Turning 21st is a big thing to many people as it means that one has officially entered the adulthood period. A year back, I was hesitating if I should hold a birthday party for my 21st because some people around me wished that I do. However, I decided to spend my day without making myself so tired in planning the party and entertaining people during the event. Therefore, I decided to travel to my favourite country again to spend my birthday there since I missed out many things during my first trip because I was sick.
Before boarding the plane, I bought some tea and macarons from TWG since 7% GST is not charged. I still prefer the macarons from Bakerzin though.
We took EVA air again to fulfil my wish of the kitty flight but it would only be for the return flight as the departure flight was scheduled at a later timing, 3+p.m in SG which would be quite late by the time we arrived at Taiwan.
I think that the meals provided by EVA air were good. I like how the vegetables were cooked for both meals, neither too hard nor soft to me. The sauce for the meat was also alright, like those you buy from the mixed rice stalls and I like the bread too. I do not expect the fruits for the flight from SG to TW would taste good and yeah...
台灣之星 T Star
We bought our data cards from one of the shops located near the immigration. The data card price among most of the telecommunication shops does not differ much so we opted for the one with less crowd, and also cheaper, which was NTD450 while others were NTD500 (I only realised this when we were leaving). We had the 10-day unlimited data plan which was inclusive of NTD100 airtime balance. Initially, the data connection was good but during our journey to Taichung, it started to become worse and we were unable to refresh our social media applications. I almost wanted to purchase a new data card because it would be difficult for us to travel around without Google Maps. Luckily, the problem was solved when I tried to play around with the WiFi settings and I realised they did the wrong settings for both of our phones. After changing the settings, the data connection was smooth and good.
Our first stop for the trip was Taichung and we bought the bus tickets to Taoyuan High Speed Rail station. It was our first time travelling by bus as we arranged airport transport service to the hotel during our previous trip. All the luggage were placed at the standing area and no standing was allowed for the passengers throughout the ride.
Once we reached the station, we headed to the self-service machines to purchase the tickets because there was a long queue at the counters. However, it did not make any difference in the end as the lady in front of me kept insisting to use her ATM card to make the payment even though it failed for several times. As it was peak-hour period and we wanted to get the tickets with allocated seats, we missed two time slots and purchased the third one (which was about an hour waiting time) so we went to 7-11 to get some small bites while waiting.
THSR from Taoyuan to Taichung.
Accommodation at Taichung
Definitely, this is the nightmare of the entire trip. I always do some research and read the reviews online before I decided to book a room. Most of the reviews for this hotel were really good when I booked it. One week before the trip, I looked for recent reviews and I found a few unpleasant ones. I thought that it might not be a big deal since it was just a few among the many reviews. Yes, I really regret now...
The location of the hotel is good as it is very near Feng Jia Night Market (逢甲夜市). The hotel interior looked a bit run down but not too bad yet. The hotel staff was friendly and there was one staff stationed outside the entrance, opening the cab door for the guests whenever they alight outside the hotel.
The room that we were allocated was still presentable initially but everything became worse during the second night. First, whenever we switched on the air-conditioner after shower, we would find one or two dead insects on the bed. I cannot imagine how long it have been since they last cleaned the filters in the room. Secondly, the air-conditioner seemed to be switched off automatically in the middle of the night (at around 2/3a.m to 4/5a.m) and then switched on again. I know that we should save energy but it was very warm in the room until we woke up from our sleep plus it was during Summer. Also, the bin was located right next to the bed, under the table. It was not a major issue as I could move it away everyday because the housekeeping staff would place it back to the original position while cleaning the room. But thinking it in a logical way, who would want to sleep right next to the bin...
Finally, during the second night, we woke up again because we were very warm after the air-conditioner was switched off automatically. Suddenly, my mummy asked me what happened to my legs. Then I realised there was a number of tiny red spots on my legs and a few on my right arm. OMG I WAS SO SCARED AS I LOOKED LIKE I HAD MEASLES. My mummy quickly helped me to apply some medication balm and these spots started to get more itchy and turn bigger, looking like mosquito bites. Yes, I was bitten by bed bugs. There were about 10+ bites and the itch stayed for days, even until now when I am typing this post, a few are still itchy. These bites were definitely a spoiler for the entire trip. When I was out everyday under the warm weather, I started to sweat and the itch began to get damn bad. Also, most of the bottoms I brought for the trip were shorts so I had to expose these bites throughout the trip. On a side note, I happened to see a lady who had insect bites on her legs too but she had so many and most of them were scattered together. I really felt the itch for her when I saw it.
We told the staff about the bed bugs and I was a little disappointed with their way of handling this issue. Even though they apologised and initiated to provide some medication cream/balm for me to apply, they sounded like it was not a serious (or very common) matter and they told us that they would let the housekeeping staff know about this so she would disinfect the bed -full stop-. They did not update us anything about the disinfection when we were at the counter passing them the room card before heading out or getting it back after we were back at the hotel. We had to ask them then they updated us. Overall, the whole matter made me felt like serves me right to be bitten.
Their fitness center and laundry service are located at the level 9 of the building. However, the elevator does not reach to that level so we had to climb the stairs from level 8 to level 9 when we wanted to do some laundry during the third day of our trip. The lights were not switched on when we made our way there in the evening so it looked very creepy, especially there were only the two of us. There are only one washing machine and dryer in the laundry room (fyi, the laundry service is not complimentary) so the guests had to queue to use it, and the washing machine takes approximately 50 minutes so happy waiting when one has to wash and dry the clothes.
Our stay included complimentary breakfast everyday. The staff provided us the passes every night when we returned to the hotel so that we could enter the restaurant with those passes the next morning. The timing of the breakfast buffet was from 6.30a.m to 10.30a.m. There were ham, porridge, rice, buns, eggs, spring rolls, scallion pancakes, some vegetables, and etc. I think that the food tasted average to me but I saw other guests had a lot of food on their plates. Some were cold too, most probably it was because we came down late. However, I found something good during our last morning there, which was porridge with salted eggs. LOL, it was warm and appetising.
Transportation
We booked a cab driver to bring us around Taichung on the second day as I felt that it would be inconvenient for us to get to those tourist attractions via public transport even though it is not very worth to book one vehicle for two passengers. Therefore, I did some research online and asked for quotations from a few shortlisted drivers. In the end, I managed to get one who was the cheapest among the rest that ranged from NTD4,000 to NTD4,500. He offered a day trip schedule from 9a.m to 6p.m, which included six places in total though I only had four initially. At first, I only expected the driver to drive us around to various destinations and that's all. However, he took an extra mile to deliver a quality and friendly service. I was not feeling well that day due to insufficient sleep and motion sickness. On a side note, I felt lucky that I did not visit CingJing this time as I already could not make it halfway up the hill, imagine I had to go all the way up. When he knew that I was not well, he advised me what to eat/drink to feel better when we were going to buy some stuff. In addition, he shared with us many things throughout the journey, such as the shops/buildings we passed by, background of the destinations we were going and etc. He also prepared two bottles of mineral water on his cab. In the end, we paid him a little more than the price which he quoted initially since he had done so many things.
On our third day, we took public bus to travel around Taichung. The advantage of taking the bus is definitely the low cost. We did not spend a single cent because it is free to travel around by bus within the first 10km of the ride. In addition, roaming around in a foreign country by bus is something to experience of the locals' lifestyle. However, I think that it is very complicated to travel via bus. It is difficult for us to locate the right bus stop to go to, even Google Maps did not help much. For our first ride of the day, we took the bus at the wrong bus stop (opposite direction). There were two bus stops, one sheltered bus stop and one which was just a pole at the same side. At the other side, we only saw the pole so I thought that the sheltered one was for buses with a loop journey. I only found the correct bus stop at the other side located further down the road after realising that we were on the bus going towards the opposite direction from our destination. After that, I simply gave up and decided to ask the locals around hahaha (most of them were friendly so no worries to ask).
紙箱王創意主題園區 Carton King
Address: 台中市北屯區東山路二段2巷2號
The entrance fee for Carton King was NTD200 per person. Out of the NTD200, we could use NTD100 to buy food/drinks/souvenirs from the shops in the creativity park. Hence, the entrance fee was NTD100 per person in actual.
On the ticket, there are several boxes to be stamped when you visit the various spots. With all the boxes stamped, you could use it to get a small souvenir from the shop. The driver initiated to help us to do the stamping so that we could take our time to look around the place.
The restaurant in the park sells the food and drinks in cardboard too. For example, the steamboat pot and the drink package are made of cardboard. I am really amazed?! However, we did not get anything as the restaurant had not started its operations when we were there. I hope to try them one day in the future, most probably at other outlets.
With NT200 (we had 2 tickets) in total, we bought honey and lavender balm from the Honey Museum. The lavender balm smells really refreshing and I kept using it for my motion sickness.
新社莊園 Summit Resort
Address: 台中市新社區協成里協中街65號
The entrance fee for Summit Resort was NT250 per person. Out of the NT250, we could also use NT100 to purchase items from the shops so the entrance fee was about NT150 per person in actual. Unlike Carton King where more than one vouchers could be used together to pay for an item, one NT100 voucher of Summit Resort could only be used for one item.
We took a small rest at one of the restaurants located near the entrance because my motion sickness started from here as this destination is located somewhere in the middle of the hill. Oh, we used one of the vouchers to buy a cup of warm Apple Yuzu drink and another to buy balms again LOL. I feel that there was nothing much other than taking photos with the castle look-alike buildings and the scenery plus the sun was really scorching hot.
菇神 Master of Mushroom
Address: 台中市新社區協中街287號
Our driver recommended us this restaurant for our lunch. From the name of the restaurant, it is obvious that it is famous for mushrooms hahaha. The restaurant offers free flow of auricularia auricula-judae drink. It tasted a little sour and weird to me.
These were the sides included in the meal. The bottom two were sour but nice. As advised by the driver that one serving of the hotpot is sufficient for two people unless we have large appetites, my mummy and I shared the vegetarian hotpot. It ended up that both of us did not even finish these LOL.
The hotpot that we ordered came with a can of drink. Yes, it is a drink but my mummy poured this into the hotpot because we thought that it was supposed to be something for the soup base HAHAHA. OMG I CANNOT FORGET HOW THIS 弟弟 WAITER'S FACE WAS WHEN HE KNEW WHAT WE DID. LOL but he was nice as he initiated to change the soup for us. We did not change it in the end since the soup base seemed fine, plus it would be troublesome for them to change.
After our lunch, we headed to the store at level 1 where they sell mushrooms, mushroom-flavoured cookies and etc. We bought a few packets back to eat and as souvenirs.
Fruit-Picking Session
Opposite the restaurant, there was a small peach plantation. The driver suggested to pick some fruits and asked if we were interested as we do not have much opportunities to do it in Singapore. Therefore, we went there and the owner gave us to try the peaches first before we decided whether we wanted to pick them. Most of the peaches were picked by my mummy, I only tried once because I was more focused on taking videos and avoiding the flies LOL.
中社觀光花市 Chung She Flower Garden
Address: 台中市后里區三豐路五段333號
The entrance fee for the Flower Market was NT120 per person most of the times, unless it is the tulip season then it would be NT150 per person. Unlike the first two places that we had went, this ticket could not be used to purchase anything
The flowers were really beautiful and worth photo-taking.
高美濕地 Gaomei Wetlands
Address: 台中市清水區大甲溪出海口南側
This is definitely the best attraction among the rest I had visited for the day! At first, the driver recommended us to go to the fish market as it was only 4p.m but I did not want to go (I do not have much interest to look at fishes hahaha). Hence, we headed to our last stop straightaway. As the weather was so hot (although there was strong wind), we planned to call the day off after staying at the place for less than half an hour. However, the driver kept telling us to stay, like since we had already made our way there, we should not waste it. I am glad that he insisted, because the scenery was really really really beautiful... I was really amazed to look at how the sea level changed from high tide to low tide over a large area. We did not wait for the sunset as my booking was until 6p.m and I did not want to exceed the driver's timing heh. I would definitely be back to this place again, for the sunset, and in slippers.
新光三越 Shin Kong Mitsukoshi
Address: 台中市西屯區台灣大道111號
春水堂 Chun Shui Tang
It was considerably crowded on a Sunday but not super packed as what I expected.This restaurant is the one who created the first milk tea with pearls in the world, and it is originated from Taichung. Therefore, I felt that we should try it since we were in Taichung, even though they have outlets in Taipei.
The carrot cake was really nice. The outer layer was very crispy, and together with the soft carrot cake inside, it was -thumb up-.
I do not know how to eat chicken's feet so I only ate the meat from -idk which part of the chicken-. The sauce was spicy to me therefore, this is definitely not on my favourite list. However, my mummy said that it was still not bad, just that the sauce was a little salty.
Here comes the limelight, milk tea with pearls! IT WAS SOOO GOOD. Ok maybe I sound a bit exaggerating because I have not tried the milk tea from other Taiwanese drink stores but everything for this tasted just nice. I did not request any changes to the sweetness level and it was at the right %, not too sweet. The pearls were also very chewy.
字嗨時代插畫新勢力聯展
Before the trip, I did some research on the ongoing exhibitions held in Taipei but there was none that I was interested in (most of them looked boring). Hence, I was glad that we happened to see this random cartoon/animation exhibition when we were shopping in the mall after our brunch.
阿原肥皂 Yuan Soap
These handmade soap bars are made from natural ingredients so they are organic, and they are one of the popular items that the tourists would purchase in Taiwan. Different types of soap bars have different effects. Currently, they have one outlet in Singapore but it would still be cheaper to get it in Taiwan. Thus, we bought one gift set to try as we recently have changed from using shower gels to soap bars. (p.s. Soap bars are more moisturising than gels.)
第四信用合作社 Ice Cream Shop
Address: 台中市中區中山路72號
The building was used to be a bank and it is then occupied by the ice cream shop. It was super crowded when we reached there and the queue was moving slow. They had different ice cream flavours to choose from, such as fruits, coffee, tea and chocolate. We got double scoops so I chose one flavour while my mummy picked the other. Besides these, we were also able to choose three toppings.
Grape x Random Coffee x Pineapple Tart x Cheesecake x Butter Biscuits
It was not super fascinating but it was still good. I love the cheesecake but meh to the other two toppings. I am not a pineapple tart lover but I did not know what to get for my toppings so the staff recommended it to me, while the biscuits were because I saw the person in front of me had it so I decided to try it too LOL.
一中街 Yi Zhong Street
Address: 台中市北區一中街
There were many stalls to shop in Yi Zhong Street but we did not get anything there. Most of the stuff were similar to those in Feng Chia Night Market. Oh yes, we saw Kelvin老師 in one of the malls nearby, the only celebrity (kind of?) we saw throughout the trip.
光南大批發 Kuang Nan Wholesale Store
Address: 台中市西屯區福星路427號
We realised that they also have an outlet near the night market so we went in to shop (my initial plan was to go to the one at Taipei Main Station). This store sells a variety of things such as food, drinks, accessories, albums, magazines and etc. Most of them are cheaper than the ones that you could buy at the night market (maybe not a big price difference after converting to SGD).
逢甲夜市 Feng Chia Night Market
Address: 台中市西屯區文華路
This was my first time visiting a night market in Taiwan as I was sick during my previous trip so I did not go to try all the fried food. Feng Chia Night Market is my favourite as compared to the other two that I have went in Taipei. Most probably because there were more stalls that I was interested to try and more space to move around even though it was crowded.
The first thing to buy was definitely the well-known 大腸包小腸 (sausage wrapped with glutinous rice) in Feng Chia.
We also bought a drink to quench our thirst while exploring other parts of the night market.
We got 金桔紅茶 (kumquat red tea). NTD45 ($1.95) for such a fat cup!
My next aim was the 干貝燒 (grilled scallops).
We had the seaweed-flavoured and I think that it was not bad while my mummy felt that it was salty.
The 地瓜球 (sweet potato balls) really surprised me when I had the first one in my mouth. I do not know how to describe the exact taste, it was good and fluffy when I bit it although it was fried food. I had not tried something like that before so it was a new experience.
I had been wanting to try the fried chicken from 艋舺雞排 (Monga), which is opened by Nono, ever since I saw it on one of the Taiwanese variety shows.
We bought 艋舺爆汁雞 (juicy chicken nuggets) and IT WAS FREAKING GOOD PLEASE!! The skin was crispy, the seasoning was just nice and the meat was so juicy (exactly like the name of the food). Omg can he consider to bring this into Singapore... T-T
Beside Monga, it was 布萊恩紅茶 (Brian Black Tea). I ordered 香檬紅茶 (lemon red tea) which is exclusive during Summer (from what I saw on their website). It was very refreshing and it tasted a little different from the ones I had in Taiwan.
This shop was not the one that I initially wanted to get the butterfly pea drink from but we happened to see it so I bought the lemon tea as I was lazy to look for that particular shop too.
We also bought a packet of guavas from one of the stalls on the street. The white ones were crunchy and good as compared to the pink ones.
Taichung is definitely a beautiful city to explore, with all the different places of pretty scenery. Everything was good throughout these few days except for the bed bugs.
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