Last weekend was a long one so we visited Zhiben hot springs and Jiaoxi hot springs in Taiwan. Our trip started flying from Osaka to Taipei with China Air lines on Friday night. Around 9 PM Taiwan time we landed at the Taipei Taoyuan International airport and checked in to the hotel near the airport. The next morning we woke up at 5 AM and headed to the Taoyuan high speed rail station by light rail and around 6 AM we waited in line for tickets for the bullet train for Kaohsiung. It was really crowded in the Taiwanese bullet train between Taipei and Kaohsiung, finally we were happy because we got reserved seat tickets without any problems. After two hours on the bullet train ride we got to Kaohsiung and then changed to the local train for Taitung. Taitung is located south east of Taiwan and faces the Pacific Ocean, plus this area was really in the country. We enjoyed boarding the local train because we could see beautiful landscapes, mountains and sea from the train. The atmosphere in the train was amazing because it was very old, not air-conditioned and everything was manual so it brings back memories of about 30 years ago.
In Taitung, we stayed at a nice hotel in Zhiben with natural hot springs and we relaxed there. We boarded the train again for Hualien next morning and got there after a two hour train ride. Hualien is the biggest city in east Taiwan and there're many sightseeing spots so it was really crowded there. I tried originally to get the ticket direct from Zhiben to Jiaoxi but every train was fully booked so we had to change trains at Hualien and we had three hours waiting time. In Hualien we looked around downtown and enjoyed shopping and Taiwanese foods there. After Hualien we again boarded the train for Jiaoxi. Finally, we went around Taiwan by trains in two days. We enjoyed hot springs, Taiwanese foods, traveling by train and culture in Taiwan. We were happy because we had a great time in Taiwan. I think it's easy to travel for Japanese people in Taiwan because there're good public transportation systems and most signs are written in Kanji. I've decided to visit Taiwan again next year for relaxing and watching baseball games there.
