13 Dec 2011
Our first day in Taiwan was spent in the city of Tai-Chung, located in the central part of Taiwan island. The only place of interest we planned to visit in Tai-Chung was the Feng Chia Night Market. Around 1 kilometre wide, Feng-Chia Night Market is the premiere night market experience in Taiwan. This is the place to experience Taiwan’s delicious and value for money street food and cool shops. During the weekend, as much as 30,000 people can pass through the market.
Earlier in the day, we had taken flight SQ878 from Singapore and arrived slightly after 5 PM. By the time we cleared immigration and got out it was about 6 PM. The plan was to stay in Taichung upon arrival, instead of going into Taipei. I had booked a hotel (Le Parker) which is just 5 minutes’ walk away from Feng Chia Night Market.
There are 3 ways to get to Taichung.
Option 1: Shuttle bus to High Speed Rail (HSR) station, then take the HSR to Tai-Chung HSR Station, and then take a taxi to our hotel. This would probably take 20 minutes + 40 minutes + 13 minutes respectively (excluding waiting time). And we would need to lug the luggage all over the places, hence not so ideal.
Option 2: Taxi directly to our hotel. Most expensive (cost approximately 3500 NT) but most convenient.
Option 3: Bus to Tai-Chung (240 NT), then taxi to hotel. This will probably take 2 hours on the bus + 10 minutes on the taxi.
We were leaning towards option 1 and 2 before arrival at the Taiwan’s Taoyuan airport. Upon arrival and checking with the girl manning the information counter at the airport, we chose option 3 instead and I think it was a good choice. There were many operators and we chose one that has the next bus leaving the soonest. We boarded the 6.30pm bus from Ubus company.
The bus arrived at Chaoma bus stop at about 8 PM. The bus ride was comfortable, and faster than expected (1.5 hours) as Chaoma was the first stop in Taichung city. Le Parker Hotel was just 5 minutes’ by taxi from Chaoma bus stop. There were taxis waiting at Chaoma and it costs 95 NT for a Toyota Wish cab to take us to our hotel.
After check-in is done at the Le Parker Hotel, we immediately head to Feng Chia market for dinner, followed by shopping. It was drizzling slightly, so the place was not too crowded. Thankfully the drizzle did not last too long.
First stop was at the stall selling deep fried chicken chop. Then grilled squid, grilled live prawns, grilled mushrooms, BBQ chicken chop, washed down with strawberry milk tea and lime juice. We liked the grilled prawns so much that we went for a second round even though a queue was beginning to form. The prawns were so sweet and we ate the whole prawn - heads and shell included!
I saw this stall displaying nice cream-colour bitter gourds. I have only seen green coloured bitter gourds in my home country. It seems that the white bitter gourd is blended and laced with honey to make a bitter and sweet drink. I did not try this.
Instead we bought cut slices of green (half ripe) mango with sugar and spice from this Hulk for dessert.
Note: he looks green because of the reflected light from his green fruits!
Once our tummy is satisfied, it was time for some shopping for the boys. I like visiting markets as you can get a sense of what is popular in the country and culture from the goods offered.
Taiwanese loves their dogs and dresses them up too (like this cute little “Police Dog”).
Taiwanese also loves scooters with nice, cute designs for the helmets.
We bought a pair of sneakers for S and a pullover for D. And some fake eye lashes for J to use while doing dance performances in school. I noticed almost 50% of the young Taiwanese girls enhance their eyes with this!
I also made contact with the taxi driver that would take us to Sun Moon Lake, Puli and then to Cingjing the next day. The driver spoke only Mandarin. I realised that my spoken Mandarin was better than I thought. He understood me.
That night, I suffered a slight tummy upset from what I ate. The rest of the family were OK. So maybe I ate one prawn that was not too well cooked. Or it could be the milk tea with the ice.
Tip: Maybe it is better not to eat the heads of the prawns.
Despite my slight misadventure, Feng Chia Night Market is not to be missed!
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