A-Zone

Hualien


It's not cheap, but spacious A-Zone presents a handy one-stop opportunity to browse a vast range of regional and Taiwanese products from leatherwork to millet wine, rice bran soap to origami figures of the country's 17 tribal costumes.

The showrooms are in units 6 and 7 of the Creative Industries Park, a series of repurposed ex-former buildings. By day, the mid-20th-century concrete of the buildings can feel a little grim, but at night it's appealingly lit and there's music outside the old brewery whose tiled roof makes it less oppressive.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Hualien attractions

1. Hualien Railway Culture Park

0.38 MILES

Worth a five-minute look, this area's main sight is a 1932 wooden courtyard building containing a fairly basic history of the East Coast Railway since…

2. Martyr's Shrine

0.74 MILES

Designed like an antique Chinese palace, this colourfully gabled 1980s complex is set amid lush foliage on a small rise overlooking Hualien's single most…

4. Pine Garden

0.83 MILES

Set in a graceful garden that's all a-twitter with birdsong, this 1940s concrete building was used by the Japanese military to wine and pleasure their…

5. Jing Si Hall

1.49 MILES

Built in 2000, this gigantic temple-cum-performance venue has a simple yet striking, white-and-grey exterior. At its tallest point, the building is…

6. Gangtiangong

1.76 MILES

Climb through a dragon's mouth into one of two spiral staircases that front this gigantic Matsu temple – the biggest in Hualien. There is particularly…

7. Fogstand

2.74 MILES

An ambitious little gallery that showcases edgy and experimental works by Taiwanese, Asian and Western artists. Fogstand also has an artists-as-resident…

8. Qixingtan

3.87 MILES

Qixingtan (Chihsingtan) is a former fishing hamlet whose few remaining, old, tin-roofed shacks are outnumbered by a gaggle of small but fanciful hotels…