Taiwan Holiday - The start of holidaying slowly in 慢城花莲

Last Friday, i finally said bye to my minsu hosts and embarked on my adventure in Hualien. I stayed at the backpacker's dormitory by mskmouse's boss and became a guest there. The chef at Facai welcomed me with a nice and fulfilling dinner. Thank you Ah Yang. :)

Life as a traveler feels different. I do not need to worry that there are rooms yet to be cleaned and i have to wait for guests to check out.before i start my tasks. No more bending of backs to do cleaning of 4 rooms anymore. End of free labour! YEAH!!! That night, i had a wonderful sleep!!!

The next morning, on Saturday , we went to " Hualien Farmer's Market", it is called 花莲好事集。 This is like a mini pasar malam in the morning where farmers or sellers get together to sell their items. Most of the items are very delicately handmade like bags and soaps and the fruits and vegetables grown by the farmers are mostly organic, so we can only see a few of them and not in bulk.

It is situated at the Old railway cultural park near the intersection of Guangfu Street and Fujian street. It is only opened on Saturday mornings from 9am to 12pm.

That afternoon, we embarked on a food journey around Hualien city. One of the nice food around is this shop named 庙口红茶 (成功街218号）, the peanut soup is very nice with very soft peanuts. If you notice, the shop is just opposite this temple where it is pretty contradicting to have another banner beside it. Look carefully at the banner...

Next, we search around for lunch and i found this really quaint little shop made of wood. The name of the shop is called 老材房 (信義街19號) 

It really suits the name because everything inside is made of wood, one would never expect that the shop sells food. We ordered this bee hoon soup and the portion is pretty big, the dumplings are nice, like the 韭菜dumpling personally.

We ate a few things here and there but i see no point in putting all of what i eat here but for those which i really like, i think it would be nice to share. First, at this 蔡记豆花 （73號, Mínguó Rd）can try the 仙草奶冻and 粉圆豆花, not a fan of those with barley personally.

Ended the day with a simple dinner of yam beehoon soup cooked by Ah Yang. Really thankful to him for cooking my share :)

Sunday weekend in Hualien seemed more quiet than the usual days. Most shops are closed on Sundays so we decided to check out Qixing tan ( 七星潭）（Xincheng Township, Hualien County）

We shared a cab there and reached this bicycle shop, called 七星谭自行车出租业，the bicycles there looked abit older but we tried and thought still manageable. Thereafter, we started our second cycling exploration around this scenic beach place. 

Everything is still ok before this wooden plank area, which was the 四八高地area. After that, there was this flight of stairs and slopes that is impossible to cycle up, we have to pull and carry our bikes up these slopes below in the picture. When we reach, the view is pretty magnificent from the top. We wanted to cycle to the fishing port, which was like along a little road. However, there was some minor accident when we completed the last turn below. My friend falls on her knee the third time, and this time it was bleeding with scratches. We realised also there was something wrong with the bike as well and decided to stop cycling. We called the bicycle shop, there was this very nice uncle, who drove his lorry all the way to our destination and fetch us from there. The uncle even helped mskmouse to apply the medicine, i cringed when i see him put the cotton bud with medicine onto the wound. OUCH!!! 
Mskmouse was brave cos instead of crying, which i think i would if it was me, she laughed!

We went back to Facai to rest We had a rest at the cafe and had a delicious dinner by the chef there one more time. Today's meal : Healthy fried rice with 盐酥鸡。 YUMMY!

A day of adventure ends and i come to realise i had only 7 days in Hualien left!!!

To be continued...