Day 3: (tried doing it earlier in the day only for Firefox to crash. ARGH)

Alright, here is Day 3, as promised. We set off in the late morning, after a slightly better 2nd breakfast in Taiwan (still not fantastic). We boarded the bus (not before I waved the little piglet a quick goodbye) and made our way to Hualien.

As the trip to Hualien would involve lots of mountains, twists and turns, the tour guide expected some people (ok, most people) to end up with motion sickness. So it was down to a temple in Nafanau for the tourists to do some exploring and praying while the guide trooped down to a local convenience store in search of medication to prevent motion sickness.



Here is the said temple, or part of the said temple from the outside as it was disrespectful to take pictures in temples so I'd rather not offend the believers. The last thing I needed was the local Taiwanese chasing after me with their slabs of peanut candy. Yes, the local delicacy there was this pretty delightful popiah ( as we call it in Singapore) with shredded peanut candy plus a large scoop of ice cream to accompany it. Nothing like their little dessert to wash your motion sickness medication down. Not that I'm prone to getting car sick, I'm just prone to getting air sick, especially when I end up in the aisle seat (yuck). Note to people travelling with me next time, let me have the window seat unless you want a green-looking girl seated next to you who MAY barf on you any second of the flight.

After the temple, it was off to the motion-sickness inducing roads. True enough, people started getting nauseous. My brother was one of them (he turned completely green in the face in Langkawi hahahahahahahaha). Me? I was fine, I know what to do if I feel just a tat carsick; I chew gum. Yes, I chew gum. Chewing gum helps me forget that I'm feeling a lil carsick as I'm too busy chewing. Anyway, I did fine, my brother turned into a 'merlion'.

We stopped by a tiny town for lunch and the food was BAD. It was way BAD, so bad that you couldn't possibly find such horrible food in Singapore, except in someone's home that is. The vegetable tasted WEIRD. And that constituted a good one-third of the meal. I don't like tomatoes and had them as DESSERT.

I was glad that lunch was over and we headed to the Taroko National Park. Now it's supposedly very beautiful but I didn't really think so, maybe winter has a way of uglifying the place. I always thought winter was a nice time of the year, to see snow covered places, maybe except in places where it doesn't snow, like in the flatter parts of Taiwan.



This particular rock in the National Park is supposed to resemble an Indian man's head. However, as the picture was taken at high tide, part of his chin has been submerged. It should be too hard to make our his eyes and nose. Go ahead, take a good look, can you see the Indian man gorging on water?

We made our way to a different part of the National Park to collect apparently lucky spring water (I laugh and you shall see why later).

There was quite a distance to trot on foot to the spring water collection point, some parts of which were shrouded in complete darkness. It's times like these that I'm thankful to have a phone with a built in light. Hence, I had a mini torch while the others fumbled around, stumbling all over the place. Anyway, we made it, collected the water and made our way back to the bus.

What followed was a long sit in the bus to Hualien. The tour guide had arranged for an additional viewing of the Ah Mei tribe's traditional dance. Now we thought we would get to see real Ah Mei tribesmen dancing, what we got were FAKE ones dancing. DISAPPOINTING!!!



See? FAKE tribesmen dancing!!!

After the fake dance, we finally checked into the hotel. I loved that hotel, definitely 5*, with a GREAT European buffet dinner. I had the BEST meal in Taiwan there. LOVE it. The breakfast wasn't too bad as well.

In case you're still wondering why I scoffed at the 'lucky spring water', my mum drank it, only for it to give her an itchy face!!! So much for luck!