Hualien and Taroko Gorge

It has been an interesting day. I walked 14 miles along a river through a giant gorge with marble cliffs rising hundreds of feet on either side of me. Before I get to that though, let me just say that I think the shower here at the Amigos hostel in Hualien, Taiwan is the most powerful in all of east Asia. I haven't been to all of east Asia yet, but I'm pretty sure this is going to be it. Like most of the showers here it is of the handheld nozzle variety but unlike most which if they were dropped would lay inert on the shower floor, this one if released would violently fly around the room like a firehose or an angry cobra. Also, the spray is insanely wide. It must have a 3 foot diameter at arms length. It's a good thing the showers here are self-contained, because there is no way I would have been able to avoid dousing the entire bathroom including the toilet paper which is a major hostel faux pas of course. The pressure itself is not unlike the black market shower head purchased by Kramer in episode 126 of the hit series Seinfeld entitled "The Shower Head" which was intended for use cleaning elephants at the circus. But I digress.

So Taroko Gorge was pretty impressive. I took a bus from the train station here in Hualien to a town or sort of service area called Tiensiang a ways into the gorge itself. A road runs through the gorge along the river with various divergences onto trails and other explorable areas. Upon reaching Tiensiang I simply walked the whole way back to the park entrance, apparently about 14 miles but it went by very fast and only took about 4 hours. I don't even see how that's possible, maybe it isn't really that far or I just walk fast, but I felt like I was meandering quite a bit. I may return in the next few days to go explore some trails at greater length, I was informed that I probably wouldn't have time to do that and still walk the entire way. The alternatives to walking by the way were tour buses that give you a limited amount of time to linger in any given point of interest and of course an extremely limited view of your surroundings as you go. The weather was wonderful today so that was great, probably mid-60s and a bit of variance depending on whether I was in the sun or not. I feel pretty good, I'm going to try to find a vegetarian restaurant tonight to fill up, last night I had to wing it at a noodle place that worked out fine but was a hearkening back to the "wing it" days of mainland China. I guess I've been spoiled a little bit by the large number of all-vegetarian restaurants I've encountered here in Taiwan. I also a couchsurfing couple I need to call and perhaps I'll hang out with them. I'm thinking right now of staying in Hualien til Saturday and just riding the train back to Taipei then in time for New Years on Sunday night. This is a nice and laid-back place and it'll give me a chance to go back to the gorge and do a few other things of interest in town before heading back.

I have realized that this would be a great place to do a roadtrip but alas I didn't take the time before I left to get an international driver's permit which is alas required here to rent a vehicle. It's just a mail-in application to the AAA but I didn't have time to do it before I left. I will try to get that together before I come back to Taiwan because the coasts are beautiful and filled with things that are virtually unreachable without your own transport. It would be like trying to travel the Pacific Coast Highway in California on public transportation, it just can't really work. Speaking of public transportation, I was the main attraction on the way back to Hualien tonight when a gang of maybe 40 school kids around 10 years old all got on the bus to go home from school. I guess the public bus is the school bus here. They were talking to me and making faces at my accent, though I did ask the kid next to me if the french fries he was eating were good. The answer was yes, they were good.

Besides that, I'm still alive. Hope all are well.