Classic City Resort Hotel in HuaLien (Trip Part 2)

After our day at the farm we made it to our hotel and checked in. We heard the hotel is the newest one in Hualien and also the safest. It is located next door to the local police office! We were still waiting on our teacher so we decided to walk around and get something to eat. Dinner was included at the hotel but we were starving. We just ate a chain dumpling place and found out it was the first time that RuoYi had eaten sour & spicy soup and pot stickers in Taiwan. She usually eats at home with her family. So surprising.

After that we made our way to a bowling alley and enjoyed a game. It was here we discovered that DaFu was an experienced bowler and that RuoYi had never bowled before in her life. Still, RuoYi managed to be in second place when the scores were tallied. After this we had a drink and HaoYi treated everyone. I can’t recall what DaFu had but I still hear RuoYi raving each day about the Plumb Coca Cola she had. Unique but very delicious.

We were really tired after that so we went back to our hotel to take a shower and rest. Our teacher was very late so when he finally came we really didn’t feel like doing anything else. He tried to force us to go to the night market but refused. We finally went downstairs in the hotel and had our dinner, which was disgusting. Then we went out to buy some snacks and some alcohol at the local grocery store. We went back to the room and enjoyed a unique game of UNO. After that we went to bed.
Maybe now is a good time for me to talk a little bit about the hotel, Classic City Resort, that we stayed in. The rooms were very tiny, especially the bathroom, but they were all very nice and clean. The bed was very comfortable and the price was pretty affordable. I think we paid a little over $3000NT (US$90) for the night.



The staff seemed very nice and was informative and friendly when we asked them questions. The location of the hotel is a bit far away from the night market (where you want to go for Hualien snacks) and the train station. You’d need to walk about 30 minutes to get to the night market and maybe another 30 minutes to get to the train. They do however have some connections with some travel agencies and booked a tour for us that was cheaper than what we had originally planned on taking before arriving in Hualien. I would consider this hotel in the same category as Just Sleep but Just Sleep was a much nicer experience for me, especially in consideration of food. The room sizes, however, seemed similar. Classic City Resort’s breakfast was a buffet but I can’t say it was very appetizing. I even thought their coffee tasted bad. I still tried to eat it though in order to get my money’s worth. We could choose our main course for our dinner with some side items that were on the buffet. We all chose the steak, which we couldn’t finish because the portion was very huge but tasted terrible. I think the best thing I ate was the soup that was most likely a powder.

Shin Guang Jau Feng Recreational Farm

My Chinese language teacher made a decision for our class to have a class outing. I really didn’t have time for the outing because I have been busy with my part-time work and Chinese courses but I’m really glad that I decided to go in the end; this trip really helped me to grow closer to my classmates.

My Chinese class originally had six students. Besides me, there is DaFu from Japan, HaoYi from Canada, JinSong from Vietnam, RuoYi from Thailand and Marcus from Germany. Marcus ended up having to drop out of the class and currently RuoYi and DaFu come when they can because they are soon going to being their first semester as undergraduate students in Taiwan. JinSong & Marus could not make it to join our trip.

I guess my grammar is the worst out of all the students but Marcus was not really around enough for me to tell much about his Chinese language ability. Anyway, I am trying to slowly improve and recently I take more changes to practice my speaking. I meet with my tutor more often and am trying to get all my homework done in time so I can hand it into my teacher for grading. I think all the students really enjoy the class and we pretty much have a fun time now that we've grown accustomed to one another. We always joke around during class and give the teacher a hard time. He's a nice guy though and can joke around with us as well.

The trip we took was to Hualien. We chose Hualien because it was the only place in Taiwan that all of us had never been to. Well HaoYi had gone but when she was a child and she couldn’t recall the trip at all.

I really can’t tell you all the places we went to in Hualien because I really felt a lot of the places looked the same and many of them reminded me of my hometown in Kentucky. Maybe it was all the mountains and the greenery.

The first day we took the Toroko Express from Taipei to Hualien. It’s quite comfortable and much better than what I’ve expected. This Taiwan Railway train requires you to purchase a seat so no one can buy a standing ticket to disturb the passengers. Our teacher could not join us because he has something else to do that day so we ventured to Hualien on our own. Before the trip I was not really familiar with DaFu but with a 2 hour train ride ahead of ourselves, we eventually found ourselves chatting about our lives. We mostly gossiped about the language teachers at National Central University.

After arriving we went straight to the bathroom and then received a call from the driver the travel agency arranged for us. He was in a rush and drove crazily to the Shin Guang Jau Feng Recreational Farm. I consider it more of a zoo than a farm. We rented a golf cart and drove around the farm for about two and a half hours seeing animals and not being able to attend any of the live shows because of bad timing.

I suggest you not to eat any of their dairy products because the ice cream tasted like cheese (so weird!) but we all finished our ice cream (which was hard as a rock) because we didn’t want to waste the money. For those that are going here (even though I’d recommend you not to go…ha) please do not buy any souvenirs until you get to the gate of the place where there is a sort of small museum and coffee shop. The first floor is filled with all the same stuff you can buy on the “farm” but this way you don’t need to carry it around with you all day long. One last thing, it looked pretty bad there. I heard it's been hit strongly by typhoons so that could be one reason but it just looked not very well taken care of to me.

More to come in the future….