Taiwan: Hualien - What to eat in Hualien?

ok, foods i ate in Hualien. 

For this post, i'll introduce 2 places that i really love. 

First one, the neighborhood food stall in the busy city, introduced by my hostel host, XiaoLuo.

This is also his family usual dinning spot, not exposes to tourist yet.   

When you see the red signboard, means you found the place. By the way, the red signboard isn't the stall name, is a temple name. The stall name is Fu An (福安)

Run by an old couple, mainly serving home-cooked taste. 

one of the signature food, Fried Noodle with Seafoods (炒什锦面)

this is the best dishes of the night, Grill Fish with Pepper Salt (烤虱目鱼)

This is good snack to eat with beer, Fried Shell with Basil （九层塔炒蚬）

This low profile stall turned out to be our favor stall in the 4d3n Hualien trip. 

If you're travelling in a gang, please come to this place and order more foods that Elaine and I didn't have chance to taste it all. If you're food lover like me, you will like this place.

The place isn't easy to find at all, it is located in the outskirt of the busiest streets in Hualien Town, hope the map below can help you to located the place.

red is hostel, green is the food place and blue is the busiest street in HuaLien town.

Fu An 福安面家

219，福建街，花莲市

219, Fujian St, Hualien City

Operating start from 5pm till late night. 

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Alright the 2nd place is ZhiQiang Night Market (自强夜市), a famous place in Hualien.

If you stay in YouZiJia, just hop on a cab and let the driver bring you the place, its not within walking distance.  

So we went to the place in one raining evening, less crowded so i have slight more photos to show. 

starting from here.

raining so less crowded.

first food we had. The local steak meal, come with free bread, soup and drink. Steak serve in sizzling pan and come with egg and spaghetti. Eat till you drop. 

this is the place, inexpensive at all but its almost restaurant level!

2nd food we had (yes we cant finish our steak but die die want eat others), hand made pizza. 

from dough.... 

to oven....

ta-da! this is sooooooooooooooooo good, almost the best pizza that i ever had!

next, candied sweet potatoes for dessert. 

Nothing impress though. And we can finish so this is one of our supper. Yes, one of our supper.

Fresh fruit juice is the must to try in Taiwan. 

and yea we cant finish so we bring back too...

one of the most famous stall in the night market, BBQ stall.

a lot of choice and always crowded. 

In case you cant read chinese: Even though we're not famous, but we're busy enough, please don't advertise for us. We're preparing your food with best we can, so please be patient. 

And yea we cant' finish, so this is packed and bring back. But honestly, this is nothing impressive. 

Alright next will be taipei, but i have no idea what is the highlight though.

Anyway place stay tuned, will update as soon as i can.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
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Rach in goin to assignment mood 

Taiwan: HueLien - HuaLien Sugar Mill + SongShan Annex

Again, Taiwan is famous travel destination, needless to describe more on the attraction and transport (travel within taiwan is very easy and cheap anyway). 

So in this post, i will just post some of my favorite pictures of a two attractions that i've been in Hualien district. 

The first one is Hua Lien Tang Chang aka Hua Lien Sugar Mill （花莲糖厂）

But it doesn't produce sugar anymore, it serves as a tourist destination nowadays. 

The signature pic of the mill

mini rail in the mill.

informative museum (but boring!)

So residential nearby, not sure if someone still living there though. 

Sugar mill of course serve ice-cream! ah bo?

favor of the album, like telling history.  

 =====================

Alright the next is SongShanBieGuan aka Sung Shan Annex, used to be the club for Japanese official during war time, now an art center / coffee place / tourist destination.

Admission was free in 2013 May (yes my blog slack that much), but it wasn't since January 2014, not sure bout the price though.

This is a very relaxing place, it you love old thing like me, you will like it here.

entrance. 

located on the uphill and here is the view. 

well maintain and information board everywhere, but only in Chinese. 

partly reno for disable convenience.

one of the corridor by the green.

mini gallery to display old photos of this annex. 

such as this.

I didn't take much picture because of the raining season (ah la its an excuse because i'm lazy hahahahaha), if you tend to spend more day in Hualien, pick a sunny noon or evening to have coffee here. 

Alright next maybe taipei, or food review in Hualien, hope i can catch some time and update soon. 

bubye!

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

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Rach in on night shift mood. 

Taiwan: HuaLien - LinTianShan Forestry

October is super busy month, on work and also on private project, only realized no update for the October in November. 

Alright so here we continue with my taiwan trip. 

Elaine and I spent 3 nights in a seaside small town named Hua Lien, there are few more small historical towns along the coast way and we decided to rent a car and driver (which is our guesthouse host, Xiao Luo) to explore  the rest of the town. 

Our itinerary as below:

1. DongHua University (东华大学) which  the most beautiful university in Taiwan

2. FuXing Sugar Mill (复兴糖厂)

3. LinTianShan Forestry (林田山林业文化园区)

4. FengLin (凤林客家村)

5. YanLou (菸楼)

Of course HuaDong isn't that small, we discussed with XiaoLuo that we wanted to visit some really old and natural place, so he suggested the above. 

Car and driver rent per day is NTD 3200, slighly higher than ordinary cab that you could find outside, but the best part is no time limited, and XiaoLuo actually keep us accompanied all the time but not just waiting in the car, feel so much like friend outing. 

Anyway i'm not going to introduce every single places but a few that really excess my expectation, such as LinTianShan Forestry.

According to XiaoLuo, Hualien has very rich forest resource where Japan doesn't have, such as rare tree that could made to be expensive furniture and building material. 

Thus, during Japan occupied Taiwan time, Japanese company came and set up a based in LinTianShan and started to chop and process log for export. 

They hired the local to do all the work, LinTianShan once a very happening place where people could get almost everything in this mountain. 

Workers were all well take cared, the Japanese company even slowly build a unique community in this mountain, such as villages, school, community hall, shops and market all can be found in this place, every villagers are schoolmate and colleague. 

Once here is the best place to settle down, until Taiwan government restrict export of log, Japanese company then decided to pull out and leave, some of the villager still stay in this mountain but youngest all went out for more opportunities, till then government transformed this place to be a culture area, keep all the old building, infrastructure and equipment for tourism development. 

Today LinTianShan is a quiet yet peaceful place, some old villager still living here, not chopping down anymore tress but handmade some souvenir for tourist. 

Yet, not much foreigners been to this beautiful places, only some local tours, but thats not much anyway. 

Alright scroll down for some picture, and maybe you will fall in love with this place too! 

LinTianShan is well developed community once. 

old train renewed to attract tourist. 

Love those old houses, each parts are telling story. 

old house with no more villagers. 

the history. 

moss stair, they are here since a century ago. 

our host + driver + tour guide, XiaoLuo.

the boss house in the end of the staircase. 

I tried to imagine, the boss was standing here and overlook the last train of log being carried out. 

the wooden railway, once the greatest creation in Taiwan.  

Used to be primary school / kindergarten in the piece of green land.  

School old address. Now, see no sign of school. 

Management used to own a bigger house and own yard last time. 

One of the sub-village in the area, KangLe Village, and now only left the plaque.

The based of a village house. Stone based still here, wooden house no more. 

a memorial of fire incident. 

The community hall, not sure is renewed or well-kept. 

Closer shoot for wooden railway. 

The railway is crossing mountains and river, till to the port. Used to be the busiest place in the mountain. 

Workshop and railway, without people and train. 

LinTianShan is one of the highlight of my entire trip in Taiwan, its gave me so many emotion.

I felt sorry for this abandoned place despite a beautiful greenery scenery today, i felt every single old things in this place is sad but strong enough to face the changes of the world.

If you happened to visit HuaLian Taiwan, please spend half day here to feel the natural and the history.

Of course, please send my regard to the place, too.







Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
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Rach in missing the place mood.