2 - Chishang（池上）
I rode into Chishang in dire straits, frozen from head to toe after descending through a sea of clouds. I couldn't get to the inn fast enough. I crashed into bed as soon as I finished checking in, curling under the blankets for warmth.
After waking up that first night, I wandered the streets looking for food, stumbling upon the small Saturday night market at the edge of town. The next day, I had thick toast for breakfast, and took a long, refreshing walk.
I first strolled along the quaint little Dapo Pond (for which the town is named), and then into the rice fields along Brown Boulevard, all the way to the famous Takeshi Kaneshiro tree. Even though the weather was dreary on that January morning, and the fields fallow and soaked with water, the pastoral charm of the place came through all the same. I savoured the laid-back country flavor, admiring wooden water wheels, bubbling irrigation canals, roadside ice cream stands, and riverside pavilions where locals wash their clothes.
I'm not quite sure why, many months later, my heart swells with adoration for the small farming town in the southern Huadong valley. Perhaps it's the experience of receiving desperately needed rest after a tiring journey. Perhaps it's the first dinner I had in Hualien after getting out of quarantine, which was a Chishang rice bento box. Perhaps it's the incredibly moving EVA Airlines commercial starring Takeshi that was filmed there.
Either way, I hope to come back some day, when the skies are clear blue, the mountain peaks gleam with sunshine, and the fields are bright green and bursting with bulbs of rice.