we stayed at hualien for a night, and the place we stayed at is a 民宿，called 石头的家.
the 老板娘 is super nice and 热情, and i realised that those pple who open 民宿 must be very hospitable, cos when they are hospitable and make tourists feel at home, they will then come and stay again, and also introduce the place to their friends.
me and darling also enjoyed our stay at 石头的家. the whole place is cosy, the room is beautiful, and we are really being looked after by the 老板娘. she told us that once we stay at her place, we are under her protection, and she has the duty and obligation to take good care of us. so she bring us to lots of places. she bring us to go buy hualien's local specialties, eat nice food, watch 原住民 dance performance, and also wanted to bring us to the night market, but sway sway the night market encounter power failure, and all the lights went off, the whole place is in pitch darkness.
at least pple can still make their way out of the night market, not like the poor souls on the flyer. haha. we knew that the flyer kenna power failure, because taiwan news got show, and the both of us were quite shocked, and we thanked our lucky stars that we din kenna this sort of thing when we were on the flyer that time.
stone house is called stone house, because the whole place is filled with stones. precious stones, normal stones, decorated stones. you name it, they have it. the 老板娘 will find big flat stones, and teach the tourists how to draw on these stones. then she will place the stones everywhere, such as on the wall or at any random place.
stone house got 2-pax rooms, 4-pax rooms and 6-pax rooms.
the room that we stayed at. the bed is damn cool, with the veil. so vintage and classic. haha.
the other rooms:
on that night, we go and 放孔明灯. the 老板娘 sell the 孔明灯 for NT200, around 10 sing. got 3 different colors, purple, red and yellow. but once u light up the lantern, watever color you buy the lantern will become orange. haha. its a first time experience for the both of us. the lantern got 4 sides, so every side must write some blessings. so one side is for darling's family, one side for my family, one side for both of us, and the last side is for stone house.
(that's the 老板娘)
the next day, we woke up at 6 am to catch the sunrise from our balcony, and we are so lucky to be able to see the sunrise! :)
we went to eat breakfast. although its not as 丰富 as the spring villa's breakfast, but its still quite delicious.
after breakfast, the 老板娘 bring us to the courtyard, and she let out the animals for us to play.
the 2 puppies are very very cute! they were only born a month ago. the brown one looks like a lion, and the black one looks like a bear. their names are called 团团圆圆. forgot which one is 团团, and which one is 圆圆. haha.
next time if i go hualien again, i will definitely stay at stone house. :)
for more information about stone house, pls go to their homepage:
www.sutohome.com
on the second day, we woke up at 5 am to catch the sunrise. but we very sway, cos there were many clouds which covered the sun.
when the sky turned brighter, we went out of spring villa to walk to 玉兰茶园观景台. the lady at spring villa told us that its around 5 km away. in the end we din reach the 观景台, cos its time for breakfast, and our stomachs were growling, and also because we already see lots of beautiful scenery and tea plantations on our way there.
after the yummy breakfast, we started our yilan tour. our first stop was 松罗步道. its a nature trail, with a few scenery spots, including a 蓝色吊桥 and a waterfall. the whole trail itself need 3 hours to complete, and from the tourist drop-off point to the start of the trail need to walk about half an hour. so of course we din have much time as we still have other places to go, and in the end we only walk like one quarter of the nature trail, and went back already.
next we went to 呂美麗精雕藝術館.
pls read the paragraph below taken from a blog belonging to a celebrity:
呂美麗老師是宜蘭在地的藝術家
作品橫跨木雕、金雕、琉璃雕
尤其是木雕的部份 強調一體成型
小處也非常細微
像荔枝的顆粒、布料的紋路…都非常細膩
跟真的沒兩樣
for the pictures of the 木雕, pls go to:
http://iamwindy.pixnet.net/album/photo/100160311
we wanted to go and eat 卜肉 at this famous shop which has been open for 70 years. but we realised if we go and eat, we will miss the bus to Luodong train station, where we will have to wait for another one hour fifteen min for the next bus. so we decided to give the 卜肉 a miss.
we met a very nice couple at the bus stop, and they are also going to Luodong train station, and same as us, they are also taking the railway train to 礁溪 to 泡温泉. so they asked us to follow them. and so we chatted, and the wife happens to be a beautician working in a beauty parlour in taipei, and she ask darling to go visit her at the beauty parlour, which will provide her massage, facial, spa, plus one night of stay, for just NT800, which is around 40 sing dollars. so affordable lah! in the end we din go and find her, cos our schedule at taipei is quite tight. haha.
finally we reached 礁溪, and we went to this hot spring hotel called 川汤温泉旅馆, recommended by the husband. the charges quite affordable, they give us one room, and then charge us on an hourly basis. one hour cost us 15 sing. quite a good deal.
they got two taps for us to choose, hot spring and cold spring, of course we chose the hot spring, cos no one will be in the right state of mind to choose cold spring in winter.
after the refreshing hot spring, we took the railway train back to 罗东. we bought 牛舌饼, which is one of the local specialties of yilan. after that, we went to walk around 罗东夜市.
the food that we ate at the 夜市:
冰糖葫芦
卜肉 & 糕渣
包心粉圆
沙茶猪肉，沙茶羊肉面
in yilan, we spent quite a lot on transport, because the nearest town to 逢春园 is 罗东, but from the town centre still need to take cab for 30 to 40 min then can reach 逢春园. throughout this yilan trip, we have our own designated driver, cos he knows the working staff of 逢春园 very well, and so he charge us cheaper for the taxi rides. but its still quite ex lah, which cost us around 22 sing dollars for every trip.
and he is also very nice, very humorous also, always tell us alot of jokes and funny stories in the taxi. haha.
he is 50+ years old, and still look quite young, because he say he use olay. haha damn funny.
actually yilan still got many nice places to go, but just that transport is very inaccessible, and we only stay there for 2 days. yilan is famous for mountains, nature trails, farms, hot springs, and cold springs. its a nice place to go to if you want to admire scenery. :)
i am back from taiwan! enjoyed myself alot throughout this trip. although this is my 4th time visiting taiwan, but each time i went there is with different groups of people, so will have different memories. and thank goodness this time got no lao sai.
this is also my first time travelling overseas with darling, and its really like our honeymoon. haha. just holding her hand and walking in the busy shi lin night market, or standing in xi men ding sharing a bowl of ah zong mian xian, makes me very xing4 fu2. :)
the taiwanese seem to have the impression that singaporeans speak sub-standard mandarin. everytime when me and darling spoke mandarin to them, they will praise us that we speak mandarin very well, and they even more surprised when they hear me speak hokkien, although i admit my hokkien is half-bucket standard. haha.
for the 7 days 6 nights trip, we spend the first 2 nights in yilan, 1 night in hualien, and last 3 nights in taipei.
so i will now blog about yilan first, which i will start with our accomodation for the 2 nights, cos i think this accomodation that we stayed at deserve its own post.
we stayed at spring villa 逢春園, and trust me, its really a paradise. the scenery in the villa is nice, scenery outside villa is also nice, with tea plantations, farmlands and beautiful mountains. not only scenery nice, the staff working there also very nice, hospitable and friendly. they really make us feel 宾至如归.
my vocabulary limited, so i shall just show you the pictures to let you see for yourself how nice spring villa is.
the lobby. very vintage, with alot of souvenirs from different countries. the owners of spring villa travel widely, and they have will purchase a very special souvenir from each country and place it inside the lobby. for example they bought a nice bottle and inside the bottle got sand from sahara dessert.
dining area
our room. everything is perfect, just that the room is still very cold. out of yilan, hualien and taipei, the temperatures in yilan is the coldest. one of the forest recreation parks in yilan reached a temperature of 2 degree celsius!
the rest of spring villa
the area/scenery outside spring villa
and finally, the FOOD that we ate at spring villa. simply delicious~
our dinner for the first night
breakfast on tue morning. one plate of fruits, one cup of home-made 豆浆 & 米浆, purple glutinous rice, hard boiled egg, mixed vegetables omelette, and a cup of superb coffee, which is the best coffee i tasted throughout the 7 days in taiwan.
the white liquid is the 豆浆, and the purple liquid is 米浆
breakfast on wed morning. we had exactly the same thing, just that the glutinous rice + hard boiled egg swop with yummy sandwiches.
so for those who are going to yilan, i recommend you all to stay for a night in spring villa. but hor its damn ex, 140 sing dollars for one night. but i think its sort of once in a lifetime experience, so pay a little bit more money is also worth it. :)
for more information about spring villa, do visit the following websites:
http://www.spring-villa.com/
http://iamwindy.pixnet.net/blog/post/21581114
we stayed at hualien for a night, and the place we stayed at is a 民宿，called 石头的家.
(that's the 老板娘)
