We moved on away from TaiChung 台中 with High Speed Railway (HSR) 高鐵. This was not our first time catching the high speed. It's ever convenient, but consider pricy. Here we concurred Taipei 台北 again! (This was my 3rd trip in life)
High Speed Railway
Always come with convenient food
Taipei Raiway Station
We didn't have a fixed destination scheduled after touching into Taipei city. We left it all to the weather, my planner had a few options in hand. The last 3 days were planned with its main intention - shopping & food.
Accommodation : Dairy of Taipei 台北日記旅館 at XiMenDing 西門町. I will always stay this area for convenience reason. It's best for commuting via MRT, the station is just right in front of the hotel. Food and shopping area are just around the corners.
Upon checking in, we headed out for dinner. Visited the new shifted in ShiLing food stalls 士林夜市. We walked a distance from the train station, then found the new place isn't had the feel of night market and bazaar anymore. We still settled down for our simple dinner, at the food court area down basement.
Foods : Settled for the O-chien 呵啊煎 and Minced pork rice 滷肉飯。
Simple mea
Along the way towards the train station, we grabbed some snacks back to XiMenDing.
Pepper bun
The ever famous AhZhong Noodle 阿宗麵線 is just 1 block behind our hotel. My partner grab this everyday for supper. Though I don't fancy it all the while, this time round I felt not bad... exceptionally good and acceptable taste.
AhZhong Noodle
The hotel provided us breakfast voucher everyday. Unfortunately, no choices except KFC nearby. The set were not attractive at all, as compared to McD. We still grabbed out bite every morning, one of those my partner met his friend coincidently staying at the same hotel.
View from KFC
Shopping : The following day, we choose to stay in city and do some shopping. My record 戰力品 as below. Coffee utensils were at good bargains, even at the high end shopping malls. I got myself and for a friend, the ceramic coffee dripper. To replace those plastic type of dripper we usually use. It was only NT350 each.
I was tempted to buy other coffee utensils, but held my breath on it....
Ceramic Coffee dripper
Tempted with the coffee tools
Taipei Municipal Council
Foods : We settled some great food at the mall's food court. Not bad, with the price of KLCC food court. Food were bigger portion and good variety. Some came with free soup and drinking water.
Free soup
Udon with tempura
Korean beef rice
GuanDu 關渡 - A place not far from Taipei city, towards the famous tourist spot DanSui 淡水.
Local temple
Bicycle Rental
Nice Bicycle track
Cafe along the way
Overlooking 陽明山
Sunset view
Little vege farm view
Rented Tandem bike
Bridge view
When the sunset, we headed via train to DanSui 淡水 for dinner and some shopping. We didn't hit to the usual tourist spot of 淡水老街. We headed to a multistory shopping mall with Uniqlo, walk inner along the shop and found something similar to night market. A few stationary shops too.
I spent quite a lot of time in stationary shops. A little tips if you wish to get nice and cheap souvenirs, get them from stationary shops. Art and craft stuffs are common. In my case, over year end, I had got get some affordable fridge magnetic calendar.
Foods : As we walk along the street, we hunt for food too. Observed the local (not many tourist along this street) dining choice, we settled in a home cooked food restaurant, namely 台G店.
鹵雞翼 Chicken Wings & 高麗菜 cabbage
黃酒雞 Rice wine chicken - yummy
The night was still young, upon reaching back to XiMenDing. We planned for supper. Besides AhZhong noddle, we added the O-Chien from opposite stall, namely 天天利. Dropping by 85度C chained coffee shop was a must too. Famous chain in Taiwan, apparently.
Food stall
Yummy O-chien
Cafe Latte at 85度 C
Following day, we thought if it didn't rain. We might have ended up further suburb YiLan 宜蘭. Too bad, it rained pretty heavy that morning. We scraped that idea, instead went somewhere down south, YingKer 鶯歌 & SanXia 三峽.
Transportation : We took a multi-stop train from Taipei Raiway station to YingKer. A unique town, where its station and surrounding documenting some classic background of the township. Clay art is the core, we found lots of shops selling uniqle clay work. I wish I have a cargo plane or ship, without that I avoided shopping for any.
Old street
By walking a few blocks away, we took the bus which headed us to SanXia. This place is also unique, with great red bricks building, specialty on art and craft work station. We bought some souvenirs here too.
SanXia - unique bell
SanXia - mini plant
SanXia tourist spot - old street
Cute drainage cover
Drainage cover
It's too new
Foods : Local speciality bun, I would call it Chinese croissant. Bull horn shaped. We walked around, near the market and settle for late lunch in a noodle stall.
Tasted not too nice
Variety bun
Famous brand - yummy
Local stall
陽春麵 was nice
At the train station, we grabbed some bun cake. It was awesomely nice.. especially the garlic bread.
Garlic bread from train station
Bottled coffee
Shopping : Final night in Taipei... shopping is a must! Especially beauty products. I like to shop for households, but time has been limited. The shop just a block away from our hotel has lots of variety, worth to shop for households and specialties.
Besides, my most expansive souvenir was a genuine 牛皮 sling bag. Roots seems to be famous brand in Taiwan.
Special masks
Hand mask
Night face mask
Emporium with lots of variety, from home to beauty
Famous Canada Roots brand in Taiwan
Foods : Local dumpling aka Bachang in XiMenDing is famous too. We used to patron this shop over our last trip. Without failed, we were back.
Dumpling shop
Rice cake
Bachang
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Other food which I missed were the coffee shop serving lots of local cookies, especially the walnut cookie 核桃酥. Imaging myself having a Western coffee served with Chinese cookies. The time we passed by the shop, it was all packed.
Coffee shop
With Chinese cookie
Shopping did not stop at XiMenDing. In fact, we found that the airport departure hall was worth shopping for duty free goods too. Do spare some time to shop after the immigration check in.
- End -
Till then for my next planned trip for Taiwan. Something more exciting will be up then.
Continued our journey from Alishan 阿里山 back to JiaYi 嘉義, we caught the next train from JiaYi to TaiChung. It's very interesting learn the background and type of train/coach to choose. They have many models and its very assembling what JR train has in Japan. Obviously, trains in Taiwan were built by the Japanese. (Visit Taiwan Railway official web (in Chinese) for more info - 悠遊台灣鐵道）
TaiChung 台中
Transportation: Upon arriving back at JiaYi station, the weather turned warm at ~26C. No other choice but to change my top.
Tips : Do have a spare T-shirt handy in your hand luggage, without needing to search further in the main luggage bag.
We caught the earliest train to TaiChung.
Train from JiaYi - TaiChung
TaiChung train station was not as neat and tidy as I expected. It was so cramp, living very limited space for crowds to move. Plus, it was slightly hazy that day. i-center was rather small and tiny, we couldn't step in earlier. Do not mistake TaiChung train station with its High Speed Railway (HSR) as they are both located at different location nor building. Slight mis-integration in their transport system, however, rapid bus is still available to link both.
TaiChung Train Station
Upon checking in our hotel, which was just footsteps away from the station...
Accommodation : TaiChung Honeydew Hotel 哈密瓜旅店. Location wise its very convenient. Unfortunately I wouldn't recommend it, as we couldn't check in even after 2PM. The check in time was 6PM. It's fine as long as we could still drop our luggage. Overall rating, its below 1 star. Hotel room was dark and moldy smelled. A nearby budget hotel, namely Kiwi Express 奇異果快捷旅店 looks more promising.
HouLi 后里
The haze was quite bad that afternoon. Partner has a few options to choose, if we wanted to go shopping or cycling. Being a minimalist on travel luggage, I chose to avoid shopping at the earlier stop of our journey, reason being we will be dragged upon when maneuvering around the cities later on.
There we head ourselves to HouLi, a suburb of TaiChung. Took a 30min train from TaiChung station. We should have bought a 2 ways ticket, since we knew we are heading back. Heard there were discounted.
Train to HouLi
Small township - HouLi
Bike rental shop just in front of the station
This bike rental shop owners were friendly. We chose single bike for each, while the rental was only NT100-150 each, unlimited ride time as long as we return by 6pm. They would recommend some route, while we could also ride in the town itself. It was a Saturday, and there were lots of families and kids we out there for family outings. The route of ~15KM 2 ways were quite congested with family bikes, it can be slightly stressful, but observing the Taiwanese family lifestyle, it's worth a value to see happy faces and family ties over weekend. Instead back home here, the very famous family outing will be the shopping malls. Sad to see.
Contacts in case anyone interested.
The ride brought us to a horse racing field, towards a ex-train road which then converted to bicycle dedicated route. Cross the river, towards the tunnel namely 九號隧道。I didn't have my GoPro in this trip, instead a compact camera. Here find the short (bumpy) video taken...
Railway Winery
HouLi train station
Returned to TaiChung, we then headed for dinner. Half way through. we stumbled into a very nice ice cream shop. Looks interesting, and the building had a few shops with quite similar design. Anyway, since there are few queuing up for the ice cream, might as well give it a try. Miyahara ice cream 台中宮原眼科, eye specialist? Oh well, it was an old hospital converted into modern hangout place. The 3 scoops on biscuit only costed us NT290, best part was it includes 3 types toppings, ranging from choco chips to cheese cake slice! Awesomely good. Unfortunately, they don't provide sit-down table, we have to stand outside of the shop. Anyway, weather turned chilling that evening. I personally prefer the choco milky type over sorbet.
Varieties of ice creams
Choices
Many types of toppings
Wow!
Plan for the night was in fact Night market at FengJia 逢甲夜市. First mission was food hunting. We settled with every famous (must eat) chicken chop! This came with side dish of cold salad (this caused some miserable experience later on).
Boneless chicken chop
Chicken chop and salad
Miserable experience was mainly my stomach upset after having the cold salad. Running (walking fast) across the congested crowd hunting for a rest room. I remember walking almost 500M before I could settled at the public rest room located at 1st floor of shop lots. I didn't enjoy the shopping spree at those moment.
ChingJing Farm 清境農場 Transportation: On the next day, we bought our our bus ticket at NanTou Bus station 南投客運, practically a shop lot with some other bus agency around. It was walking distance from the hotel. Not too fortunate, our intended 8AM bus ticket was sold out, we waited another hour for the next bus.
Great package by NanTou Bus
Bus station on the way to ChingJing
ChingJing清境農場 is a nice farm place, cooling and slightly commercial. We bought the packaged from the bus agency, and those ticket included the farm ticket. One tip, best to get to ChingJing on a weekend as most shows, i.e. sheep coat harvesting would only be on. We were lucky to get on the place on a Sunday.
Bus stopped here
Fruits though expansive
Cameron called 愛情果
Learned this from my last Taiwan trip. This is the most economical way to keep travel souvenirs! Stamping..
For the interest of time, we settled with 7-Eleven fast food. Pork sausage, Sticky rice and coffee. It can be awesomely tasty on the cool weather.
Fast food
We managed to catch a good sunny day at ChingJing farm. It was scenic when it approached sunset. We took a bus up to the peak of the farm, then walked slowly downhill, till our hotel.
The ever environmentalist country
Safety Messages
Sheep Show
The lost sheep
Scenic Evening
ChingJing Sunset
ChingJing hawker & restaurants
Mail a Postcard
Outdoor band with chilly night ~ perfect
With just beer from 7-11
Transportation : 4AM the next morning, the engaged tour bus (rather a VW 7 seater van) picked us up from sightseeing tour to HeHuan Mt 合歡山, the highest peak of Taiwan. It usually snow during winter, our trip was slightly early, while it was just sometime autumn.
Another scenic sunrise with 雲海
Scenic morning @ HeHuanShan
WuLing 武嶺 - Peak of the peak
Accommodation : ChingJing Bunbury Fruit Ranch Bed & Breakfast 清境民生觀光果園. We had the very basic deluxe room, and surprisingly it was very good! Most importantly, it was clean. All basic facilities available, felt so like a little home. They even provide heater bedsheet, very handy especially during super cool day. Filtered and hot water are ever ready outside the room. The dinning or activity area outside our room looks so like hostel.
Before getting into our room
Upon got back from our tour. Home cooked breakfast was ready on the table. We shared with another group of Chinese mainland backpacker and couple. They were great people, unlike those come in big group and tour bus.
Healthy breakfast
Lastly, I thought of getting back to the essential oil shop to grab more things, at the same time have a better look at their herbs garden. That's my dream of having such beautiful and pull of positive ion place at home, of course with a chilling weather. I won't get it now, yet!
