The mountains are elegant, not intimidating; the seas are open, not turbulent. The city looks ordinary, but people are friendly to tourists and professional to their customers or associates. They intend to become forward-looking global citizens.
When I arrived at the Hualian train station, it was late afternoon. I saw a neat, quiet, mid-sized city with lots of shops sell locally-made snacks. There were no skyscrapers around. You can’t see the ocean in the city center. It was an ordinary city, I was still in a mundane world. If you look further enough clouds flew over the mountains and mountains extended into the further horizon.
The locals were friendly and helped me locate my hotel. The streets were not very wide I found the local library and Zhongshan Park, which are not so far away from the train and bus station.
From my first sight impression, it’s a nice clean city but not very unique. Why do those global strangers think Hualian is the prettiest? I believe they referred to the big Hualian district, not just the city area.
So I needed to go to more tourist hot spots to discover deeper and further on the second and third days. Hualian， are you the prettiest?
Later in Hualian I walked through different streets and visited a few museums and parks
I went to the Songyuan architecture building where you could watch over the Pacific Ocean. There was a small museum that introduced the brief history of the place and the exhibition of a few pieces of clothing fashion. There were cafes and gift shops inside. Overall speaking, the museum collection was very limited; I was a bit disappointed, it seemed not worth the ticket.
I also visited the craft shop across the street, which sold various crafts and local rosestone artworks. The staff ladies were warm-hearted recommending me to visit the Hualian Stone Sculpture Museum nearby. I appreciated their introduction and headed to the museum.
It took me more than half an hour of walking in a quiet street and arrive at the stone museum near the Hualian government buildings. In front of the gate, there were large stone-made sculptures of humans—hands, abstract art, etc.
Inside the museum, most of the artworks were sculpted by local Artists using the local rose stones. There were very vivid sculptures of all colors shapes and sizes of human, animal figures, and landscape scenes. In the hall of global collection, the crafted stone artworks represent the landscape scenes with a global perspective.
On a few tables, there were hundreds of pieces of gourmet food dishes made of rose stones All of them looked delicious.
On the second floor, there were artisan collections of marble artworks that also looked marvelous.
It’s a great museum with a large collection of stone carving artworks and one of the best stone art museums I ever visited; very impressive on the rose stones and artists' creative spirit.
After leaving the museum, I walked down Haian Street (Ocean Coast Street) It was quiet and spectacular here; the ocean was on the left and the air was fresh. If you walk a few kilometers then you can reach the city center of Hualian
I took the bus to arrive at Dongdamen night market, I had steamed buns and noodle soup for dinner. After that, I also visited the nearby Hualian Cultural Center located in the city center; no exhibitions were going on at the moment. There were cafes and gift shops inside and there was a performance center. Residents especially students could come here to participate in cultural activities.
As the name of the city implies floral scenery, Hualian flowers and plants were great. But Hualian looks much “harder” than I thought. because of its steep gorges and wavering
seas, the large rocks, and vast rose stones. The city has a unique character, not just scenic charm.
Before visiting Hualian, I thought it was the closest geographical location between Taiwan and mainland China： but there was no ferry as a transport to reach other places. Of course, Hualian has an airport, and you can go to other places by plane, not ship.
Taiwan's mountains are elegant not intimidating. Taiwan's seas are open, not turbulent. Taiwanese are friendly to tourists and professional to their customers or associates. They intend to become forward-looking global citizens.
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