Thursday 14th

Had our breakfast and had to be on the bus by 8.
We visited the Seven Star Lake, the area is called Qixingtan in Mandarin. Qizingtan was once the name of a series of small lakes situated where the Hualien Airport now stands. But in 1936, Taiwan’s Japanese rulers filled in the lakes as part of a modernization drive, and the local people retreated to the coastal area and their descendants now still call it Qixingtan.
We went to a marble factory where we saw how the marble is sculptured and the furniture made of Hualien’s marble.
We went onto Taroko National Park. Taroko Gorge is the Seven Wonders of Asia. It’s narrow path created by the Liwu River which was cut deep into the mountains of solid marble. A road carved into sheet walls of rock rewinding its way past forrested peaks and cliffs towering thousands of metres above, while hundred of metres below a river roars parts gigantic marble boulders. We saw Swallow Grotto (natural hotel carved out of the marble by the erosion of the Liwu River. During late spring and early summer the hotels are the nesting place of 1000’s of swallows).
We went through the tunnel of Nine Turns (man-made wonder created by the builders of the Highway. The Highway penetrates the mountains through winding stone caves and tunnels), and Marble Bridge (it’s faced with snow-white marble from Haulien and is located at the beginning of the Liwu and Laosi Rivers).
We had lunch at an Aboriginal Restaurant. It was a gourmet lunch was wasn’t what I had expected. It was quite nice.
After lunch we drove through SuHau Highway and pass ChingShuei Cliff located on the section of the Suao-Haulien Highway, one of the most spectacular sights on Taiwan’s Pacific Coast, then Snow Mountain Tunnel (which is the 2nd longest tunnel in Asia 12.9km) and the 5th in the world.
We went onto dinner and a Taiwanese Gourmet Restaurant where the main ingredient is the Taiwan tea leaves. It was most delicious and our table just about emptied all the plates.
We went onto our hotel, the Howard Plaza Hotel in Taipei where we are going to stay for 3 nights.
This day is being written from notes supplies by Taiwan Tours because I forgot to take paper with me and write down what we did and where we went. Also, I haven’t done my blog for 3 days and my memory isn’t what it used to be.