Chinese New Year Vacation - The Whole (well, almost) Story

Well! I assume by now you've seen my photos, so before I forget what we did on our Chinese new year trip around the island, I figured I'd better sit my little self down and type out a post.
We left mid-morning on January 30th and caught a TRA ("slow") train to Taipei. It was kinda full, but we had reserved seats, so no worries! We got there around noon-ish and checked into our hotel - "Hotel Flowers", near the TRA/MRT station. After a nice lunch at KFC (yay for starting the vacation with fried chicken!!), we took the MRT to the National Palace Museum. The MRT is cool. It's cheap, quick transporation to most places around Taipei. If you're from California or familiar with California, it's sort of like the BART system.
Anyway, the museum was enormous and full of old, beautiful, ancient, valuable Things from China, that after an hour began to all look the same to me. I like museums, but I admit I am not much of a history buff. Apparently, I and Amy and Autumn missed the "cool manly floor" that the guys went to whilst we waited for them in the lobby. The Cool Manly Floor apparently had swords and stuff. Oh well. We did find a nice big bench Thing in one of the painting exhibits and had a grand time pondering the Meaning of Life while staring at a nice painting of a flower or something.
After snapping some happy photos, we took a taxi to the Shihlin night market, one of the oldest, largest night markets in Taiwan. It was crowded, as night markets tend to be, but we managed to find some good food. David and Cory, two of our guy buddies on the trip, were entranced by the abundance of fruits and were determined to try every single fruit known to the Shihlin night market. The rest of us filled up on...oops I forgot what they were called..some mexicany sort of pocket sandwich thing, and I had a really nice baked potato. My friends are going to make fun of me for calling whatever that was we all ate a mexican pocket sandwich. Oh well.
The next morning, we took off on the good ol' MRT to see Taipei 101. Formerly the tallest building in the world, but currently the second tallest, Taipei 101 still holds the record (as far as I know) for having the fastest elevator in the world and the largest wind damper in the world. 89 floors in 37 seconds. That's fast. We weren't Allowed on the 91st floor because of the wind (91st floor is an outside area), so we wandered around the glass enclosed 89th floor and took a truckload of photos. It was a good morning.
Afterwards we had a really long lunch, met up with a good friend Katie, and went to the Taipei zoo, which I learnt is the largest zoo in Asia. We got there with like one hour until the zoo closed so we hastened to see the pandas, who were awake this time!! we also managed to see all varieties of nocturnal animalas, and a sleeping koala. That's it. But it was worth it for the pandas.
We ate dinner at a Vietnamese restaraunt that was owned and operated by a crew of Thai folk. Then we bought the best bubble milk tea in the world. And that's the end of our time in Taipei.
This is an exciting story, isn't it? :)
To continue, the next day, February 1st, we took a train to Hualien. We arrived in Hualien to a great surprise - the cutest, best decorated, most comfortable B&B I've ever stayed in. The weather in Hualien was grand too, so it was a pleasant arrival. If anybody reading this ever goes to Hualien, contact me and I'll send you the info for Homestay No 6. It's close to the train station, very reasonably priced, owner speaks English, and it was the most comfortable bed I've ever slept in. I wanted to ship it home with me. We rented scooters and took naps, and then that evening we all decided we wanted to cook dinner, since in the B&B's common area there was a nice large kitchen. Marvin, one of our other guy buddies, had not taken a nap, and had instead been out exploring on his scooter, and found a Carrefour nearby, so we loaded up and went to buy groceries. We bought a splendid array of breakfast fare: bacon, eggs, sausage, bread, orange juice, tomatoes, syrup, etc. It was lovely. And we came back to discover that the oven in the beautiful kitchen was not hooked up. Oops.
Thankfully the B&B owner loaned us a little portable stove thing. The bacon and french toast were wonderful. The eggs...ended up... a little cinnamoney... thanks to David and the fact the cinnamon and pepper are both dark colored spices. hee hee.
The next day we took our rented scooters to Taroko Gorge. It was beeeeyooootiful! Every turn gave sparkling scenery. I tried my bestest to take outstanding photos, but.. I failed. My photos don't do the scenery justice at all. You'll just have to go yourself someday. We rode 18km into the Gorge and ate lunch at a tiny rest stop area. This is where I learnt how to say sausage in Chinese. How many people in the world can say they learnt to say sausage in Chinese in Taroko Gorge? I ought to put that on my list of Things I've Done that Nobody Else has Ever Done.
That evening we tried in vain to locate a local night market, which was probably closed like eveything else in town because it was Chinese New Year's Eve. everybody was popping firecrackers and having family dinners. Cory and David accidentally crashed a family dinner at a restaurant, thinking the restaraunt was open for business and got chased out by an old lady. hahaha...
The next day, was long.

We took a train to Taitung on the south eastern coast of Taiwan. When we booked our train tickets, it was the closest we could get to Kenting, on the southernmost tip of Taiwan. Our hostel arranged a driver to pick us up in Taitun with a van, so we thought nothing of it. But the drive from Taitung to Kenting.... is ... hoooorrrriiibble! It's a teensy tiny winding (for lack of a more approriate English word for winding..it was like..winding x 1,000) road through the mountains. our driver was chewing betel nuts and bopping to the music and talking on his cell phone and I gaspsed pretty much the entire drive. We were all feeling a little woozy when we finally stopped. I will never go to Kenting that way again. Blech.
Anyway, we did finally get there in one piece, after 3 1/2 hours of that craziness. I attribute a lot of our road safeties to the prayers of my mother... thanks mom! :)
In Kenting, the weather was AMAZING! Beautiful blue sky, warm breeze, and just a happy laid back atmosphere. I spent the afternoon in the hotel room recovering from the hairy drive through the mountains by taking a long shower, and then watching Master Chef Junior Australia on cable while repacking all my stuff. This tends to calm me down. :) everybody else went to find a little beach somewhere.
That evening we had a barbecue with are other friends who spent their week in Kenting and stayed in the same hotel. Later that evening, we had another adventure of an entirely different kind... but... out of respect for my buddies I won't share it on my blog. :) "What happens in Kenting stays in Kenting!" Suffice to say we all stayed safe and harbor no hard feelings towards each other. :)
The next day we rented scooters again and took off for White Sands beach. It was lovely. I opted to wander the beach, collect shells, take photos, and people watch. My friends Amy and Autumn sat under the umbrella and read a book, and slept, respectively. Marvin dissapeared on his own adventure, as he tends to do so often. It was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon. It was pretty windy and the waves were ginormous. They were knocking people over and stuff. It was way fun to watch.
That evening we went to the Lamest Club Ever. When we arrived, there were two small tables of people, and two small children on the dance floor. We sat there for a while and talked. It didn't get much better, so I left and went back to the room to go to bed, and the rest of the group went somewhere else and apparently had another adventure that I'm glad I missed out on. Whew.
Saturday, we went back to White Sands Beach and had a grand time. Marvin got swallowed by the Biggest Wave Ever, and I found a bunch of shells to add to my Shell Box.
Then we got our Chinese names painted and framed ( so cool, I'll upload a photo another time), ate a corn dog, took a taxi to Khaosiung (on the south west side of Taiwan) (a MUCH better drive than the other one), took the HSR (high speed rail) to Taichung, and took a taxi back to our house.
And that, was our vacation in a nutshell.
This wasn't a very exciting post, I'm sorry. I seem to have lost all my creavite writing skills somewhere in all this mess I have in my bedroom. I'd better clean up and unpack.
I hope you all had a lovely Chinese New Year! and if you didn't celebrate Chinese New Year, then I hope you had a lovely week this week anyway, holiday or no holiday!
Smile, eat good food, treat yourself to something fun, and enjoy life! :)
Until next time,
~Sharon~