Whenever I ask people where I need to go in Taiwan, they always say Hualien. Hualien is the home of Taroko National Park, a marble-walled gorge cut out by the Liwu River. The gorge began forming 5 million years ago from coral deposits deep underwater. Under pressure from geologic force, the coral turned into limestone, and the limestone turned into marble and other banded metamorphic rocks, creating a beautiful layered effect in the rock walls of the gorge. I was saving the trip for when Brian would be here so we could both see it for the first time. Howard and Tony, my friends from the TUSA Scholarship, had both been to Taroko Gorge before, but a long time ago.

The trip had rocky start, when I received a call from Howard near the end of my late class on Friday night and a few messages along the lines of, “Where are you?! We’re going to miss the train!” and “We missed the train.” This was my fault. I thought the tickets were for after 10 p.m. because that’s when we had originally reserved them for, but we didn’t pay for them at 7-11 in time and they were released, at which point, we got new tickets for sometime after 8 p.m. (during my class). Howard had sent a reminder about the time of the tickets in military time (20-something o’clock), but assuming they were the same tickets, I didn’t read it very carefully. Luckily, Howard and Tony were able to switch the tickets to a later time, after 11 p.m., which got us into Hualien really late, but it did get us there. We slept some on the train, and we arrived around 3 a.m. Mea culpa.

The following morning I tried to make it up to everyone by buying breakfast, but they wouldn’t let me. We all got dan bing, a fried pancake roll that you can order with bacon, cheese, and other items wrapped inside, topped with sauce and spices.

Then we rented scooters, a red and a blue one. Thankfully, Howard and Tony, experienced scooter drivers, were able to cart us virgin-scooter-drivers around for the day. I was glad to be a passenger and not a driver on the steep, twisty roads lining the gorge. I hopped on Howard’s scooter and Brian hopped on Tony’s, and we were off on the open road, hair blowing in the wind.

At the entrance for Taroko National Park was the East Entrance Arch Gate. We stopped, looked around, took a few photos, and continued further into the park to the visitor center and dropped off our bags there. From the visitor center, we immediately went on a short hike nearby that featured a rope bridge (we accidentally crossed it backwards), and tons of surrounding greenery.

Then we went on another short hike along the gorge. The blue-green water of the Liwu River brought out the colors in the wall of layered rock. It was stunning to see the flourescent water flowing over boulders, and rock wall masterpieces created over millions of years lining the waterway. Nature is pretty amazing sometimes.

Along the trail we passed blocked off walkways warning that indigenous people live up the road and not to enter. The Truku people are an indigenous Taiwanese tribe, and their name is equivalent to the romanized version “Taroko.” The Truku people and another aboriginal group called the Atayal tribe still live in the national park. Also along the road, we ran into a large group of friendly Taiwanese women who were always asking Brian and I to join them in group photos because we were “beautiful” and “handsome.” After one or two group photos with the nine women, they turned to Howard and Tony and said, “Sorry, you’re handsome too, join our picture!” in a combination of Taiwanese and Mandarin that I was actually able to decipher with my minimal knowledge of the languages. After a few more group photos, we couldn’t help but ask for a photo with them too.

Soon the trail came to and end— the remaining part was closed due to damage from a typhoon. We took the same path back, boarded our scooters, and returned to the visitor center for our bags. At the visitor center we watched a brief film on the park, which I apparently I fell asleep during and snored a little, according to the boys. They assured me it was quiet snoring though. Finally we took our bags to the scooters and rode the windy trail along the gorge to our hotel. It was nice that our accommodation was on the other end of the gorge because we got to ride the entire length of the 19-km long canyon and it was very scenic. We passed waterfalls and hazy, tree-covered mountains before arriving at our hotel. We checked in, and immediately noticed the picturesque mountainside view from our window.  We all huddled around the window, and not soon after that, we saw a monkey in the treetops! I had never seen a monkey in the wild before, so it was very exciting. Then we saw about three or four other monkeys among the trees. Farther in the distance, we saw a goat walking on a steep cliffside. It was starting to get dark, and we knew restaurants would close soon, so we headed to a small street of restaurants to grab the nighttime essentials: dinner and tons of snacks from 7-11. I ended up getting a fried noodle dish to-go, Doritos, Lays potato chips, and coconut creme filled Oreos (if you haven’t had them, you haven’t lived).

We showered, relaxed, got ready for bed, and then went into ultimate sleepover mode: playing board games and eating snacks all night long.

We played Splash, a tower stacking game, Cockroach Poker, a lying game with bug cards, and Hoax, a mystery game that attempts to solve a murder with character roles and more lying. I was the lucky recipient of all of these games: Splash and Cockroach Poker were a birthday gift from Tony and Tammy, and Hoax was a birthday gift from my parents.

It was really fun to play three new games, especially with friends from high school and college, Ohio and Taiwan. But eventually we resigned ourselves to sleep because we wanted to take advantage of the morning in Hualien before having to take the train back to Taipei.

In the morning, the boys went to get breakfast and I stayed in my warm bed, opting to eat almonds instead. We checked out, but left our bags in a storage room at the hotel. Then we took a short ride to Xiangde Temple, a Buddhist temple built into a mountainside. To get to it, we crossed the red and yellow Pudu Bridge and hiked up a steep path, coming across several Buddhist deities on the way.

One giant golden statue stood out among the smaller ones, and I later learned the statue was of Ksitigarbha, a deity protecting all beings in all hells. “This temple is known for having the world’s highest-elevated statue of Ksitigarbha (地藏), a bodhisattva revered by East Asians for protecting those in hell (那落迦), as he has vowed not to attain buddhahood until all beings in all hells have been freed,” according to the Guide to Taipei website. You could see the golden statue on the mountainside from very far away. Standing right next to it, it towered over us and reflected the sun so brightly we had to shield our eyes as we took many overexposed photos of the shining god. From this height you could see an aerial view of the gorge and the town we stayed in, Tianxiang. Also near the temple stood the seven-story Tianfeng Pagoda, a watchtower that we heard had a great view, but when we arrived it was closed.

We descended the mountainside, crossed back over the Pudu Bridge, and headed to the next stop, the Baiyang Waterfall Trail. The entrance to the trail was a very long, dark, wet tunnel. We had to pull out flashlights (aka the flashlight apps on our phones) to make it through, our shoes splashing as we walked through puddles.

Finally, we reached “the light at the end of the tunnel,” and walked a fairly flat, tree-shaded path for about 40 minutes, until we reached a bridge over a rushing river. I saw a small waterfall, and I thought that was it: Baiyang Waterfall. Water was falling gracefully into the river below, the hum of the water like someone whispering, “Shhhhhh.” Then, I looked up. It was taller than I had even imagined. To see the very top, you had to look up at the sky. Just below the clouds sat the peak of the mountain, and the source of the water. It flowed down the mountain in two main sections, one on the right and one on the left, perfectly filling out the mountain wall. It was a sight to see. The rushing water racing over boulders, little humans crossing the pedestrian bridge, the waterfall flowing from a faucet in the sky… it was beautiful. Tony said after seeing the waterfall, he felt like this was why he came to Hualien, to see something like this.

We would have loved to continue to the “Water Curtain,” a curtain of water that flows down in a sheet inside of a cave, but unfortunately the trail was closed. We decided to head back toward the town afterward, so we stopped back at the hotel and got our bags, and then scootered toward Hualien. On the way back, we made a few stops. We stopped at a winery, where we didn’t buy wine, but instead all pooled our coins to buy a pokeball. We were all so curious to know if there was actually something inside. Turns out, there was! A small rubber pokemon and some stickers. Worth it. Then we stopped by the Pacific Ocean, which was labeled as a lake on google maps. We were all a little surprised to see how big the “lake” was. We didn’t spent too long, just long enough to let the wind puff up our raincoats and walk around like the Michelin Man for a few minutes. Then we drove further, into downtown Hualien, where we stopped at Hualien Cultural and Creative Industries Park. Most things were closed, we think because it was Sunday, but we did walk into a few neat stores like a jade shop, and a shop that turned old bottles into lamps. We also accidentally walked in on a drum practice for a show that was to happen later in the evening, so it’s almost like we were there for it.

It was time to return the scooters, so we headed back to the scooter rental shop. We turned them in, hopped on the train, and rode back toward Taipei main station. Brian, Howard, and I got dinner there, and we said goodbye to Tony.

Another successful trip in the books!