Dongdamen Night Market

Hualien


This extensive array of children's entertainments, live music and food stalls fills the pedestrianised lower ends of Bo'ai and Fuding roads south of Chongqing Rd, and is liveliest in the cross-street with its indigenous music stage area.

Food choices are very wide, from super-popular corncobs (E1) to giant oysters (D10) to tomato-wrapped plum skewers (A48). Stalls F33 and F52 are good places to compare very different styles of coffin cake (棺材板; guāncái bǎn), partly hollowed-out bread, stuffed with savoury fillings then fried.

From the train station, catch bus 301 or use the 301區 electric tour bus which runs four times a night (6.05pm, 6.45pm, 7.45pm and 8.35pm).


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Hualien attractions

1. Hualien Railway Culture Park

0.14 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. Pine Garden

0.71 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…

3. Martyr's Shrine

0.83 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…

5. Jing Si Hall

1.94 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

2.18 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

2.95 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

3.89 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…