Yilan

This past weekend we had a three day weekend for Dragon Boat Festival, so we had Monday. Two of my friends, Katy and Igor, and I decided to go on a mini vacation to Yilan. Yilan is in the north part of the island, and we had read about how it had beaches and lots of fun stuff to do. We had an adventurous, crazy fun weekend.

Katy and I set out for Yilan early Saturday morning. We took a bus to Taipei. The bus station in Taipei was CRAZY. There was so many people everywhere and so many long lines. Instead of taking another bus, we decided to take a fairly cheap taxi. It was a pretty interesting experience. We were crammed in a taxi with four other people and a driver, and no one spoke English. We drove for almost an hour and luckily we ended up right where we needed to be, at the Yilan train station. It was a pretty neat train station.

We took the train to the Waioa Beach stop, where our hostel was. The hostel was definitely not what we expected at all. It was called Johnny Rose. We had found it online and read reviews and there was nothing horrible said about it. I will say the staff was friendly and we could see the beach from our room. We had reserved a three person mixed dorm room. They had one of the other guests show us to our room because they didn’t speak a lot of English. We were pretty pleased up until that point. While attempting to change into our swimsuits, random strangers kept walking through our room. No one would knock and the door didn’t have a lock. It was incredibly weird and awkward. Then, the owner, Johnny, burst in to our room and told us that that wasn’t actually our room. Our “room” was the open landing at the top of the stairs, with three thin straw mats for beds. I don’t know who in their right mind would consider a landing an actual room. He let us stay in the room they had accidently put us, but we had to pay more and we slept next to random strangers for two nights. The owner’ daughter, Rose, kept knocking and throwing open the door to talk to me and Katy. She was all in my bed, under the covers and it was really weird. She was sweet and liked playing with me and Katy’s hair, but she would not leave us alone and just kept bursting into everyone’s room.

Rose

Katy and I finally successfully got our swimsuits on and went down to the beach after it stopped raining. The beach was really neat because it was a black sand beach. I thought it was really pretty. We got in the water and then walked down the beach. Walking down the beach was a mistake. We saw about a billion dead puffer fish all over the beach, in various states of puffiness. It was horrifying. I’ve never seen a puffer in real life, but I saw hundreds over the weekend. I think they get stuck on the beach during high tide. I now have a weird puffer fish obsession. When we were down the beach, pretty far from our hostel it started to rain. Really hard, painful rain. We booked it back to the hostel, avoiding the dead carcasses of the fish. Here are some pictures of the beach and dead puffers:

A mass grave of puffer fish and garbage

After that, we napped and watched an old Ben Affleck movie and waited for Igor to arrive. When he got there, we went out to dinner and I had an amazing steak. I was impressed! We then proceeded to chat and drink beers on the beach. Overall, an average first day at Waiao Beach.

Really good corn soup with a pastry over the top 

SO GOOD 

Day 2 (Sunday) was intensely awesome. It was beautiful and hot. Katy and I decided before we came on the trip that we wanted to take surfing lessons because why not?! My biggest fear was the puffer fish. We never saw them in the water, but I knew they had to be around because we’d seen so many dead ones. Anyway, we took a lesson with three other people, and Igor had to translate for us. We spent about 30 minutes on land learning how to get into a a standing position and where to put your feet and all that jazz. It was hard on land and even harder in the water. By the end of our surfing career, I had stood up on my board three times. The first time was AMAZING and I was so excited that I started screaming and laughing. We surfed until our arms couldn’t support us anymore and we couldn’t even get on our boards. Not only was the surfing part exhausting, but so was getting thrown around by the waves. It seriously one of the coolest things I’ve ever done, and I’m so proud of myself. Here are a bunch of surf/beach pictures:

After that, we cleaned up and decided to go to the Yilan area to get some food and supplies because there were only a few restaurants by us, and surprisingly no 7-11s. We waited an hour and ten minutes for the train and got eaten alive by mosquitos, but we made a nice young friend who spoke really good English. The night market was crowded fun and we all bought new shoes. I then had the best pineapple juice of my life and was so happy I could have died. We went back to our beach and spent another night listening to the waves and chatting.

Night market

I've never seen a french fry covered corn dog

We got early on Monday, and went to eat breakfast. We walked around and enjoyed the gorgeous, sunny weather before we left Waiao Beach.

Igor, Katy, and me

We decided to go to Jiaoxi to see a waterfall and go to the hot springs. The waterfall was so beautiful and magnificent. It's called Wufongci Waterfall. We hiked around to get to it and it was so wonderful. There were colorful butterflies EVERYWHERE. None of us had the proper shoes for climbing all these stairs and things, but it was just perfect. You could feel the spray from the fall and stand in the cool water. Here are some pictures of the waterfall area:

Pretty rest area

After that, we went and found a hot spring. I had never been to a hot spring and had no idea what we were going to find or what it was going to be like. IT WAS SO COOL. I would compare it to an adult waterpark. There was all these different pools infused with different things, like rose or jasmine, and all different temperatures ranging from scalding hot to painfully freezing. They were brightly colored and smelled so good. There was also a big kind of covered pool that had different jets to massage different parts of your body. It was so relaxing and just what our bodies needed after surfing the day before. My favorite part was the waterfall massage. You laid down on this wooden platform and pushed a button, and all the sudden all this water fell on your body. It was like getting a back massage from a million tiny hands. It was perfect and I can’t even put in to words how awesome it felt. There was also an outdoor pool area, and they had these bed looking places you laid down and got massaged by bubbles. I wish everyone in the world could go to the Art Spa Hotel in Jiaoxi and experience that hot spring. It was exactly what we needed. We paid $250NT ($8.34 US) to enjoy all of these things.

Hot stone beds

Mud pool

Bubble massage bed

Waterfall massage

Igor getting a waterfall massage

We had to take a train back to Taipei to go home after the hot springs. There were no seats on the train and it was a two hour ride, so we took over an area by the doors and sat there. Once we got to Taipei, Katy and I took the high speed rail and made it to Taichung in an hour, cabbed it to Changhua, and then biked home. There was lots of travel involved, but it was an incredible trip full of so many new experiences. Times like these make me realize how much I’m going to miss Taiwan. Pictures and explanations don't do this sort of trip justice. I can't even begin to put in to words all the wonderful thoughts and feelings that went along with all the things we did.

Train ride to Taipei