Taiwan Trip 2010 (Day 3)

Taichung

   Day 3 was planned as an adventure in Taichung, the third largest city in Taiwan. Taichung is a sprawling city that was first developed around the main train station. It has been developed rapidly in recent years, due to its relatively cheaper real estate prices and its pleasant climate. It has a reputation of many gangster fights although I did not encounter any. There are some large malls on the outskirt of the city. Traffic in Taichung is often clogged perhaps because of the reliance of automobiles, lack of main roads from the national grade highway to the city, and the lack of metro system.

Yum yum breakfast

   After grabbing some quick breakfast in a vegetarian (credit to Ben and Calvin for putting up with my shit practice of not eating meat :-)) place ( the nice things about breakfast in Taiwan is there are tons of breakfast canteens literally everywhere, with countless varieties), we ventured into the Old Taichung Brewery for some pictures. Taichung Brewery was an abandoned-brewery-turned-into-cultural-park site. The rooms can be rented out for special events, and there were not much to see, other than take the pictures of the buildings and decorations. It is a nice park to stop by on a sunny day though.

So flooded that we had to walk on the plank

Temples are everywhere in Taiwan

Conservatory in Science Museum

    After that, we took a bus to the Science Museum to dodge the rain but we forgot that is closed every Monday. The rain became harder and some parts of the streets were flooded. We stumbled our way in Wu Wei Teahouse (the closest translation of wu wei in English is 'let it be', it is an ancient philosophy from Zhuangzi where things should be kept natural), a quiet pagoda-style restaurant/teahouse. It is a very nice building with a pond full of koi, and was built into the ancient Chinese garden style. It was an excellent spot to escape the urban chaos temporarily. We had a lunch and sat over there until the rain has finally stopped.

The retro decoration of Wu Wei

The serene pond with koi

Fried pumpkin slices and rice balls at Wu Wei

The main hall? at Wu Wei

Menxin Park

    We stumbled our way through the city and we walked into the Wenxim Forest Park. I was surprised that it actually does not have many trees, it did have a


amphitheatre and a stage for performance. Perhaps it is a good summer concert site. We then took a crowded free bus full of students to Feng-chia Night Market, got lost in the process and found a very kind middle aged woman. She walked us to the direction of Feng-Chia Market (Many Taiwanese seemed to be so nice to foreigner travellers in general, they may go out of their way to help).

The plateau of Menxin Park, overlooking the skyline

    Feng-chia Night Market is located near a private university with the same name. It is a popular hangout place for the university students and it had

Fresh *literally* fruit juice

became a tourist spot over the years. I was beginning to get tired of night markets and we walked through the alley like a zombie. We originally planned to go back to Nan Bei Hotel by bus but we realized the bus had never came. We asked the a storekeeper nearby and he explained the bus service shuts down prematurely if there were not enough passengers.

The fashion district of Feng-Chia Night Market

Busy night street near Feng-Chia Market

     We decided to flag down a taxi. It became one of the most memorable experiences in the trip. The posted speed limit of the road he took was 50 km/h. Not only was he driving 80 km/h per hour, he was also Idaho stopping the traffic and cars seem to let him go cut his way through. I was amazed that Crazy Taxi actually exists. We had to catch bus to Cingjing Farm in the Central Mountain on following day, so we slept early to get plenty of rest for the real mountain.