Taroko Gorge and Hualien

Alrighty, this is a big one. First off, Happy Easter to everybody and a happy spring to those who desperately needed it after the harsh winter you’ve had. 

Although the Taiwanese don’t nationally celebrate Easter, they do have their own Spring long weekend. Friday was Children’s Day and Monday is Tomb Sweeping day where families go and visit their loved ones who have past. Since there was nothing going on in the city we thought it’d be a great opportunity to go and check out one of the most popular attractions in Taiwan: Taroko Gorge!

Taroko Gorge is located on the east coast of Taiwan, just north of Hualien - a medium sized coastal city. We boarded a train from Taipei (north) which took about 2-3 hours. 

Taipei in the north, Hualien at the bottom, and Taroko Gorge just above Hualien

When we got to Hualien we had to take a bus another hour and a half, which was taxing on my patience but was well worth it. 

In a nutshell, Taroko Gorge is a massive river system that cuts through the east mountains of Taiwan and flows into the Pacific Ocean. There are three things that make this gorge the major attraction of Taiwan:

1. It’s all marble
2. The shear depth of the gorge
3. the ambitiously placed temples along the river system

I tried my best to get pictures that would translate all of this to you, I hope these do it justice. 

Check out all the marble

The river is abnormally low which was cool because we could see more rock, but it would also be cool to see it full of rushing water.

I love being in the mountains because they are truly humbling. In Toronto, the biggest things around you are all manmade. Out here, you see things that humans could never build. Huge walls of marble that shoot straight up from a blueish river into the clouds. Mountains so big that they had to blast holes through it in order to build roads. It makes you truly respect nature and those who attempt to live within and work with it. 

These temples show just that. The one on the bottom of the cliff has been rebuilt 5 or 6 times due to mudslides and falling rock. The one on the top left was very hard to get to. There were hundreds of tourists who came to see these and only a few managed to climb the stairs built into the mountainside to get to the higher one. We were two of those people.

This basin should be filled with water

When you get to the top you have the option of seeing the temple or if you walk 20 more steps up you can go to the bell tower, so we went to the bell tower where you can ring the bell out to the gorge below.

Another thing that is interesting about these temples is the amount of marble that they are made out of in comparison to every other temple we’ve seen. This is for obvious reasons of course and was cool to see, but it almost made me feel like I was back in Woodbridge visiting my grandparents. 

We walked down and said goodbye to Taroko.  That night we saw a lunar eclipse. I’m so happy that these shots turned out.

We headed back to Hualien where we spent the rest of our weekend.

There is less to describe here other than it was cool to see and spend time by the ocean. Since this is a marble heavy area, there was a lot of cool marble statues and artwork. 

Avalokitesvara - A Buddhist bodhisvatta who stands for the compassion of all Buddhas.

 

It was super hot and had to stay cool so we went to a favourite desert place loved by the locals. Attaching a block of ice to a drill press, this restaurant shaves ice into a casserole dish and covers it with syrup and condensed milk. The ingenuity of the desert far exceeds the flavour, but it was still delicious and more so very refreshing!

We also got help from a bellman at an apartment building, who told us we walked too far from the main part of town and offered to drive us back. So nice of him.

At the end of the trip it was time to go home, but not before heading to church (it still is Easter after all!) 

The mass was small. only 50 people crammed in a small chapel. There were a few foreigners but most of the people were Pilipino or Indonesian. The priest was from France and is now officially the nicest French man I have met. I took this picture of a statue of Mary to remember the mass and everyone we met. We did quite a lot this weekend and I’m super happy it all worked out and that we could share it with you. 

- RS=T