發表文章

目前顯示的是 4月, 2018的文章

Taroko Village Hotel 太魯閣山月村

圖片
Today I will introduce a unique place to stay.  From the perspective of a resident in Hualien, a local hotel must be unique enough to attract even locals to want to pay to stay.  The Taroko Village hotel is one of those unique spots, situated in the Taroko National Park and surrounded by mystic mountains and a forever changing natural scenery of mountain cliffs, clouds and wild life. Located at Buluowan, which means “echo” in the indigenous Taroko language, the village hotel is made up of a dozen or so wooden huts, which blend harmoniously into the national park surroundings.   It is a small hotel, but with added beds in the larger rooms, it can house as many as a hundred people in total. The dining hall offers traditional Taroko food including millet wine that is popular among indigenous communities.   Often frequented by monkeys and other wild animals, it is also a favorite spot for nature lovers who either just want to relax on a villa porch or enjoy the hiking trails around the

The Premier Tour Day 2 賴院長遊花蓮 第二天

圖片
April 15, 2018. The day began with a press conference at the Promised Land Resort 理想大地渡假村 in Shoufeng Township 壽豐鄉 .  The particular building where the press event was set up was actually a former pig pen.  Converted into a relaxing space for coffee, tea and locally made cakes and tapas, it also offers smaller side rooms for special courses in coffee tasting offered to guests of the resort.  Few people know that Hualien grows coffee, and that coffee grown in Hualien was once the designated drink of the Japanese emperor during the colonial period.   Unfortunately most of the press questions during the conference here involved highly political issues unrelated to Hualien.  But the setting of a fish pond and greenery outside the broad window provided good scenery as a backdrop.  The Promised Land Resort is uniquely made up of canals and Spanish style low-rise buildings.   Though the canals are man-made, they blend easily into the natural scenery, utilizing clean ground water.   Guests

The Premier Tour: Day 1 賴院長遊花蓮

圖片
My job is not a tour guide, but to support the revival of the tourism industry in Hualien, I have been playing this role diligently recently, vigorously promoting and recruiting friends to visit and tour Hualien.   Following the presidential tour that was a gesture to assure the public of the safety and sustaining beauty of Hualien after the earthquake, my staff immediately started organizing the next official tourism inspection tour of Premier Lai 賴清德院長 . There are plenty of places to visit in Hualien, but the first challenge was to organize an itinerary that was different from that of President Tsai’s, introducing lesser-known sites and locations to the Premier and his press team.  His Hualien tourism promotion delegation spent two days, April 14-15, 2018 in Hualien.     The first stop was at the historic General’s Residence 將軍府 , situated right in the middle of Hualien City.   There is no record of any actual general ever living there, but the row of eight Japanese era woode

The Presidential Tour Day 2

圖片
The Presidential Tour    Day 2   MARCH 31, 2018 We all woke up refreshed from the hot spring bath ready for another day of President Tsai’s tour of Hualien.   Antong Hot Spring Hotel provided a simple buffet breakfast of rice porridge, steamed buns and soy milk.   But we were off to another breakfast meeting with the traveling press corps, at Jijeng Ranch 吉蒸牧場 . http://www.jjfarm.com.tw/    I got to know the ranch and its owner, Mr. Fan, several years ago when I was trying to encourage local farmers to increase the value of products by promoting the geographic identity of their products and encouraging a circular economy with locally grown feed.   Today the cows on Jijeng Ranch munch on grass and corn grown right here by other farmers in Hualien, decreasing dependency on imports and the carbon footprints of imported feed.   Here we borrowed their conference center for a chat with the press.   Dairy products from Jijeng Ranch Following the morning coffee and dairy

The Presidential Tour

圖片
If you want to travel like a Taiwanese President, take this Presidential Tour to Hualien!  On March 30-31 2018, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen led a delegation of journalists to Hualien in an effort to support the culture and tourism of Hualien in the aftermath of the February 6 earthquake, which caused significant harm to the tourism industry.   My constituency service team organized the tour, hoping to introduce some new sites and activities to potential visitors through the lenses of the press corps traveling with President Tsai.   I have received many inquiries about sites she visited, so here is an introduction.   Day 1 Taiwanese people just cannot avoid shopping, especially for local delicacies and food souvenirs that represent a travel experience.   The mochi, a rice ball made of glutinous rice, usually wrapping red bean or sesame paste, is a common souvenir from Hualien.   At Amis Mochi you can watch the factory production process in a guided tour and shop a