First, a quick update on where I am right now! I’m in the hotel, writing this on my laptop (the keyboard feels so unfamiliar = =). This is my third time visiting Hualien. The first time was the summer between fourth and fifth grade, when my mom took my younger brother and me on a trip around Taiwan. We spent two months covering the whole island. The second time was for my elementary school graduation trip, which was also to Hualien. That trip was a lot of fun. Normally, school graduation trips go to Nantou, to the 921 Earthquake Museum, Jiuzu Culture Village, and places like that. Going to the same places for elementary school and junior high was really boring. My younger brother’s class went to Nantou for their graduation trip, and then they’ll revisit the same place again in junior high………

Originally, my mom was going to drive me to Hualien today, but for a few reasons, my brother and I took the train by ourselves:

  1. I had something to do this morning: I had to pick up my graduation yearbook at school and visit my former elementary school teachers
  2. I get carsick...
So I took the 2:40 p.m. Chu-Kuang Express train to Hualien with my brother XD

I thought the train ride would be boring, so my brother and I prepared our secret weapons. He brought his laptop and a novel, and I downloaded a National Geographic series about North Korea from YouTube. Once we got on the train, it turned out all of that was unnecessary. My brother didn’t even bring a charger = = (so dumb….). On the train, I also happened to meet a tour guide leading a group of mainland Chinese tourists. That group was the most polite mainlanders I’d ever met, and their accent was the closest to a Taiwanese accent. I guessed they were from Beijing, because the Beijing accent is quite close to ours. I talked with the guide and the mainlanders for most of the ride. It’s rare to meet mainlanders you can actually communicate with xD

▲▲The tour guide from the mainland group, who looks a lot like an elementary school PE teacher~ ▼▼A selfie on the train, looks very listless lol~

We arrived in Hualien at about 6 p.m., a little earlier than planned. My mom said she wouldn’t be able to pick us up until 6:30 = = We almost walked to the hotel by ourselves, because on the map the station looked very close to the hotel. I totally forgot that maps have scales….. Luckily, we didn’t rush off to the hotel alone, or I would have become a missing child. My phone is a PHS, and it has no signal in Hualien. Getting lost would have been really exciting, though. A different kind of trip? ▼▼Three years ago, I didn’t see an elevator yet. The tour guide from the mainland group said it was installed a year ago. ▼▼The view from Hualien Station

We made it to Hualien….. Yesterday I had booked a room at Shiliang Business Hotel. But after arriving in Hualien and seeing Shiliang Business Hotel, I was speechless @@. Shiliang is really “business” in the most basic sense: cheap rooms, but terrible facilities. I went there because I saw someone online recommending it, and the photos looked good. All I can say now is: who recommended that, you idiot = =. Later I went to the hotel I stayed at the first time I came to Hualien, Hualien Hotel (Hualien Guesthouse). I think Hualien Guesthouse is pretty good. It has internet access, and the speed is fast. It should be free, right….. The front desk lady didn’t say anything, so I hope she won’t suddenly say the internet costs money when we check out tomorrow……… I had already forgotten what the previous two trips to Hualien (the round-the-island trip and the graduation trip) were like. But this time in Hualien brought back the old feeling. When my mom drove me to Hualien Guesthouse, I gasped almost the whole way. I kept seeing familiar road signs. Maybe tomorrow we’ll go to Qixingtan, the graduation trip spot…….. I miss it. I didn’t get anyone’s phone number when I graduated from junior high, so I basically lost touch with everyone. It’s a real pity. Many of them I had known since elementary school, and now we’ve lost touch = =

I’ll stop here for now~ I didn’t go anywhere today, and I can’t write much. But Hualien had so many lightning strikes, about five to seven per minute. I don’t know why. And the scenery in eastern Taiwan is so beautiful. Looking left, there are mountains. Looking right, there’s the sea. It really is a paradise on earth. If the weather were better, it’d be even more amazing. The air is also so clean. When I got off the train, I wasn’t used to air this clean.