Taiwan

Luodong night market in Yilan county, North-East Taiwan

It was much bigger as I was expecting to see. It was much more impressive, vibrant atmosphere surrounded and there was much bigger selection on food than you would expect from regular nightmarket allover Taiwan.
It's just same impressive, and maybe even bigger than Fengchia nightmarket in Taichung, located nearby my flat. Definitely, Luodongers can be same proud and self-acclaim it as biggest and most popular tourist attraction as sometimes Taichungers do with Fengchia nightmarket.

Luodong (traditional Chinese: 羅東; pinyin: Luódōng; Wade-Giles: Lo-tung) is an urban township in the central part of Yilan County, Taiwan. Its name derives from the Taiwanese aboriginal word Rutung/Lutung, meaning "monkey".





Same as in Fengchia nightmarket, and in most big nightmarkets in Taiwan - it has several parts. As you might know, night market is "night" because it appears on a particular street only in evening, so it will be always a situation that one side will have a shops - inside the buildings, usually selling clothes, glasses and jewelry, and in front of them - food sellers and all the usual shelters selling everything starting from fake Gucci bags made in China and ending children toys, also presumable from mainland. This part of market for you as a foreigner might be less interesting, however, take a walk to breath the atmosphere of friday evening in Luodong - food smell rises in the air mixed with loud voices of clothes sellers - a cacophony of sounds you will find only in Taiwan. Take a walk with me - watch the below video and especially listen the noise - NOISE of nightmarket.





In old fashioned brick-and-mortar business the location is the most important factor for any retail shop. So for this shop promotional banner with weak call to action is OK, to write by hand - as you can see still it's full of people there.



Shoes & apparel shops compete with each other not only using bright red signs but also sometimes switch on very loud "lai lai lai (come come come) recorded voice "spam" - very annoying in fact.



It's the woman's world out here.



Target customer for those apparel shops are teens and students - as you can see they are also most popular demographic group seen here.





it's a food selling area already in above video. In 0:19 and further notice the row - waiting in a line for dumplings stand.



Juice stand



Call to action for kids - entertainment here for everyone, and you will go out from market with very thin wallet. However, with full stomach.



Lu wei - same as in Fengchia night market and everywhere else. Taiwan people like it a lot, and with various flavors.



different fried food selection





Dumplings. Cheaper than in Fengchia nightmarket. And even more cheaper than in Kenting nightmarket - I had wrote about it here.





Kiss of Love cherry juice. No, it's not pathetic. It's Taiwan.





I can't stop wonder why Taiwanese man so like those striped shirts? My all are with palms and flowers, like those in Kenting...



Restaurant area in Luodong night market - yes, crowdy. But, it's a nightmarket!



Friday night - it's hard to find a place to sit.

















Time to relax. Luodong style massage.





Those games are not just for kids - for big kids also. In love. After Kiss of Love cherry juice.

Fulong beach in Gongliao Township, Taipei County, North East Taiwan - where is the promised golden sands?

I am risking to appear spoiled and impolite - but where is the "promised" golden sands and impressive views?
Maybe it's a long long traffic jam, we were stacked at this Dragon boat festival holidays, or maybe my fanatical devotion to Kenting, but I was disappointed for what I saw. Maybe first time I say about something in Taiwan like that, and I hope last time also.
Impersonal Wikipedia says, that there is golden sands... click on a link to see their picture.
Well, what we saw, is just posted below.





Sand was in fact close to dark brown and quite dirty - far from one you can see in Kenting. OK, it's Nothern Taiwan, and one of rear beaches there but still...

and then this temple just near parking:



Well, IMHO, when you want to see temples, you go to temples, and when you want to enjoy sea views, palms, bikinis and surfers - a large temple is a last what you expect to see... at least for me so. By the way I did not went in - maybe it's not a temple at all? Someone was there?

OK, waves - those who are surfers for sure will enjoy them. Waves are really great there.

Taimali township, in Tautung county, South-East coast of Taiwan - Shi Jia fruit heaven

Once you are driving around Taiwan, and happen to be in a Taitung county, it's well worth to stop by and check Taimali township.

As Wikipedia says:

The Tai Mali village was started 1,000 years ago by Qian YaoKao who was ancestor of the Pai Wan race. The Qian YaoKao is also called DaMa race. Guangxu 3th year, due to DaMa has similar pronunciation to Tai Ma, thus it has been called Tai Mali by mainland people. Early in the Republic Era, other aborigines such as the Ah Mei and Bai Wan races were moving continuously to Tai Mali village. During the Japanese colonial period, there were also some residents from Miaoli, Nantou, Zhanghua, Yunlin, Jiayi, Tainan, Gaoxiong, and Pindong settling in Tai Mali village.

If you just stay on a main road, Taimali looks just like any other east coast township:





Most of inhabitants are engaged in farming, while others try to squeeze out living selling food to those who pass by the township.

What Taimali area is really famous for, it's a Shi Jia fruit, and I think, that there is no english name for it - at least yahoo dictionary could not find one. Anyway, you should come early in may to get the season and best of them, because when we came at end of may, it appeared that it's already too late, and only such ones left:



Do not be too concerned also, if you could not catch the fresh fruits - there are a lot of jellies and candy made from them, so you will be sure to get a sweet (maybe even too sweet in my opinion) taste of this fruit. And a good place to buy a gifts and different sweets, related to eastern Taiwan are in the shop, which you will not miss (good example of marketing skills - in a mess of red signs in Taiwan, it really stands out). And it's a parking around it - as Sam Walton noticed, that in case his parking lot's were filled more than 50 %, the sales in his shops started to decline. This shop apparently does it good - get's the attention, offers you parking and here you are - inside the shop.



Good isn't it? At least you will point your finger on it, asking "what's that"? And most likely stop to take a picture.



A lot of things to choose from



Li Ji - my favorite fruit in Taiwan also sold here.

After you had packed up with eastern coast sweet's, don't speed up too much. There is a really terrific place to have a lunch. Definitely - such quality and such a taste - exceeded our expectations.



They had named it Sea restaurant, but not because of sea food, but I guess, because of really fantastic eastern coast views, which are just here to enjoy while you have a lunch.

Adress is No.133, San-Ho Village, Taimali, Taitung county.





Such a views, just from a restaurant table. Let's take a look on menu:



If you think that it's not cheap at all, I agree with you. But it's worth to try, because it's really tasty.

Here is our lunch, but your choice could be another:



It's Hai Shin. Inside are mix of sea food - shrimps & similar.



Noodles, pork, ginger & much other tasty things.



Again a mix of different kind of vegetables and meat, and as I remember, tofu as well.



Chicken.



Desert - watermelon, sweet's and coffee.

I will remember Taimali as such, but it's for sure, that I am going to explore it more next time, not just such quick run through.

Manjhou Township, Pingtung county, Southern Taiwan

One of the first rural townships you will stumble upon if you decide to take a trip from Kenting up to Taipei along the east coast of Taiwan in Manjhou township.
Stop by here if you have time - as most of east side rural townships it has much more untouched old buildings and will get you more feeling of how real Taiwan - not polished for tourists one like you would find in Alishan, looks like. As a matter of fact, one of the scenes for Cape7 movie was made here, in one of those old buildings. More on Cape7 movie here.

Once you see the sign of Manjhou, it's already a reason to stop, because there are one of the first gorgeous eastern Taiwan coastal area landscapes waiting for your camera:





It won't be so much cars there if you come and regular weekend - it was dragon boat festival time when I made this picture.



Once you are in a township, numerous old buildings appears just in front of you. Eastern Taiwan is really much more intact as in terms of nature as also for living & culture. Some says (me also sometimes), it looks more poor than Western and Nothern areas.





Southeast coast as seen from Manjhou township in June 2009.



It will be harder to find such houses in Nothern Taiwan.



Unfortunately, they are dissapering fast and become replaced with such faceless block houses scattered all over in island in rural townships.



Kids play ball in one of backstreets in Manjhou.



Eastern areas (this in fact is still south part of Taiwan - belongs to Pingtung county), really are maybe not that rich as those in Nothern Taiwan, because here are much less factories and people make living most by farming. Ironically, the sign on this quite poor outlook house offers "money on credit".





Farmland in Manjhou.



I also tried to drive up on one of those small mountain roads.

It was worth to do it - below video in my opinion is not so worth for a view - but just listen a sounds!! You will never ever hear something in noisy - terribly noisy Taiwan's cities like Taichung, Taipei or any else bigger. 24h per day, motorcycles will drain your nerves system driving again and again - well, that's city life. I could not stop listen that: