Expats in Hualien

Thru this blog, I have met and made many wonderful new friends, and some of them have made a trip to Hualien to see for themselves what a wonderful little place this is. This past week, a couple from Nevada stayed with us and explored future possibilities.

Ed and Kukui in this video enjoyed a warm evening by the beach with us, playing with fireworks.

One of the best things to combat summer heat is coconut water. It is refreshing, nutritious, and lowers body temperature instantly. Frankie loves coconut water, which is not to be confused with coconut milk.......

Keith and Yvonne have just relocated to Hualien from Capetown, South Africa, along with their son Joshua. They invited us to their new home for a BBQ, and what a wonderful feast it was.

Good food, great wines, good company and nice views on a hot summer night is simply priceless.

We also wanted to buy a BBQ for our house, but decided against it. Instead, we go to a BBQ restaurant, where meats are roasted on hot charcoal. In this video, I accidently captured a very special moment: Frankie drooling over the BBQ while waiting for the meat to cook.....it was perfect!

Its been over two years since coming here, and we continue to discover new things. Homemade dumplings made in a local market, organic free range eggs, grass jelly served chilled with winter melon syrup, home grown bananas.........delicious as hell and a taste of heaven!

Summer concert

Its time for Hualien's annual summer concert again.
An aboriginal Taiwanese band called "Power station" was on tonite, and they are awesome. Reminds me a bit of Beyond, but more melodic and not as metalic. Very popular in Taiwan, and should be more popular in Asia.

They are high energy but not overwhelming, and the love songs are beautiful....

Then later on, we saw a typical commercial Taiwanese artist with bubble gum music which is entertaining, but mindless and talentless. C'est la vie.....quite a contrast!

And the fireworks.....absolutely amazing!

Outdoor concerts need heat, and people. No problem here in Hualien. Basking in 30C weather, and over 60k people attending, you would think it would be chaos. Not. Nobody got drunk and caused any disturbences, fights, or even arguements. Traffic was well directed off site, and we only park two minutes away and no problem driving home.

It was great time, and the price was right.