03/27 Journal

On day three, it was time we drove back to Taichung. As a result, we only visited a scene and just hurried on with our tour in the rest of time. The scene we stopped was鹿野高台 in Taitung. It was famous for paragliding and was one of few training areas of paragliding in Taiwan. The view was really wide and vast. There was no blocker before you and all the plain was under your feet. The plain was surrounded by far and near mountains. 鹿野高台 was a good place to see the night scene because it was a summit. It was like we stood on a huge bowl’s edge and saw inside. However, the night scene here was not beautiful. On the plain, there were only few and scattered houses but the farmland took a large part. Nevertheless, it was much better to the environment.

03/20 Journal

Sometimes we took a small bus for uphill and sometimes we walked along the road for downhill. That was what the perfect hiking I imaged. You would not sweat a lot but enjoy the scene comfortably. However, we did not warm up our bodies actually so it was just walking, not hiking. The air was clear and the scene was beautiful. This kind of great surrounding relaxed and comforted me. The end of the tour was a huge bridge and a power plant. On the bridge, the tour guide told us that if you hiked along the road to the mountain area, you would reach Cilai Mountain(奇萊山). Unfortunately, the day was a holiday or we could visit the power plant. It was interesting that there was only the hydro office but you could not see any power plant. To hide the hydroelectric power plant, it was built in mountains. It was part of important energy for east Taiwan. As a result, it was reasonable that the area was restricted early. That beautiful stream was bubbling across the bridge downstream. Later, we got a chance to reach the riverbed. The color of water still amazed me. The stream was just like a jade, luminous but silently. I really liked the weather in the mountain. It was cool but not cold and moist but wet. However, I still had to leave here.

03/13 Journal

Meqmeqi was a mountain valley. The mountains were parts of Central Mountains and the stream winded the valley was called Mukua Stream(木瓜溪). We entered Meqmeqi by small bus and drove along the road which was opened by tunneling through mountains to the power plant of Tai Power. The scene was really beautiful and wide because of high mountains and the deep valley. The mountains were dark green and some were shaded by cloud and mist. As a result, it was cool and the air was a little humid. I liked the weather here because you would not sweat much after hiking and the air was really clear.

Besides the mountains, the stream in the valley was also very pretty. It was too clean that you could see fished swimming and rocks in the stream. Moreover, the color of the water was very different and astonishing. The color in shallow water was transparent but by the increasing depth, the color transformed malachite into pine green. Under the sunshine, the water was sparkling like a mysterious jewel. Although the color was dark, you could still see rocks on riverbed. I had not seen this limpid stream before. It really fed my sight on.

03/06 Journal

It was almost 11 o’clock at night when we arriving the hotel in Hualien. Maybe, it was too late so the area in front of Hualien Train Station was not lively. However, there were many hotels for the tourists. The famous 曾記麻糬 was opened in front of the station. I walked to there to buy some delicious magi(麻糬) for my family to comfort our exhausted bodies.

The next day, we went to the most beautiful scene of the trip, Meqmeqi(慕谷慕魚). It was an area in mountains of Tai Power(台電) in County Sioulin(秀林鄉). In early times, the area was forbidden entering by government because it was one of important power plants in east Taiwan. Recently, the area has opened for tourists but they need to have an applicant for entering restricted mountain areas. The area was named after Meqmeqi in memory of a sheik of aboriginal ancestors. Three hundred years ago, Meqmeqi led his people to walk through Central Mountains(中央山脈) from Nantou(南投) to Hualien and settled down there. There was an aboriginal village in Meqmeqi and the villagers were Taroko(太魯閣族).

02/27 Journal

On Chinese New Year vacation, our family had a three-day trip to East Taiwan. We took tourist bus because it would be very tired for my father driving from West to East Taiwan. The tour route was that we departed from Taichung, drove south to Pingtung(屏東), passed through Southern Cross-Island Highway(南部橫貫公路) to East Taiwan, Taitung(台東) drove north to Hualien(花蓮) and drove back to Taichung by same route. The distance was very long so we spent much time, maybe one and half a day on the bus but the scenes that we planned to visit were few.

On the fist day of the trip, we left Taichung at 6:40 in early morning. Then, we rushed to Hualien directly for almost 12 hours. The tourist bus only stopped at the rest area and we could go to piss. As a result, we did not visit any scene on the first day. It was a torture if you were confined on your seat and could not stretch tour body for more than 12 hours. Although you could see the pretty landscape outside, it could not comfort your stiff body. I thought my bottom got decayed. The narrow space made me tired and dizzy, like vomiting but I tried my best not to enlarge the feelings to affect my body or I would have carsickness. We sang karaoke and watched movies to kill long time.