tranquilly for visitors’ appreciation.  Lintian Park keeps many forestry original sites and relics for visitors to experience the Lintian forestry life in the past and to understand the difficulty of logging, transporting, and the treasure of Taiwan forest resources.

【A creative restaurant hidden in the Hualien Guangfu Sugar factory】

(Suggested duration: 1~2hrs)

After visiting Lintian Mountain, we keep driving south toward Guangfu Sugar factory. However, we are not here after the popular ice desserts in the sugar factory but a hidden restaurant called” Woodpeckers CASA”.  This restaurant is owned by a NGO which mainly assist the local teenagers’ education/growth.  It is transferred from an old wooden house which is over 70 years old and there is a green yard in front of the restaurant.

This NGO started this restaurant as the development base to offers local youth a place to work and learn.  It also aims to promote the local culture and natural health food, providing creative exotic cuisines with local fresh food material.  We ordered special peeled chili pizza with rocket leaves on top which is super matching. The Spaghetti with spicy meat sauce made with local black pork taste delicious and the stew pork mince are tender and juicy.

【Fuyuan Color dyeing workshop, creative cloth dyeing experience in this Hakka village】

(Suggested duration: 2hrs, add 2 more hrs if you would like to visit butterfly valley)

In the afternoon we went to the Fuyuan community to experience the color cloth dyeing. This village is a Hakka community where was start to develop community construction and elders cares in 20 years ago.  The teacher of the dyeing workshop told us that this workshop was originally set for the local women a place to gather.  In the beginning they invited an expert to teach them painting, and then they are thinking to develop their local Hakka dying culture.  However, they wanted to make something different from traditional Hakka blue dying so they started the innovation color dyeing.

The teacher will experience the different method to dye the patterns and leaded us to process step by step; it was not difficulty but need a bit brainstorming.  

While waiting the cloth absorbing, she suggested us to have a short trail walk behind the workshop.   If you have more time, you can also visit Fuyuan Forest Recreation Valley which the best time for butterfly watching in the Butterfly Valley is from March to August. It is also a nice place to go to enjoy the “forest shower”.

More details please check Fuyuan Dyeing workshop FB:

【End of Hualien, start of Tatung】

Finishing 2 days Hualien relaxing forest and local tours, we keep driving to the south to Taitung, and looking forward to our first meeting with Taitung Balloon festival…