✈ Taichung, Taiwan x Day 1 to 3

Taiwan has always been a destination on my travel checklist. It is afterall an Asian country with beautiful scenic attractions and seasons, farms, hot springs & enormous variety of food (prepare to get fat there!).

Jack & I spent a good 8 days there late last month. It was no doubt very huge, but too hard and tedious to conquer. Thankfully, it was a free and easy trip for us, otherwise we may have been badly exhaust. haha!

Flight:

We flew with Scoot with a 50% deal (similar to my bkk trip) at only SGD250 each, how awesome! Departed Singapore close to 1am, slept through half the flight and woke up to bright & sunny Taiwan at 0530am :) We planned to visit Taichung the first two days before heading to Taipei. 

Transfer from Taoyuan to Taichung:

After collecting our luggages, it was still early and we decided to take Ubus 1623 from the airport to Taichung. The frequency of the bus is pretty fast, about every 30 minutes and ticket costs NT240 each. We hopped on the 640am coach, slept throughout the comfy ride and arrived Taichung Train station 2.5 hours later! The other alternative is to take the HSR which I think takes only an hour but costs 2-3 times more. 

Our 630am breakfast from Hi-life. Just some coffee, fruit, sushi & misc to tide us through :)

Day 1 - Taichung & Feng Chia Night Market

We dropped our luggage at the hotel and had about 4 hours to roam around. Most of the shops were still closed at 10am. We headed to 第二市场 and had our second breakfast. In Taiwan, we've learnt to order from whichever stall with the longest queue, and there you will have the best food (at least most of the time)!

We bought a set of Carrot cake, egg and rice sausage & a bowl of soup. Also had our first cup of milk tea which was awesomeee!

We then headed to the Mode Mall, nearest shopping mall near our hotel. We ended going round and round before stopping by Sushi Express for lunch. Both of us loves Sushi Express in Taiwan, especially for their generous portion and cheap rates at NT30/plate.

Hotel:

We booked a deluxe room for 2 nights at Plaza Hotel, which was centrally located at Taichung City for a promo rate of SGD80/night with daily buffet breakfast for 2! We were finally able to check in at 230pm for a good warm bathe and nap. Needed it so much at that point of time. 

It was soon time for dinner after we woke up. We were excited for our first night market walk at Fengjia - 逢甲夜市, one of the biggest and famous night market in Taiwan! There are many buses available from Taichung Train station and the ride took about 40 minutes. 

We ordered quite a bit for share - pork pepper bun, 大肠抱小肠, clams, chocolate crepe, bbt & some fruits, first day only and we were filled to brim! My favorite of all has got to be the pork egg bread as featured. It was piping hot and really yummy!

Day 2 - CingJing Grassland & Yi Zhong Night Market
Woke up early for our breakfast buffet before heading to Cingjing Grassland. 

Super love Taiwan's 茶叶蛋!

We took the Nantou bus transportation and bought the Cingjing Package at NT600 which includes the entrance tickets and our transportation to and back :) The bus ride to Cingjing took about 2 hours and we arrived around noon. 

Cingjing is a beautiful huge green farm situated at Nantou. Sheep are everywhere in the open & I was really afraid! But as long as you're not holding on to any food, they will not come near you :) So I stayed far away from Jack in the wide field. 

That's Jack feeling super excited!

Selfie with the sheep :)

<3

The bowl of hot chicken noodle soup that warms me up instantly, it was really good! :)

It began raining 30 minutes before our last bus back at 1630. We bought poncho without a choice and shivered all the way to the entrance, what an experience!

Back in Taichung, we headed to Yizhong night market 15 minutes away from our hotel. We were famished and again bought many miscs - fried chicken, sushi, etc to share. I personally felt Yizhong was a better place to go as compared to the Feng Chia. I even joined a long queue to trim my brows! 

Day 3 - Miyahara - Taichung - Taipei

So quickly day 3 came! Right after our breakfast, we headed to the Miyahara Ophthalmology Department - 宫原眼料 only available in Taichung. It was located 8-10 minutes walk away from our hotel. The 2 storey building was built with red bricks and hugeee. There were varieties ranging from their famous ice-cream, drinks, chocolates & cookies. 

The ice-cream queue wasn't that long in the morning and we got our order quickly. There were so many exotic flavors to choose from and we were spoilt for choices! 

Smoked Uganda, with 80% cocoa & Assam Black tea

A double scoop ice-cream comes with 3 toppings & we chose some caramelized biscuit, sunflower seeds & cheesecake. The ice-cream was light, not very milky & I love it so much! We devoured it very quickly, got a handful of their cookies (not very cheap at $2.50 each but it's really good) before we headed back to hotel to check-out and make our way to Taipei!