December 2008 Trip: Day 6- Bunon Village Resort → Luodong (羅東)

It was Christmas morning and the weather was fantastic! I had spent all my Christmases in Canada, which meant snow and cold, so it was hard to believe that such a hot sunny day was actually December 25! We ate breakfast on the patio overlooking a valley, enjoying the sun, the view, and the beautiful little kittens interested in our breakfast (I made Jason feed them some squid snacks he had stored away in our room!).


After breakfast, we borrowed bikes from the resort and went to explore the neighboring village, and it was so nice to see a different side of Taiwan. Interestingly, there were quite a few Christian churches in this village, but they seemed empty even on this Christmas morning.


We arrived back at the resort just in time to see the end of an Aboriginal music performance and we decided to buy the CD. We also spent some time feeding the goats at the resort before being driven to the train station at around 3 pm so we could head to our next destination- Luodong (羅東) in Ilan County.

The scenery on the east coast of Taiwan that we experienced traveling from Taitung to Loudong was totally different from that along the west coast from Taichung to Kaohsiung; in the east we saw farms and uninhabited countryside, and in the west, we saw more urban development. I enjoyed looking at the beautiful scenery as we traveled along the coast. At one point, we stopped at a town called Chi-sun (池上), which is famous for its rice production. Food vendors sold bento boxes right on the platform! Since the train only stops for about a minute, you could see people rushing out of the train to buy a bento box, and running to get back on the train. Luckily, we had planned ahead and bought bento boxes before taking the train, so we did not need to worry.


We arrived in Luodong in the evening, and found our hotel to be right in the heart of downtown Luodong. We visited the Luodong night market and had our Christmas dinner there. We tried so many different kinds of food, including many different BBQ skewers, chicken butt, thin noodle soup, chicken nuggets, meat buns, red bean soup, etc. The food was delicious and I did not miss the usual western-style Christmas dinner at all!! There is always so much to do in Taiwan, and going to the night market is definitely one of the most popular activities.