A 2009 art film (documentary) with a connection to Taidong and its native people:
(the film follows the lives of several young people from different tribes who are all members of the band “Totem”)
A weather map, covering Taiwan, the eastern provinces of China,
the northern Philippines, Korea, and Japan (updated every 3 hours) jma.go.jp/jp/g3/
A weather map covering a wider area (from Vietnam to the Marshall Islands)
Particularly useful in the summer, because one can see the development of
tropical low pressure areas and typhoons (updated every 3 hours) jma.go.jp/en/g3/
If you click on the displayed map, you see detailed weather information for the area of your choice in a new frame. Here are the direct links to the individual frames:
Sad to hear that the prevalent political/economic opportunism (simply sacrificing Taiwan to gain access to the mainland Chinese market) prevents the recognition, exploration, and protection of some very important ancient cultural heritage - according to the research done by linguists, Taiwan may well have been the jump-off point for the original human migration into Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Polynesia, etc., and thus archaeological information from Taiwan would seem of particular importance to humankind.
The information about diving and snorkeling at Green Island is of interest to me in light of tourism planning, since our own islands here (known as the Yaeyama Islands) have the same coral reef environment and similarly offer diving, snorkeling, and glas bottom boat tours. When i have time i’d like to check out Green Island and Orchid Island to see whether there is anything we can learn for our operations here. From what i have read so far, there might be an overdevelopment problem in those tourist areas (we have that problem here, too).
Yes, I have been there. Lovely campground right next to the springs. They springs are piped into a couple large tiled pools but whatever, it’s a great setting. Some lovely gorges to explore up there too. A few wild hot springs too but you need to befriend some locals to be taken to them.[/quote]
I visited this hotspring on March 10, 2010 and, given the afternoon air temperature on that day was about 15C, was looking forward to the hot soak there - but i found the whole facility buried in over a meter of (by now) hardened black mud that must have run off the mountain during the last typhoon. Oops… And no “hotspring not open” sign anywhere along the road - more oops…
Taidong Branch 901 (Main Post Office)
No. 126, Datong Rd., Taidong City
Hualian
Hualian Branch 901 (Guo-An Post Office / New Main Post Office)
No. 408, 中山路 (Zhong1 Shan1 Lu4 / Jhongshan Rd.), Hualian City
Hualian Branch 19 (Jhongshan Rd. Post Office / Old Main Post Office)
No. 188, 中山路 (Zhong1 Shan1 Lu4 / Jhongshan Rd.), Hualian City
(at the corner of 中山路 and 中正路 (Zhong1 Zheng4 Lu4 / Jhongjheng Rd. / Hwy. 9)
For travelers who don’t want to “rough it”, there are plenty of options of using hotspring baths that are integrated with hotels.
A comprehensive site for related information is at taiwankanko.com/onsen/onsen.html
(This site is in Japanese, but if you are familiar with the Chinese characters for the regions and cities in Taiwan, you won’t have any difficulty navigating your way to a suitable hotel: choose a region from the menu at the top right side and then a hotel from the menu in the top center of the newly opened page - you will get pictures, an address, and a phone number.)
Taidong
真德文教中心 (Zhen1 De2 Wen2 Jiao4 Zhong1 Xin1 / ) No. 57, 四維路一段 (1st Section, Si4 Wei2 Lu4), Taidong City, 08-933-4167
Simple accommodation (bedding on soft mats laid out on the floor), clean, quiet; NT$350 per person
(I wonder what it means that all websites carrying information about this place show the same wrong phone number “089-34167”. Maybe i am the only person who has actually stayed there?)
Note: Recently updated the hotsprings page and the netcafe page in this thread…
… and more about places to stay (as well as eat and play)
Hualian
馨憶精緻民宿 (Xin1 Yi4 Jing1 Zhi4 Min2 Su4 / Guesthouse Shin’i) No. 218, 南京街 (Nan2 Jing1 Jie1), Hualian City, Tel. 03-835-8767
Rooms with 1, 2, or 3 twin beds. Using one bed per person comes to NT$900-1000 (weekends NT$1000-1200) per person,
and with 2 people per bed you pay NT$450-600 (weekends NT$500-750) per person.
Details at sinyi.17357.tw/sinyi/ (Chinese) - the actual rates are those on the Japanese page. The managers speak Chinese and Japanese, but they have English speaking staff, as well.
A selection of useful tips on places and activities:
Hualien mid-week
If you are planning to visit the Taroko Gorge you should really consult the comprehensive Taroko National Park Headquarters website, where you find not only detailed descriptions of the interesting locations but, most importantly, regular updates on accessibility and safety. (Conditions in the gorge tend to change frequently and rapidly: landslides, rockfall, flooding and washout are common occurrences, and access to all or part of the park may be restricted at any time.)
October 2011 update
Trails
[ul][li]Trail descriptions[/li]
[li]Trail Conditions (open? closed?):[/li]
[li][url=http://tw.forumosa.com/t/recent-info-on-some-taroko-trails-sep-2011/67319/1 Info on some Taroko Trails? (Sep 2011)[/url][/li][/ul]
Wenshan Hotsprings
[ul][li]In March 2011, a newspaper had reported that the park authorities were planning to re-open the Wenshan Hotspring Trail in July, and in the following months several people managed to get around the barriers blocking the path to the hotsprings and posted reports of their investigstion on the web. It also became apparent during the summer that the trail was being repaired. The barriers were finally removed at the beginning of September 2011: the spring is now officially accessible again.[/li]
[li][url=http://tw.forumosa.com/t/wenshan-hotsprings-taroko-gorge/66432/1 Hotsprings"[/url][/li][/ul]