Taiwan 2023
.Part 2 - Roadtrip start (Yilan, Hualien, Taidong, Kenting)
After getting back to the main island, we went to pick up our rental car. When Angie was planning things out a few months ago, she asked me if I thought it'd be fun to have a manual transmission in the rental car since Taiwan is mountainous with up and down, small, curvy roads. My answer was "yeah, probably" and Angie let me know that if we rented a manual transmission, I'd likely have to drive most of the time. Angie knows manual transmission, but isn't as confident and the drivers are fairly insane in Taiwan, especially the cities.
So we get to our rental place and it took a while to check in so I was wondering what the vehicle would be (saw stuff like Toyota Camry/Prius/Yaris, VW Golf, "exotic" Mazda3)... but our vehicle was... an automatic minivan (Toyota Sienta). The renting agent seemed confused when Angie asked if they had manual transmissions. So the twisty roads were a bit less fun... Although I will say that the (small) minivan didn't handle terribly for it's size.
Anyway, after lunch in a random mountain restaurant, we took a hike to Silver Stream Cave, which is a temple in the mountains next to a waterfall. Unfortunately, the hike consisted of lots of stairs. Angie's mom made it up two or three long flights of stairs before giving up. It was probably for the best since it was a fairly significant amount stairs after that point. Plus the actual temple contained stairs and such too.
Temple in the mountains
This temple reminded me of Petra a little how there were particular views/spots that had long lines for pictures. I felt like there are pretty views, but I don't think every tourist needs to take the same photos. Like the above photo, there was a massive line to stand in the balcony-like window on the right. I also felt there were plenty of empty spots with quite nice views too. I remembered at Petra, it was the same where there was even a shop blocking certain views that required a purchase. Its like, you can still see the Treasury from a slightly different angle.
Anyway, afterwards, we had a 3 (?) hour drive to Yilan. We pretty much just stopped there to soak our feet with goldfish. It was actually quite ticklish and they'd focus on particular people/feet. It was interesting to try.
Not sure what's being pointed out
Then we headed to our next stop, which was the hotel in Hualien. During the drive, when Angie was driving, she was getting called by a number and then got LINE (messaging app) messages from the hotel. Somehow, they don't have anyone on duty after 7:30 PM (weird). It was extremely difficult to communicate, so eventually we switched drivers and it was much easier for Angie to communicate in Mandarin. We were able to check in and get a number to open the door/get our keys, etc.
The hotel (RA Guesthouse) was extremely hipstery, but was pretty okay after the initial issues. There was a coffee/kitchen area which apparently I love in my hotels.
They even had a box of stamps for my book. Also see the hipster coffee grinder.
We only stayed there that night, so the next morning, we just walked around to get breakfast and did minor shopping with Angie's mom. We also went to a park by the ocean with large rocks. It was nice town/city.
But we continued on for another 2-3 hours to get to Taidong, which is a town that one of my Taiwanese coworkers recommended for it's seafood, especially sashimi. It was a small fishing town with ferries to other areas and islands (but many were closed for the season). Driving around, the roads started to get small, but it wasn't nearly as bad as Kinmen. But the food was so good, we at lunch at two different restaurants! Actually, we parked in a lot that belonged to a certain restaurant. So instead of moving out, we just decided to eat there. But there was also a place that Angie researched, so immediately afterwards, we walked to a different restaurant and ate there too! But I would say that the sashimi was quite good. I think one of them was swordfish sashimi which was pretty good. And at the second restaurant, the chef (?) looked like a legit fish monger with one of those waterproof aprons.
Then 3 more hours to our destination for the day, Kenting, which is a resort/beach town. The hotel was right next to the night market, which was nice. Previous trips, we had to either walk a long way, or find parking to go to the night market.
I (and Angie's mom, but not Angie) thought the night market was much bigger than I remembered. Anyway, we walked around and bought food. At one point, I thought it was funny because it was like Angie was her mom's parent. Her mom wanted to buy multiple of the same thing and Angie was like "if you like it and finish it, we can buy another one tomorrow", lol. For background, Angie's mom buys WAY too much food, only eats a little, and expects others (me and Angie) to finish. This was actually a major point of contention between the two during the trip.
Again this turned out to be way longer than I expected, so there'll be a part III (maybe IV) later.