Hualien and Taroko Gorge

Our trip to Hualien and Taroko Gorge was one of my favorites.  We took an early train and got into Hualien in the late morning, and then checked into Amigos Hostel, which was fantastic- I highly recommend it if you ever plan on staying in Hualien.  We bought day passes for the bus and then headed to Taroko Gorge.  Our first stop was Swallow Grotto trail, but it was just a staircase through the woods (the usual), and I don't think it actually offered any views of Swallow Grotto.  We should have just turned around and gone back the way we came, but instead took a long and winding detour back up the road to try to get back to where we started.  People driving down on mopeds would yell "加油! (good luck)" to us as we sweated profusely.  We got back to the top just in time to take a bus right back down.  Throughout the day we saw Swallow Grotto (for real that time), the marble gorge that Taroko is so famous for, the Lüshui area with its pagoda and suspension bridge, and more.  It was truly gorgeous, and I'm so glad I was finally able to make it down there to see it.  We caught the last bus back to Hualien at 6:30, just as it started to rain.  About an hour and a half later, we were back in Hualien, where we got xiaolongbao for dinner and shaved ice for dessert.  Back at the hostel, we played a few drinking games before going to bed around 1:00 am.

The next day our group split up as Tim and Thomas wanted to return to Taroko Gorge to see some things that we had been unable to visit the previous day.  Eva, Caleb, Mami, and I rented scooters, filled up the tanks, and hit the road.  We drove South along the coastal Highway 11.  We stopped at a few beaches, and all of us managed to get excellent sunburns.  Luckily no one had any motorbike accidents, though Mami and I did fall over at one point.  But no one got hurt, and that's all that matters.  It was a great day of scooting, except when Caleb and Eva stopped without telling us right before we merged onto the highway, and I thought they had crashed and died, before they finally caught up.  We returned to Hualien in time to return our scooters and grab take-out dinners before joining back up with Tim and Thomas and catching our train.  However, the workers were rude and wouldn't let us board the train because we didn't have seats assigned on our tickets, despite us telling them that we had planned to stand anyway.  So we had to argue with the bitchiest of them all and pay an extra $100 each just so that our tickets could say "no seat."  I was pissed, but we were able to get on the next train, and the ride back was actually pretty fun since we passed the time by playing stupid games like MASH.  We returned to Gongguan and grabbed some food at the night market before parting ways for the night.