Night open air concert in Hualien

Decided to post several songs from night concert in Hualien on the blog. It was very enjoyable event and I wish to share with my readers. Video is rather long - about 30 min, so it is splited into 4 parts.

At the begining were Taiwanese traditional dances. Surprisingly, music is somehow close to Malay or Indonesian music.


Some moments from festival performance. It is rather long video

Taiwanese dances were followed by performances of modern dance, which was really professional. I tried to zoom on artists faces, because expressions of their faces tells story itself. I recorded dance for you with Chinese motives.

Last tap dance troupe on the stage was fantastic. It was something new and it grabbed attention of the public.

Next day left Hualien to Taitung.

Around Hualien town

It was really hot in Hualien. Town is not big, but it is spread over wide area. It is popular destination for tourists, who are going to Toroko gorge. I rented bicycle and kept getting lost all the time. I went around several areas in town looking for interesting things.


Image: Hualien street scene


Image: Local Mickey


Video from Hualien: street scenes, street market and night beach volley

Later in evening open air concert in meadow near art museum and library. It was one of best things I saw in Taiwan and really enjoyed that night.

After concert, I was riding bicycle back to hotel while being intoxicated with music from concert. Here are some night scenes just from the road.


Video: while riding night streets of Hualien

Taipei - Hualien by train

I am leaving Taipei to travel around island by train and to see as much as possible from other towns.

Trains in Taiwan are different sorts and price also varies accordingly – have to pay extra for speed, but can save if taking slower train. While hanging around Taipei station, I bought Taiwan rail pass for about 1700 Taiwan dollars. Don’t know how much round the island trip would cost without pass, but probably combined costs could be about the same or even cheaper with local trains. So, with rail pass I enjoyed fastest trains possible to have maximum benefit of it.

Trip from Taipei un Hualien by train could be up to 440 Taiwan dollars for fastest and less for slower trains.

Here I will explain a little bit about Taiwan rail pass (see cover in the picture). From date rail pass is stamped and dated on front cover it is valid for 60 days and round the island trip should be finished within 15 days from first trip. Maximum allowed trips are seven. Once journey has started can not travel opposite direction or make repetitions. Important that before getting into train, need to go to ticket counter and reserve seat. Ticket person will write destination, train number, car, seat etc. on inside pages.

Trains in Taiwan are nice and entirely different experience from other countries – totally recommended! In video, you can see how landscape changes while going form Taipei to Hualien – there are cities, mountains and at times train goes very close to ocean. In the middle of video you can see island in the ocean. It is Turtle Island.


Video: look from train window on Taipei – Hualien route with natural sound in cabin

In middle of journey, sales lady moved around and sold obento – lunch boxes. Soon I heard everybody lunching happily in the train. There is also another lady who tours forth and back with big plastic bag – its garbage collecting lady. I enjoyed idea, even I had no garbage, I could see reason why trains are clean.


Image: this is a house I observed from train. One half of it is gone – construction ? But then there are bed, bottles and books standing on the shelves like somebody was living there and just went out to buy cart of milk. Notice how simple houses are built.

After arriving it is time to see a little Around Hualien.


Video: Here I am using ticket machine. Just to give you idea how to buy train ticket