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Day 3. Rueisuei -> Hualien
Our hotsprings hotel was a life saver because we were so cold. It was very difficult to find the night before, because all the hotsprings hotels are about 3km out of town, and they all seem to have the same Chinese name- Rueisuei hotsprings hotel.
We went in the hotsprings baths a couple of times. We actually thought it was just change rooms for the outside hotsprings, but eventually we figured out that inside this row of doors were nice little hot tubs.
Rueisuei is a pretty little town. It is situated on the inner east coast highway (There are two east coast highways, one is on the ocean, and the other is just over the coastal mountain range). We drove around town a little.
And we saw this beautiful field of flowers.
We hit the road out of Rueisuei and back to the ocean. The road was very scenic, which was why we chose to take it again (we could have just taken the inner highway to Hualien).
turn, turn, turn... (that's me down there!)
That thing on my head is one of the 'touristy' aboriginal things you can buy. It's perhaps a little tacky, but it hid my helmet head and was a little reminiscent of the thingies I wore on my head the entire time I was touring SE Asia.
More scenic turns on the road from Rueisuei to the ocean:
We stopped a few times along the ocean.
Another picture of the uncooperative egrets. The best I could do was get far away shots of them in the rice fields.
Just as the rain was really starting to come down hard, we made it to Hualien, the largest city on the east coast. The whole city was booked during Chinese New Year, but one very friendly hotel family let us stay in a makeshift room with no doors (basically the landing at the top of the building staircase).
The family was overwhelmingly friendly. I hope we get to go back there! They always invited us for breakfast and dinner and there were always people around talking to us (and luckily many of them had some basic English).