Taiwan 2015 Day Two - Taichung

After much procrastination, im finally here to update our taiwan trip last year..opps! And im flying to Taiwan again this Friday coz of my sis grad..lol!! Day 2 was basically tour around the places in Taichung and we hired a driver to bring us around, can't remember the total price but i think it's around 3500NT per day, 10 hours maximum. We woke up super early that day and have a simple breakfast below our airbnb while waiting for the driver to arrive.

Our first stop is the Rainbow Military Dependents’ Village (彩虹眷村), the whole area is full with colorful and bright paintings on the wall, which was all painted by a veteran, Mr. Huang. The village should have been torn down years ago due to the government program to demolish and replace military dependents' village throughout Taiwan. However, this village has become so popular from all these paintings which attract more and more tourist. Eventually it has became one of the tourist attractions in Taichung and the government was forced to preserve this village. You will spot someone in iron man mask performing music there if you go at the right time, he was really friendly and fun! He even instructed us to pose for the picture and took our camera to selfie..lol! We spent around 20-30 mins there taking photos and off we went to our next destination - Sun Moon Lake and Qingjing.

One of the key attraction in Sun Moon Lake is the Ropeway Cable Car, we bought the round trip ticket (around $10) and i think there's some free coupons for us to purchase food at the top. The view was nice but i honestly felt that it's kinda boring actually..lol! There's this Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village Theme Park at the end station but we didn't visit due to time constraint. The driver then recommended us to take a walk at the Itashao market street where we chanced upon this famous fried bun stall! The bun is filled with cabbage and mushroom, fried on the spot and you have to help yourself with the packing and paying, all self service XD The stall owner was so funny, he even posed for me and ask me to take his picture with the signboard behind..lol! Must try ok! It's really good especially when eat it hot!

Our last destination is the Qingjing farm and the journey from Sun Moon Lake was really really long..luckily we still manage to catch the last sheep show at Green Green Grasslands. The sheep show is only available on weekends and public holiday. The venue was already full of visitors when we reached and the crowd is really no joke, we had a really hard time finding a good viewing spot..lol! The sheep was then released after the show to allow the visitors to interact with them, we have waited so long for this..lol! We bought some sheep feed at the vending machine and start to spam photos with the sheep XD It was extremely hard to take photo with the sheep, we tried so many times and take countless shot and only manage to get some decent one. Well..just look at the selfie that I took with the sheep..it totally nailed the 不屑 face man..hahaha!

We went to the Small Swiss Garden to take some pictures before we left Qingjing. The place is kinda boring in my opinion so we just took some shots and went back to Taichung. The highlight of that day has got to be the Monster shaved ice that we had that night, click here to read! :)

Stay tuned for the update..which I hope it won't be too long..lol!

Meanwhile, please watch our Day 1 & Day 2 Taiwan trip vlog below! Watch in HD ;)

To Be Continued..

Taiwan 2015 Cafe - 路地 氷の怪物

Before I continue my taiwan travelogue, I thought maybe I can do a quick post of this super cute shaved ice that we had in Taichung! We heard about this place from a taiwan variety show - Kang Xi Lai Le and straightaway it's on our to go cafe list..lol! This place is a bit hard to access but I ensure you the journey and travel time will be worth it. 

There are 5 options to choose from which are milk, matcha, black sesame, cocoa and plum and you get to choose 2 toppings to go with each shaved ice. They have such a wide selection of toppings that took us long enough to decide which to get. We ordered the popular choice which is matcha and black sesame, can't remember what are the exact toppings that we chose though..haha! You have to place your order and pay for it before you get the seat in the cafe. Oh, we ordered the sinful marshmallow toast as well because we happened to see it when we were paying at the counter..lol!

We couldn't hide our excitement when the staff served the shaved ice to us! OMG just look at how cute the shaved ice is?! Ok, you might think it's just shaved ice with two candy eyeballs on it but still IT'S CUTEEEE XDD Time to spam photos and we have to take the photos real quick because the shaved ice melt pretty fast..lol! 

I like both matcha and black sesame flavor but if you can only choose one flavor, I will say go for the black sesame!! It's really really nice, the flavor is very rich but not too intense and the texture is so smooth that you can't stop asking for more. Even my friend who is not a fan of black sesame love it too! Oh ya and the marshmallow toast was really yummy as well, so glad that we decided to order it! Imagine the melted marshmallow on top of the crispy and fluffy toast which consist of banana slices in between..omggg im drooling now already..hahahaha!

This has got to be my favourite cafe for the whole trip, definitely worth a try if you are visiting Taichung! 

路地 氷の怪物

No. 1, Lane 61, Cunzhong St, West District, 

Taichung City, Taiwan 403

Mon-Sun: 12-9pm

Taiwan 2015 Day One - Taichung

Ok, finally im here to update my taiwan trip with Shering few months back! This trip was kinda booked on impulse though we casually talked about it before that..haha! Saw the Jetstar promo ticket in Feb so we got our air ticket around SGD250+ each and I thought it was pretty worth it! After settling our air ticket, we started to look for accommodation and i'm so glad we decided to give Airbnb a try, my first time booking airbnb overseas..hehe! I can say that we put quite a lot of efforts in planning and preparing for this trip. We even bought new lens for this trip yeay one more prime lens added into collection XD

Anyway, fast forward to our 1st day of the long awaited trip..can you imagine we bought our air ticket in Feb and have to wait for 9 months for the trip to happen? lol~ Our flight was at 7am so we decided to spend the night before at Changi Airport because you know..we scared we overslept..haha! Talked non stop in Paris Baguette until boarding time and no surprise we straightaway fell asleep on the plane after it took off :p

Reached Taoyuan Airport after a 6 hours flight and the first thing we did was to apply the local data prepaid plan..hehe! The plan we used is the 7 days package with unlimited data and 150NT call time from Taiwan Mobile (台湾大哥大). We were so hungry by that time so we bought some food from the 7-11, love love love the oden and the milk tea! The milk tea is a must try! I even bought few bottles back..ahaha!

Ok, our trip started in Taichung so we have to take the high speed rail from taipei to taichung.We took a bus (客运) from Taoyuan Airport to Taiwan High Speed Rail (HSR) Station and from there we took the HSR to Taichung Station. The journey from Taipei to Taichung by HSR was about an hour so we bought the railway bento for our late lunch..hehe! #nonstopeating The 1st day was just keep travelling and travelling on road, we took another bus from Taichung train station to our airbnb stay for 45 mins - - Can't really locate our airbnb stay at 1st and we were so tired carrying our luggage around..worst part was when we know they put us on 5th floor..what..with no lift!! Luckily they changed our room to 3rd floor in the end and even asked their staff to help us carry up our luggage..hehe much appreciate!

Meet my lil sis and her friends for quick dinner at Yizhong Street and my sis strongly recommended us the Devil chicken cutlet (恶魔鸡排), it was devil indeed..haha! The chicken cutlet is not like the usual one we had and it was so so big and super tender and moist and crispy at the same time hahaha!! We tried some other street food as well like cheese potato and the 棺材板, lol I dunno what is it called in english, it's something like stuffed toast XD Went to Fengjia Night Market afterwards and it was so packed with people, I didn't take much pictures there because i was too busy browsing here and there, the shops all closed around 1am so ya we only went back to our airbnb after midnight..lol!

Summary of Day 1:
Taoyuan Airport > High Speed Railway Station > Taichung Station > Airbnb > Yizhong Street > Fengjia Night Market

Ok, that's all for our Day 1 in Taiwan! Stay tune for more updates! Meanwhile, please watch my vlog above for our day 1 & 2 in Taiwan! *Please watch in HD!!* I can't wait to share our day 2 itinerary especially the super cute shaved ice we had but then again..i haven finish editing the photos XDD 

To Be Continued..