There was no special reason why I out of sudden used Japanese title. It was just because I watched so many Japanese drama recently with my 3 meals haha.

This is the last day of my birthday trip and also my birthday. I was kind of being lazy in the morning. But then I thought, “No, I have to grab the last chance to enjoy the mountain and start the best birthday!”

The weather continued being WONDERFUL! I WAS THE LUCKIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD! To visit the waterfall(白玉瀑布) nearby the hotel, I walked instead of biking, to slow down the pace while enjoying the fresh air more. It took around 15 min to walk up to the entrance of the waterfall, still not many people, since that was not a famous tourist attraction. Of course I didn’t forget to use the coolest selfie gadget. I took some photos, jumped up and down, (because to use selfie I had to run back and forth for setting up the camera and counting down), and walked around for around 1 hour. Then I went back to the hotel to get a nice shower and get ready to enter the breakfast restaurant for the reserved time. P.S. Because of the Covid, everyone needs to reserve the breakfast time one day in advance, and every time slot is 1 hour.

The breakfast was similar to the previous day, still amazing with many vegetables I like. Quickly packing up, I checked out and got ready to start the whole day travel with the train!

The first station was Zhiben station, the closet station to the hotel. Every train station along the East coastline is quite small, and only a few bigger station has coin locker. Uh, actually not really coin locker. It was more like online locker, which you have to sign up and pay through electronic wallet. It was actually quite inconvenient for tourists, and I also took quite a while to understand how it works. The time table for the train was not so frequent, so I couldn’t stay in one place for too long. I had to catch up with the next train. So I chose a few places I wanted to go near the train station.

From Zhiben station, I traveled to the first stop: Taimali station. Today there were more tourists because today was Saturday. So many people were taking photos around the station because it was 南迴藝術季Nanhui Art Project. Basically they put many art decoration along the East coastline of Taitung. I got to see some this time.

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There was a long downhill road right in front of the station, which connects to the sea directly. I got very excited and ran all the way to the end, while thinking of shiiit I have to walk all the way up later hahaha. My destination is Millennium Dawn Memorial Park 千禧曙光紀念園區, it is a park near the beach. And it also had some art decorations on the beach. I took some photos with those art design, but I got burned because those decorations soaked up all heat from the sun haha. As usual, sitting down watching the calm sea makes me feel peaceful, but it was way too hot…… I didn’t stay too long, because of the train time table and the hot weather. WHY DON’T THEY BUILD SOME SMALL COFFEE SHOPS OR RESTING AREA ALONG THE BEACH?! But I have to say the whole beach area was so beautiful and peaceful.

Moving onto the next train station, Jinlun, a much smaller train station and there was no coin locker. But I already chose a good cafe to go to. It was an aboriginal cafe, selling bakery and local food.

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力卡咖啡 Lika coffee, a very special place since they don’t offer any packaging materials for taking out. We have to bring ours if we want to do the takeout. I ordered a traditional aboriginal dish, 1 cinnamon rolls, and 2 pound cake and coffee, and I already prepared paper bag to take away their bakery. Then I told the owner I will be back later to go to the beach which was 2 min away.

Another beach, but different one. It was more wavy than the previous station. The stones are very round here. Good weather didn’t change. And I got to run to the front and touch the water. Cooling temperature. If I had more time here, I will take off my shoes and run into the water haha. I stayed in the beach area when the cafe owner was preparing my food. I was also lucky because I got here earlier, not many people yet. After around 30 minutes, the cafe and the beach were packed with more people.

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I enjoyed my food and the bakery. The cinnamon roll was way too huge. The pound cake and the local dish were quite good too. I was resting while talking to Henry. He called me to wish me happy birthday and we had a short talk. We haven’t talked for a long time, only message to keep in touch. But one in a while, we will call each other to have a longer chat. In the end I took away the food I dind’t finish and I got some extra bakery and the famous red oolong tea here. The cute doggy let me take photos because I quickly leave and give the seat to his owner. The cute cat lied down right in front of the door because he wants to enter but the cafe owner didn’t allow him haha. He was mad.

Finally I had to say goodbye to the beautiful Taitung and the good weather. Right after I passed the Taitung the weather became rainy haha. The platform in the train station gave me the last sight of the beautiful Taitung, facing the Pacific with mountains at the back. It was really a wonderful adventure, and again, a challenging fitness camp!

Heading back to Kaohsiung, I was going to finish the last goal, that is, go to the same birthday restaurant to have a fancy French dinner alone. The fusion cuisine style of the restaurant didn’t change, but after the whole Covid thing and they reopened, I kind of felt the service was not as good as before. Or it was probably merely because the trip in Taitung was so amazing that I can’t feel excited about eating at this restaurant anymore.

Looking back at the past three days, I felt so satisfied. I never knew I could travel alone and be like a crazy woman like this. I had to admit sometimes I felt a bit lonely walking or biking alone, but I was really way to busy to keep having this kind of thought. Will I have another trip alone? Yes of course! And while I was writing this post, (I changed the date of the post to hide the truth that I wrote it really late haha) I already completed another trip alone. So, get ready for the next trip!