Taiwan Travelogue: Day 1 and 2 in Taichung City
My trip down to Taichung was not planned initially.
It happened because I mentioned to the bf that perhaps we could take a day trip out of Taipei to a nearby attraction to make my trip more interesting.
He told his mother and she decided to bring me to Taichung lol.
So this explains why I was whisked straight to Taichung straight after landing in Taoyuan Airport.
We had dinner at a local restaurant and literally over ordered for 6 pax - 13 dishes omg! - but what you see here is braised smelly tofu. Usually the smelly tofu you see around Taiwan are deep fried but this was slightly different without the thick fried skin around it.
Dropped by this really nice park on the way back to his uncle's home.
This place is known as 秋紅谷廣場 or for those who cannot read traditional Chinese, Qiu Hong Gu Guang Chang. You can read all about its history here.
I do have to say that this is not some common tourist area. It was just swarmed with locals taking a nightly stroll and things like this. Pretty cool place for a city like Taichung.
Stopped by the cafe within the park to cool off because the weather was hideous that day.
It rained non-stop all the way from Taoyuan to Taichung and then turned hot and humid when the night fell. Gosh, it was like... Singapore's horrendous weather D:
Headed home after that because I was really dead beat! Missed going to Fengjia Night Market 逢甲夜市 even though it was in the vicinity because I was really drained of energy from the early flight and long journey from SG to HK and finally TW.
Managed to sleep in till quite a late timing (10am! oops.) the next day and woke up to breakfast :D
Thank you Uncle and Auntie for getting sandwiches for us hehe.
It's said to be one of Taichung's famous breakfast stores and the bread was really soft and fluffy.
Started the day with lunch at this local restaurant 北方馆 which according to the bf's mother, is one of their family's favourites places to have beef noodles! YUM.
For your record, here is the address to 北方馆:
台中市美德街154號
04-22358632、04-22356065
It was bustling with people everywhere and I can tell you, there were NO tourists. Talk about being a minority there huh lol. It's as local as it can get haha!
In Taiwan, they place the 'xiao cai' or side dishes within a cabinet so you can just help yourself to whatever food items you'd like to have and then bring it to your table. They will calculate this into your bill when you ask for the check.
My favourite kind of side dish is the cold tofu with century egg. Somehow only the Taiwanese serve such food (only at Din Tai Fung in SG do I get to see such a dish!) so it's always a must order every time I'm in Taiwan.
Our party of 7 ordered like tons of dishes including the 小米粥 (the yellow thingy in a bowl), 牛肉餡餅, 刀削牛肉麵，蔥油餅 and 餃子 to share.
牛肉餡餅
蔥油餅
Hmmmmm tastes like Chinese prata lol
餃子
刀削牛肉麵
I have to say the dish I enjoyed THE MOST was the beef noodles!
THE SOUP OMG, SO FLAVOURFUL! Must order!
The bf googled for some place nice in Taichung to bring us to and we found this place known as 宮原眼科冰淇淋
Here's the address of the place: 台中市中區中山路20號
I recall Grace telling me about visiting this place with Trevor in 2013 and she was telling me the ice cream is a must try! And the winding queue outside the store said so. Lucky us, we only queued for 20 mins before reaching the front of the queue.
A staff will actually hand you the menu (in Chinese) upon joining the queue and then you'd have to think of which flavours you'd like to order and let her know when she comes back to take your order.
Somehow the Chinese words were too mind-baffling for us because there were at least 15 different types of chocolate flavours and they came from different countries with different cocoa content.
Gave her a really blank look (LOL sorry) and she handed us the English version (it's only available from inside the store so do ask them for one when you join the queue. They will hand you one.) so we could finally decide the flavours to order.
Here's the price range and for those who are unable to read the words, see below for my translation:
Single scoop: NT90
Double scoops: NT150 (in a same cup/cone)
Triple scoops: NT 225 (in a same cup/cone)
Family size: NT480/pint
Waffle cup: NT20
You get to choose from 3 different varieties of flavours: Chocolate, fruity and tea based flavours. Price is same irregardless of whichever variety you choose. They charge according to the number of scoops you order.
Chocolate
Fruity
Tea
The bf in the queue! It's quite rare to see him queue quietly without any complaints LOL!
Once the staff has scooped all the flavours you've ordered, you pay for your ice cream and head to the next station to choose your add-ons.
There were tons of things available as add-ons and they come free! You get to pick the amount according to the number of scoops ordered. I'm sorry that I cannot remember how many were allowed per scoop but we had quite a few add-ons due to the fact that we ordered the triple scoop ice cream.
And then....ta-dah! The bf and my ice cream.
I'm sorry to say that I didn't enjoy the ice cream. I just couldn't understand the whole hype behind this D: It didn't taste very nice to me at all. Plus it wasn't exactly cheap leh wah lau! I take my Haagen Daz ice cream over this any day lol. Oops.
The store also sells pastries in another area. You can consume your ice cream inside BUT you cannot place your cups on the counters etc. You gotta hold it in your hand and eat from there. Was told off by the staff there when I attempted to place the cup of ice cream on the counter.
Eventually left the place and ate the ice cream in the car due to the lack of space inside.
Didn't have a very shuang feeling after that (his mother was complaining she didn't understand why anyone would queue for such ice cream when it isn't nice in the first place) so we went for round 2 at a dessert store selling black sugar ice desserts.
If you like such types of dessert, do try and Google for the store's name as shown and find it somewhere in Taichung City. I'm not a fan of such desserts (I like my cakes and what not lol) but it was quite alright tasting in my opinion.
Anyway, that was the end of my short stay in Taichung.
I'm sorry if you were expecting like more details on places of interest here but my trip wasn't a full holiday. The idea was to spend time with my bf and his family so it was more of a 'what a typical Taiwanese family do in their normal lives' kind of trip ROFL. You can just search for places of interest in Taichung, there are really alot of things to do in Taichung like go to Cingjing Farm, Fengjia Night Market, shopping at Yi Tong Street, go to a theme park like Yamay Theme Park etc etc.
Ok, will be back with more entries of the trip. We went back up to Taipei and I stayed there throughout the rest of the trip to meet friends, shop and just go on small dates with the bf.