Taiwan Trip 2010 (Day 8/Summary)

Day 8

Taichung -> Hong Kong

   Day 8 was very short, since we had to catch a flight in the morning. We got up early in the morning, packed our bags, and walked around to look for a veggie breakfast. Then, we bought several packages of suncake (太陽餅) near the Taichung Central Station as souvenir. We chatted with one of the shopkeepers and she noticed there were an increase of tourists from Mainland China and we chatted what ECFA (a joint agreement of free trade between China and Taiwan) would affect the economy of Taiwan in the future.We walked through some alleys including a street market and had a quick breakfast before heading to the bus station for the bus en route to Taichung Airport.

Morning street market

Waiting in the bus station

Finally, a nice morning after 3 days of rain in Taichung, @ Taichung Central Station

Humid morning

Flying home over Tsing Yi, Hong Kong

   The flight took 90 minutes. We went our separate ways after getting off the plane at Hong Kong International Airport. I was glad that I did not fight with Ben and Kevin during the trip, although I was accused of exploring areas on my own without notifying them and they were a little bit upset about it.

   The trip was slightly different from what I had originally planned. I was very ambitious by planning to go to Alishan and Guanziling, in addition to Taichung, Fengyuan but Ben said there would be too little time to do so. I also avoided Taipei and Kaohsiung (the two largest cities in Taiwan) because we wanted to see the more 'local' side of Taiwan. 

   I had a very good impression of Taiwan. First, Taiwan is a beautiful country with amazing scenery from the Pacific coast to snow-covered mountains that stand over 3500 meters above the sea level. Most people I came across during the Taiwan trip (albeit it took me a while to understand how car traffic works) were very friendly and helpful. Taiwanese food is to die for (a combination of Minnan, Hakka, Eastern Chinese, and Japanese cuisine) and we were lucky to find many good eateries during the trip. It is also one of the most vegetarian friendly countries in the world (among with India), due to the number of Buddhists. The pace is certainly much slower than Hong Kong and they are much more cheerful and laid-back (or at least they show) than Hong Kongers. I would like to visit there again (Kelvin already cycled around Taiwan in 2013!), as there are many places that I have not been to yet, and I have made some Taiwanese friends as well.

   In the future, I would love to experience more on the little island which is known as the true successor of the Chinese culture (sorry PRC, but Cultural Revolution destroyed many things irreversibly, including the soul and root of Chinese culture). I would also recommend people who wants to experience the Chinese culture to pay a visit to Taiwan. It might not have the stunning scenery that can be found in Mainland China, but it is easier to travel and get around, and infrastructures in Taiwan are tend to be better than China.

   Thanks for those who are willing to read my blog. I hope you enjoy the read and get to learn and understand more about this sub-tropical little island on the West Pacific. Also, many thanks to Ben and Kelvin for putting up with my during the trip, as well as their permission for using their photographs on the blog.

Taiwan Trip 2010 (Day 7)

Day 7

Tainan → Taichung

So we got up and prepared our last full day in Taiwan. After we had some breakfast in the hostel, we decided to go visit the sights in Central-western District (the heart of the city government and some sights) of Tainan, along with a little bit of the Eastern District (the two districts are separately by the main railway).

We first went to a place called Chekam Tower. It is one of the most famous attractions in Tainan and many restaurants were built around it to accommodate the tourists. Chekam Tower had a long history and was the second fort built by the Dutch colonists after Fort Zeelandia in Anping District. The Japanese later conquered Taiwan from the Qing Dynasty in 1895 and demolished the fort, and rebuilt the fort in the Japanese architecture style.

Chekam Tower

We encountered a large group of kindergarten students walking around the site. Most of them seemed to enjoy themselves and it was fun to see the different personalities between different kids. Most of the kids were well behaved, and yet, I felt the teachers had a lot of responsibilities, as it was not easy to oversee more than twenty 5 year old kids.

After we saw the Chekam Tower, we walked about three hundred meters to the Confucius Temple. There are many Confucius temples in Taiwan. The one in Central-western District of Taiwan was probably the most famous of them all, thanks to the architecture styles and the number of exhibits. The Confucius had a traditional Chinese style building layout. There was not much to see inside the temple, besides that fact that were some alters who were dedicated to Confucius and his disciples. There were also some interesting ancient Chinese musical instruments that I have never seen before.

One of the buildings in the Confucius Temple

Some of the displayed musical instruments

We were hungry and decided to grab some snacks, after we spent the morning visiting Chekam Tower and Confucius Temple. We went to a grocery store, where steam buns were their specialties. I ordered a matsutake flavoured bun with bamboo sticks and it was absolutely delicious. The aroma lasted in my mouth for many minutes.

We tried to catch a bus to the Tainan Main Train Station so we could headed to the East District. Unfortunately, the public transportation in Taiwan was very poor and nothing came for half and hour. We gave up and flagged down a taxi instead. The ride took about five minutes and we headed to the East side.

We still had about three hours to burn before we have to catch the train to Taichung. We went to see the campus of National Chengkung University (NCKU). NCKU is the most prestigious university in southern Taiwan and has a campus that is pretty enough to be considered a sightseeing attraction. After touring the campus, we felt hungry again and walked to a pedestrian-only shopping street for a quick fix.

Part of the campus of NCKU

We ordered some very good fried rice for a very cheap price in a fast food style restaurant around the shopping street. The restaurant probably served cafetaria style so everything is quick. I chatted to one of the restaurant staff who was also a student at NCKU. She seemed pretty excited when she knew that that we were from Hong Kong. However, she enjoyed the shopping parts of Hong Kong, because Hong Kong has very little restriction on exports and imports. After we finished with our lunch, we headed to Tainan Park and saw three male ducks (presumably bachelors or brothers) hanging out together. They walked and swam together and I thought that was cute. Kelvin, Ben, and I hung out in park until 3 in the afternoon, when we decided to get on the northbound bus to Taichung.

Tainan Park

Very pretty blooming lotus flower in Tainan Park. Photo credit to Calvin

One of the better ways to spend the hot afternoon in Tainan Park

The bus arrived Taichung at approximately 18:00 in the evening. We headed for a dinner in a local night market and went to Eslite Bookstore souvenir shopping around Taichung First High School district. Then we headed back to nap for the last morning.

Back to Taichung and the night market crowd again!

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.

Taiwan Trip 2010 (Day 2)

Fengyuan -> Dongshi -> Taichung  

   We got up and had breakfast early in the morning because we had to catch an early bus. The rain was wonderfully heavy and our feet were soaked by the time we finished walking from the hotel to the breakfast canteen. After that, we packed up and took the bus to Dongshi Forest (東勢林場).

Ben's breakfast sandwich. Actually tasted much better than it looked.

   The bus took about half an hour from Fengyuan Main Bus Station to Dongshi Forest. Due to the heavy tropical rain (luckily there was less rain in the afternoon), we were the only tourist-passengers in the bus. The bus driver was middle-aged man that looked like in his 50's. He was nice and I had some nice chat with him about Taichung and he showed us around the raining scenery around the route.

Tea trees in rainy day. Can't imagine how pretty the site could be if it were sunny.

   Dongshi Forest is a forest-themed garden which is located in the mid-slope of a mountain. Needless to say, it is full of different kinds of trees. it was originally set up during the colonial days of Taiwan, as a site to harvest timber and it became an orchard. Later, it was redeveloped into a theme park with tea trees and flowers.

Jasmine flower

    Due to the rain and low expectations in tourists, only some of the vendors were opened. We were offered some Tieguanyin Tea in Gung Fu tea utensils, along with some delicious bake mushrooms as snacks. We were persuaded to buy some bake mushrooms and after some hike under the rainstorm, we headed to the main building of Dongzhi Forest, after mosquitoes had sucked enough blood from my legs.

Gung Fu Cha. VERY concentrated tea in small cup. Kind of like espresso version of tea.

     We took the bus to Fengyuan Main Bus Station at around 16:00, and we decided to take the train from Fengyuan to Taichung Main Station. Our hotel of choice, in Taichung, Nan Pei Hotel, was conveniently located next to the Taichung Main Station, and its location was its only merit. The room was infested with mosquitoes and the wall was moldy. I thought it would be okay for just three nights, as long as there was a place to sleep. Ben swore he would never take these kinds of hotels again, no matter how cheap it was.

Don't mess with the stream in tropical rain.

     After checking in, we decided to take a walk and headed north to Taichung Park. We stumbled and found the Taichung First High School Night Market and the Eslite Book Store (the biggest chain bookstore in Taiwan with all kinds of collection). We hung out for awhile and walked back to Nam Pei Hotel at around midnight. And that was the end of our second day of the trip. I would like to visit Dongshi Forest another time, but in the right season.

   

   

Taiwan trip 2010 (Day 1)

   So I went to Taiwan with two of my high school friends between June 12th to 19th, in a total of 8 days. It was part of the personal 'celebration' of getting my Bachelor of Science in chemistry, or rather, a long break between schools. I travelled with Ben and Calvin. None of us had ever been to Taiwan so we had to plan ahead and we would try hard not to kill each other in those eight days (we were rather peaceful so no damage was done). We tried to avoid the popular  tourist destinations such as Taipei, Kaohsiung, and Kenting in order to see the local impression of Taiwan. I have read a lot about Taiwan in books and news. It is culturally similar to Hong Kong, as we both use the traditional Chinese scripts. I always think of Taiwan as one of the last refugees of the classical Chinese culture so I would like to experience something unique about Taiwan, its history, scenery and cultures a little bit. I felt Taipei and Kaohsiung are big metropolis so it would be similar to Hong Kong, and Kenting would be full of tourists in the summer time. Our destinations included Taichung, Nantou County, and Tainan. I originally included Chaiyi as well, but realised that it would be a much better idea to spend more time and have a deeper experiemence. I want to give my gratitude to Ben and Calvin for their time, permission of using their photographs, and putting up with my shit in those eight days.

Day 1:

Hong Kong -> Taichung -> Fengyuen

Day 2:

Fengyuen -> Dongshih -> Taichung

Day 3:

Taichung

Day 4:

Taichung -> Chinjing Farm

Day 5:

Chinjing Farm -> Puli -> Tainan

Day 6:

Tainan

Day 7:

Tainan -> Taichung

Day 8:
Taichung -> Hong Kong

Taichung Ching Chuang Kang Airport - a former Republic of China Air Force base. Also one of the three airports in Taiwan that serves passenger to fly internationally. Small, compact, but practical.

A view of street in Shalu, right outside of the airport terminal. Gloomy, rainy day but we were optimistic.

We flew into Taichung Airport from Hong Kong International Airport and I was amazed how tiny the airport was, despite it serves as an international airport. The weather was not as good as we hoped, as it was raining for the first three days our trip, which means our trip in Taichung. Our first destination was Taiwan National Museum of Fine Arts. Before we headed to Taiwan National Museum of Fine Arts, we had our lunch in a nicely decorated Mediterranean-themed restaurant called Santorini.

The interior of the Santorini. We ate on the ground floor, but there are three stories altogether with different themes.

This is what I ordered. I forgot the name but the right cheese covered dish was supposed to be pasta.

A seafood dish with shrimp and clams with some spaghetti noodles.

Another dish that I did not remember what it was.

Taiwan National Museum of Fine Arts is a comprehensive art museum that shows different kinds of arts ranging from 16th century to modern arts. Each of their art work is divided into different category. No pictures were taken since photography is not allowed in the museum. One major difference I have noticed between the art in Hong Kong and Art in Taiwan was the amount of support of local artists between two places. Hong Kong Museum of Art does have many Chinese exhibits, but is lack of artworks from modern artists from Hong Kong. Taiwan National Museum of Fine Arts, does however, had a balanced amount of exhibits from western, Chinese, and local Taiwanese artists, they do have promotions on local artists hanging outside of their museums.

The building of the art museum and its promotion for some of its limited time exhibits.

Some sculptures in front of the museum.

A nice walk from the museum to the Taichung station, where we hopped on the train to go to Fengyuen.

Since we were planning to go to Dungshih Forest Park in the early morning of the 2nd day and we had to get up earlier to get the bus, we decided to stay in spend the night in Fungyuen, which has direct bus route to Dungshih. Fengyuen is a medium-size city that is located northeast of Taichung city and was called Toyohara during its colonial period by Japan. It took only 25 minutes for the train to go to Fengyuen to Taichung. In case if you have not seen, a night market in Taiwan is refered as a section of a district that is offered to people to hang out and enjoy themselves at night. We went to Temple East Night Market. It is named so because it is near Tsz Chi Temple. We hung out and enjoyed the food in Temple East Night Market. The night market was quite crowded, despite that fact that there was rain earlier in the day. I ate so much that I was almost unable to walk on that night. Then we stayed in a hotel called "Good Hotel".

Fengyuen's Tsz Chi Temple that the night market is named after.

All kinds of cheap, delicious food stalls on both sides of the alley.