The elevator button was worn smooth, a silvered indentation like a river-polished pebble. We’d bet the taxi driver wouldn't find the place, but he stopped exactly at the clock tower of Li Xiang Jiu Dian, leaving us in the humid air with a jittery electric hum in our fingertips.
The red oil wontons at Hualien Xiang Bian Shi had a heat that woke up the tongue—a silken bloom of spice mirroring the city's edges. We wandered the night market, the air thick with charcoal and wild boar, the roar of the crowd forming a physical wall of sound we simply leaned into.
"A French-themed room in the middle of Hualien," someone remarked, leaning against the cool hallway. We spent twenty minutes roasting the concept, debating if the Tuileries theme was a bold statement or a beautiful absurdity, deciding that our shared laughter was the only thing that mattered.
We had a running gag about the hotel's big clock being our only mechanical anchor in a trip of chaos. Every time someone was late for the Railway Culture Park, we pointed at the tower and pretended we were operating on a more relaxed century, where time was measured in breaths.
There is a specific silence in a bath overlooking the Pacific. In the Tuileries room of Li Xiang Jiu Dian, the water felt heavy and warm, smelling of lavender and salt. I think the horizon where the deep blue sea meets the bruised grey of a November sky is the only honest border left.
The plush carpet swallowed our footsteps, making our arguments about dinner feel as if they were happening underwater. I loved the room at 6 a.m., when light filtered through the curtains in pale strips, highlighting the dust dancing in the air like microscopic stars.
We walked toward the coast but got distracted by an alleyway smelling of damp concrete and old tea. We wandered the wrong way for an hour, our shoes clicking on uneven pavement, until we found that one quiet corner where the city finally stopped shouting.
Travel with friends is a series of corrected mistakes, wrong turns leading to the right places. We arrived with a list of sights and left with inside jokes and the memory of November air—cool, crisp, and smelling of cedar and mountain rain.
The light on the Pacific was a pale, humming gold.
- You gotta try the red oil wontons at Hualien Xiang Bian Shi.
- Take the long way to the coast and just get lost for a bit.