Beauty of the North and the East

Being a 'gold digger' is definitely profitable, but certainly not easy. Imagine working underground in harsh conditions for long hours. It pays to make a good living in the olden days. We set our foot onto Gold Ecological Park yesterday morning and get to experience how it's liked to sieve gold out of ordinary sand. The theory is to settle all gold particles to the bottom of the mixture (since gold has higher density) after some shaking.

Gold miner models from the olden days

  Before sieving gold out of sand mixture

 We had lunch in the popular Jiu Fen (九份) and had the famous 阿柑姨 rice ball desserts. It was definitely worth the price for the taste and the long trip to the place. If not for the limited stomach fill, I could have eaten more street food along the alley because everything was so tempting.

 Entrance of Jiu Fen alley

The narrow shop houses

 'Ah Gan Yi' riceball dessert

Lastly, we arrived at Shifen (十分) in the evening. This was the place taken in the film "Apple of My Eye (那些年我们追过的女孩)". My mind was taken up with reminiscences of the show with all these familiar scenes. We also get to experience the lighting up of lantern where we wrote down all our wishes onto the paper and released it to the sky thereafter. 

 The railway track

Swinging bridge

"Wishing all my family and friends with good health and happiness"

This morning, after more than an hour's bus ride, we arrived in the eastern part of Taiwan called King Car Orchid Park. It was filled with different kinds of orchid species that was cultivated in this Yilan county. It reminded me of my country, Singapore's national flower, Vanda Miss Joaquim. To my surprised, they had this breed species in here! This park is famous for 蝴蝶蘭 (butterfly orchid) as its the most commercialized and iconic flower in Taiwan to other parts of the world since Taiwan has the climatic condition for its growth.

Singapore's national flower, Vanda Miss Joaquim

Next, we arrived at the Cingshui Cliff during pit stop and the view was magnificent. I had a little candid pose with the scenery because the view really captivated me. We had a little fun at the shore with more shots and my pants were all drenched from unexpected waves. It was rather embarrassing as it seemed like I had pissed my pants all over. Nevertheless, it was a relaxing moment after a long journey.

 Me posing with the shore

After another hour of bus travel, we finally arrived at Hualian and unpacked our luggages there. Hualian is a big suburb in the eastern Taiwan and there is only one downtown 20 minutes walk away from our hotel. We had a little snack in the town and tried the famous Zengji mochi. We will be staying in Hualian for a night before heading to Taroko National Park the next day. Good night all!