Yilan | 宜蘭

October 15, 2022

This past weekend, I had a very spontaneous opportunity to travel to Yilan, a small city outside of Taipei. I was invited by my friend Violetta to join four others for an overnight trip to celebrate our long weekend due to Taiwan’s national day on October 10th. Everyone in the group knew Chinese, so although we were all foreigners, I spoke more Chinese with this group than I have with local students which was really fun.

We got up early to catch a bus to Yilan around 10 am. The bus ride to Yilan was about an hour and was quite scenic. We also went through several tunnels to escape the mountains surrounding Taipei. When we arrived in Yilan, we walked to our bunk room which was located above a restaurant. After dropping off some of our stuff, we found a quick lunch of soup dumplings (小籠包) before hopping on a train to head to Waiao (外奧) beach.

At the bus station

小籠包

From the train

When we got to the beach, I was surprised to see that the sand was black. I was expecting a white/yellow sand beach. Although it was a cloudy day, the beach was still beautiful. The water was warm, and we were able to comfortably wade in. There were also large rocks on the beach that we were able to climb. Violetta helped everyone take lots of fun pictures as well which was really fun! She deserves credit for the majority of the pictures on this post :)

At the beach :)

Me, Ayu, Nikolas, Monique, Kenji, and Violetta

On one of the rocks

After a couple hours at the beach, it started to rain. We went back to the train and went a few stops to Jiaoxi to visit a hot spring there. After looking around at several places, we finally found one where we could have small rooms to ourselves. We paired up and enjoyed an hour soaking in the hot water. Initially, I was a bit skeptical of hot springs. The water seemed pretty ordinary at first, but when I got out, my skin was very soft from the minerals, and I was so relaxed. I really enjoyed the experience and would certainly go back.

After the hot spring, we grabbed dinner in Jiaoxi. I tried goose meat for the first time, and it was quite good. We took the train back to Yilan and went to the Dongmen night market. It was one of my favorite night markets I’ve been to so far. It’s much less touristy than the night markets in Taipei, and there were lots of tasty things to eat. I enjoyed scallion pancake (葱油餅) and some skewers.

Night market entrance

Choose-your-own skewers

Scallion pancake 葱油餅

After getting back to our bunk room, we pretty much went to bed right away as we were exhausted from our long day of travel. The next morning, we found brunch at a local breakfast shop where I enjoyed danbing (蛋餅) and coconut toast (椰香土司). After brunch, we called a taxi and went to the National Center for Traditional Arts, a complex with many traditional shops, art exhibits, and performances for the national holiday.

Near the welcome center there was an exhibit of southeast Asian instruments. I really enjoyed looking at this exhibit since I learned about some of these instruments in my musicology class last fall. I also enjoyed looking at the shops and the different handmade items they were selling. One shop had traditional indigo dyed goods, and I ended up buying a dress there that I am very excited to wear. After spending our entire afternoon at the arts complex, we went back into Yilan for a noodle dinner before catching our bus back to Taipei. When we got back to Taipei, we went to the plaza at the presidential building for a light show/movie screening for the national day.

Traditional indigo dying

Violetta and I in a mist park

Lantern alley

In a taxi

Exhibit about printing press

Lantern alley

From the southeast Asian instrument exhibit

Giant fish statue (reminds me of Jonah and the whale)

Our group with a character

This week, I also attended my first ICL trip! I went to a school in Beitou, an area in the northwestern part of Taipei. I spent the afternoon watching performances and making a flower bouquet with elementary school students. It was a great way to engage with local students and get a flavor of Taiwanese kids’ day-to-day life. After the trip, me and the other ICL leaders got a snack together which was so fun! The group was about 50/50 local and international students, so it was a great group to speak Chinese with. We had a great time sharing stories about our students and from our home countries.

One girl in my small group

Me with my language partner

Me with another student

Speaking of home countries, the American midterm elections are coming up on November 8th! I just received my absentee ballot in the mail today and plan to drop it off at the American Institute in Taiwan early next week for mailing back to the United States. If you haven’t registered to vote yet, here’s how you can do it in your state! Voting is so important, especially in midterm elections, so please register!

Go vote!

Beautiful flower

Cute crosswalk signal in Yilan

As always, check out the food and boba pages for some updates!