Taitung - Taiwan

We visited the indigenous Amis people to learn about their culture and Lingzhi mushrooms and sika deer placenta. Then we went to see the Taroko National Park to see the Eternal Spring Shrine:

Afterwards, we went back on the bus to make our way to lunch on our way to Taitung

  
The deep fried mantou was really good! It was crispy on the outside and light and tasty inside.
The soup was also really delicious with seaweed and tofu.


Fish in soy sauce, chicken and celery, spinach shoots, pork and broccoli


Chicken and shrimp

Right next to the restaurant there was a strip of beach where we got to take pictures for a bit before boarding our bus again to Taitung:

(the beach was actually pretty rocky and the weather turned dark and gloomy pretty fast after I took this picture)

When we finally arrived in Taitung, we were dropped off at the Hoya Hot Springs Resort and Spa
 
And had a few hours to go check out the hot springs before going down to the hotel restaurant for dinner.

Dinner is served

Mushrooms, something like a curry sauce potato and mushroom dish and a pickled vegetable and pork dish


Ma-po tofu


Fish in soy sauce (as usual), soup and eggplant dish


What I thought were chicken nuggets - but they turned out to be some sort of fish paste nuggets
Very strange tasting.

Buffet Breakfast



Noodles, cabbage, mantou, steamed egg, chicken bites, soup, and oranges and apple slices
An okay breakfast

The Taiwanese pork stew on rice was really good! A good way to start and the mantou were decent


I was really excited when they cut up some dragonfruit slices! They were so purple and yummy.

According to our itinerary, we were supposed to go mango picking (which I was pretty excited for), however, when we got there the farm changed their policy about mango picking since other tour groups before us ruined the mango picking experience for the staff and owners by being careless and ruining their mangoes. So instead, we got to buy already picked mangoes and other fruits.

 
All sorts of different mangoes and fruits on sale
The staff at the store washed, cleaned, cut and peeled our fruit for us to eat (I wish grocery stores in Canada did that!)

The Aiwen mangoes were amazing! So juicy, fresh and sweet - we came right when the mangoes were all ripe and delicious! They were so good that I'll be dreaming about these mangoes for years to come...
The Asian pears, kiwis and papaya were all sweet too, but it's definitely the mangoes that were the best here.
We decided to splurge and get a mango dessert:

NT$200 ~ $7 CAD
And well worth it! The mangoes were so good you didn't need the ice cream, sprinkles or weird coloured cornflakes to make this dessert amazing, but this was still pretty darn good.