Taiwan Trip 2011 Day 6 Liyu Lake and Hualien at Night

[continued from Taiwan Trip 2011 Day 6 Hualien Chishingtan Katsuo Museum ]


After enjoying the breeze and views at the Chishingtan beach, we travelled south towards another tourist attraction called Liyu Lake.




Nothing overly exciting here, I would say its just another fresh water lake. Only funny thing was we initially thought this lake had many fish. Liyu is chinese for freshwater carp. But I didn't see a single fish even with my polarized sunglasses on. Only after a short  conversation with the tourist info counter staff did we find out it was actually the mountains surrounding the lake that looked like a carp, hence the lake's name. This would be nice quiet place for walk or paddle if not for the mosquitoes coming out to feed in the late afternoon.

I have to add that near Liyu lake is a river system called Mugumuyu which has an aboriginal village at its entrance. It will take some planning with the local Minsu operators or tour groups if you want to visit this area and do some river tracing. We rode to the entrance and was told that the entrance was closed already. I think there is an entry fee or permit to apply for before entering as well.

As the sun was setting we hurried back to look for dinner at Hualien.



Haha first stop getting back to Hualien was to get some refreshments! Nothing better than some ice cold bubble tea! We stopped at this shop called Presotea. They also have branches in Taipei. But I think they are a smaller network compared to 50 LAN.

I cannot praised Presotea enough. IMHO this is the best bubble tea in Taiwan. Instead of storing tea in the big thermoflasks, they actually make fresh tea! They put the tea leaves in those barista machines much like coffee powder and boom out comes fresh tea under high pressure steam. During my 2 week stay in Taiwan I have not seen any other bubble tea shops making fresh tea like this. If you know please comment and let me know so I can try it out on my next trip there.




Tonight decided to go with the Alishan Iced Tea with some bubbles, crossed my fingers it dun keep my up all night as I am very caffeine sensitive.


For some reason, maybe due to the weekend crowd as the national holiday was near, the roads were especially crowded with people and vehicles. So we decided it be better to walk around a bit. Parked our rented scooter in an alley next to this shop selling little gifts and trinkets. In this gift shop, the walls have multiple small cubicles each having their own theme and items on display. You can get anything from mobile phone charms and covers to small notebooks and bookmarks.

Hualien Takopachi Highly Recommended.

Walking on towards our target which was the steamed bun and dumpling shop that wife liked a lot, we stumbled upon this auntie selling takopachi (octopus balls). We decided to try some and were not disappointed. Big chunks of real octopus and nine big balls in a box! Covered with mayo and wasabi powder with generoous amount of bonito flakes on top. So hot you could see the bonito flakes waving in the heat. This street-side stand is a definite highly recommended on my Hualien food list.








Another interesting shop you could visit in Hualien. It has all sorts of life like creations made from some sort of plastics material. All done by hand and of very high quality and detail. You can even sign up for lessons on creating your own life like models from the artist owner of this shop.


This piece gets the most amazing award. A cute fluffy little dog sleeping that looks so life like!! Hard to tell its not alive!!!



Finally we made it to Gongzheng street steamed buns again. Look at the queue!!!












Unfortunately looking at the long queue strecthing from and around the shop all the way to the road and beyond, we decide it would take too long and too much effort just to get a few dumplings. Since we already tried the food before we decided to get something else for dinner.

Forgot to mention if you follow the road branching off from the main road at the Gongzheng bun place and walk down a bit more you will pass by this famous shop selling Aiyu bing （爱玉冰）We ordered a cup for takeaway.


Dinner back at the hotel room with a bento set from a nearby foodstall. That you see in the box is not a porkchop or chicken chop. This is a turkey chop. Together with a cup of chilli sea snails from previous night we had a good dinner and prepared for our trip down south the next day to TaiDong's FuGang harbor, the transit point for our Green Island (綠島) adventure!

Another super highlight of our trip, filled with special foods, snorkeling, wild deer safari and an amazing sunrise seen from a very rare salt water hotspring!!

Can't wait to post this part of the trip and please leave a comment before you leave! 

[ continue reading  Taiwan Trip 2011 Day 7 Journey to Green Island ]