Taichung 臺中

Taichung is in central Taiwan. It is known for its delicious cuisine, night markets, rich cultural heritage and scenic beauty.

From Taipei to Taichung

I took the high speed rail (HSR) from Taipei Main Station to HSR Taichung Station and the travel time was only about 47 minutes.

There are 12 HSR stations in Taiwan, from Nangang in the north, Taipei, Banqiao, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Miaoli, Taichung, Changhua, Yunlin, Chiayi, Tainan and Zuoying in the south.

You can buy tickets for the HSR from their website, their T-EXpress mobile application or partnering convenience stores (7-ELEVEN, FamilyMart, Hi-Life and OK mart). Personally, I used their website to buy tickets before my trip and their mobile application when I was in Taiwan. Both were very friendly.

Before your ride, you will have to go to the ticket counter at the station to collect your tickets or use the 'Retrieve' tab on the mobile application to get your tickets. I collected one of my tickets at the station for keepsake.

If your ticket is a physical ticket, just slot it into the fare gate when you enter and remember to retrieve it as you would need it to exit when you reach your destination. When you exit, you can collect the ticket and keep as a souvenir. If your ticket is from the mobile application, go to 'My Ticket' tab, click on the ticket and a QR code will appear for you to scan at the fare gate.

iseasywith.me Travel Hack

Plan your itinerary early as the Taiwan HSR offers a limited number of adult one-way, early-bird discounted tickets for reserved seats in standard cars, from the day the tickets are announced for sale until 5 days prior to the boarding date. Discounts are 35%, 20% or 10% off the original prices.
Do take note that the last 5 digits of your ID number would be printed on the ticket and only the registered passenger will be permitted to use it.
To view if discounted tickets are available, select 'Early Bird' from the 'Discount' drop-down menu when you are buying your tickets. You will see which ones are at 35%, 20% or 10% discount, if any.

My HSR tickets were with discounts and for some of my trips, I did minor adjustments to my itinerary to get the discounted tickets since the difference in the timings did not cause huge impacts. For example, from the photo above, train 203 and 1103 were going to Zuoying and about 16 minutes apart. However, train 1103 gave more early-bird discount thus I bought ticket for that train.

iseasywith.me Travel Tip

The HSR trains are punctual to the minute.
As the station that you are taking from could be an intermediate station, the train would stop only for a minute or 2 for passengers to alight and board, before it leaves for the next station.
Some trains sound warnings monents before they close their doors while others do not, and the doors just close.
If you are late and the train doors close before your eyes, you can just wave goodbye to your train.
I would recommend to be at the platform where your train car would stop, about 15 minutes before your scheduled train time.
Before you go through the fare gate, check which train car you belong to, so that you do not have to walk extra distance when you are at the platform. The gates are typically divided into cars 1 to 6 on one side and 7 to 12 on the other.
Once you are at the platform, you can refer to the overhanging signs or markings on the floor for the train car position.

iseasywith.me Travel Hack

IF in the case where you are late for your train or you are happily taking selfies with the train and your ticket, and the doors close behind you, do a quick check on the train schedule if there is another heading for the same destination as there could be another leaving from the opposite platform or from another.
Just hop on to the next available train heading to your destination but board the non-reserved cars (using the same method to identify the train cars) and use the same ticket to exit at your destination.
Using the same example above, if you have reserved a seat on train 203 but missed it due to whatever reasons, you could take a non-reserved seat on train 1103.

Arriving at Taichung

When you take the HSR, it would arrive at HSR Taichung station, which is different from Taichung Station. The stations are about 8 km apart. If you need to go to Taichung Station, just cross over to the Taiwan Railways (TRA) Xinwuri Station to take a train for 4 stops to Taichung Station.

As for me, as what I did in Taipei, I deposited my backpack in a locker and continued with my adventure.

If you are taking a public bus to Qingjing Farm or Sun Moon Lake, the bus station is located just a level down from the HSR Taichung Station and there is a panel of lockers located at the bus waiting area.

In and Around Taichung

I visited the following places while in Taichung:

• Qingjing Farm 清境農場
• Rainbow Village 彩虹眷村
• Feng Chia Night Market 逢甲夜市
• Sun Moon Lake 日月潭
• 921 Earthquake Museum 九二一地震教育園區
• Zhonghua Road Night Market 中華街觀光夜市

Qingjing Farm 清境農場

If you are heading to Qingjing Farm from HSR Taichung Station like me, the earliest Nan Tou bus is scheduled to arrive at 0850 hours from Taichung Station. After which, the next buses are scheduled to arrive at 0935 hours, 1015 hours and 1135 hours. The journey is about 1 hour 10 minutes.

I asked the counter staff what time I should start queueing for the bus as I wanted to take the first one and was told to do so about 30 minutes before its scheduled departure. The bus had a capacity of about 35 seated passengers.

If you have not taken your breakfast, there was a 7-Eleven, McDonald's and cafes on the ground floor to fill your tummy before your bus ride.

When I went back to the bus station at about 0820 hours, the queue was already quite long. When I was in the queue, a bus assistant went down the queue and asked about the group size and destination. I was worried that I might not be able to board the bus as my estimated position in the queue was more than 35.

Fortunately, the bus assistant came along again and mentioned that there were 2 seats left. As the group in front of me was bigger than 2, a passenger behind me and myself spontaneously replied that we were single passengers and we were ushered to the bus. We sat next to each other at the last row.

As I had to attend a work meeting on the way (yes, working while on my adventure!), I did not pay attention to the route. When the bus arrived, I did not see a farm around thus I asked the lone passenger who went up the bus with me earlier, she told me that we were at Sun Moon Lake! 😮

I had to activate my contingency plan immediately. Fortunately, I planned to visit Sun Moon Lake the next day thus I just had to switch my schedule around.

Thus, check, double-check, confirm, double-confirm if the bus you are going to board will send you to the right place.

(Please scroll down to Sun Moon Lake below for my adventure there.)

iseasywith.me Travel Hack

If you are like me taking the bus to Qingjing Farm from HSR Taichung Station, buy the admission ticket for Qingjing Farm from the counter opposite the escalator when you come down from the HSR Station. I paid NT$150 for the ticket and saw the price on their website was NT$200.

If you are feeling lazy about taking the public bus to and from the farm, you can always book a day trip with Klook.

I was back at the bus station the next morning to catch my bus to Qingjing Farm. I understood from the bus assistant that the queue to Qingjing Farm and Sun Moon Lake was the same queue thus that could have caused the error the day before.

That time, I double, triple-checked, double, triple-confirmed with the bus assistant that I was going to Qingjing Farm and finally, I arrived at the farm.

If you can read Chinese or can recognise the characters, you can identify the destinations of the buses displayed on the LED screen on the bus. Qingjing Farm is 清境農場 while Sun Moon Lake is 日月潭.

I was quite skeptical about going to Qingjing Farm during my research as the activities there were quite limited e.g. small swiss garden, grassland, horse riding show, sheep shearing show (only during holidays). However, I also read that it was a place to see cherry blossoms as well. I have not seen them before and since it was the season, I decided to include the farm into my itinerary since the travel time was not too long.

It was drizzling when I arrived.

Upon entering the farm at the castle-looking building, I was greeted with a long row of cherry blossom trees on the left. Yoohoo! Trip worth it!

As I strolled down the pavement lined with the cherry blossoms trees and enjoyed the arch formed by the trees, I saw a huge grassland on the left where quite a number of lazed around. Some of the hardworking ones came up to the edge of the pavement and greeted visitors and hoped to get some snacks in return. There were also a few friendly ones roaming around the area after the entrance and welcomed visitors to take wefies with them, for a snack.

After I walked beyond the row of cherry blossoms trees, heavy fog greeted me and I could not see what was beyond as it was all white. I stayed for a little while, walked around and took short clips of the sheep. As the fog did not improve, I decided to proceed to my next destination, the Rainbow Village.

As I had some spare time due to the shortened time at the farm, I decided to pop by my accommodation to check in and drop my backpack as I reckoned that I would be quite late after my visit to the night market and I did not want to risk sleeping on the street.

I took a bus back to HSR Taichung Station, retrieved my backpack and took a bus to my accommodation. After I checked in, I took a bus back to the station, had a quick lunch and waited for the bus to Rainbow Village.

Rainbow Village 彩虹眷村

I took bus 74 and arrived at the bus stop for the Rainbow Village in about 15 minutes.

As the village was behind a row of shophouses opposite the bus stop, I crossed the road and walked leftwards around the row of shophouses and saw the colourful village across the road.

My research showed that visitors could visit the pavements and units in the village but when I was there, the doors were closed and visitors were only able to explore the outside.

There were colourful murals drawn all over- from the walls of the fence to the walls of the houses to the floor.

The place was quite small and was made even smaller when only the external area was open.

After the Rainbow Village, I was headed to one of Taichung's famous night markets, the Feng Chia Night Market, for foodhunting.

Getting there

I took bus service 99 from HSR Taichung Station and the journey took about 20 minutes.

Feng Chia Night Market 逢甲夜市

I took bus 74 from opposite the Rainbow Village and changed to 79 to Feng Jia Night Market.

If you are in Taichung, it is like when you are in Taipei where you need to visit the Shilin Night Market but it is Feng Jia Night Market here.

As commonly seen in other night markets, there were fashion stores, game stores and most importantly, food and drink stalls.

Sun Moon Lake 日月潭

Yes, my adventure at Sun Moon Lake is here.

Sun Moon Lake is the largest body of water in Taiwan.

Legend had it that the lake got its name from its unique shape which resembled the sun and the moon with the sun on the eastern side and moon on the western. I have been unable to see that. If you can, do share with me. 😂

There were various packages for different visitors' preferences and they included various combinations like bus ride from Taichung, boat rides, cable car rides, bus rides around the lake, bicycle rental, bus ride to Xiangshan, ticket to Formosan Aboriginal Cultural Village, shopping discount coupon, etc.

To do most/all the above activities, I reckoned it would take maybe a day or 2 and given my time constraint, I selected the most basic itinerary, which was the boat rides.

When I was there, the boat tickets were not sold at the ticket sales counter at Shuishe Mall and I was directed to take a walk down the road and turn right before Starbucks/Hotel Del Lago and head down to the boat ticketing booth at the Shuishe Pier.

You can also buy your boat ticket conveniently from Klook and it is cheaper than buying from the boat ticketing booth.

The 'hop-on-hop-off' boat ticket cost NT$300 and included stops at Xuanguang and Ita Thao piers i.e. passengers could disembark at Xuanguang pier and explore the area then board the boat to Ita Thao Pier, explore the area and finally board the boat again and return to Shuishe Pier.

From Xuanguang Pier, you can climb a flight of steps to visit the Xuanguang Temple and to enjoy a picturesque view of the lake, and have a herbal tea egg.

There were more activities at Ita Thao Pier as there were streets of shops selling various products like teas and definitely food. The cable car station was also there. There were paddle boats for rental as well.

After exploring Ita Thao Pier area, it was time to head back to Shuishe Pier and continue with my adventure to a solemn location.

After arrival at Shuishe Pier, I walked back to Shuishe Mall to catch the bus back to HSR Taichung Station.

If you think you do not want the hassle of taking the public buses to and from Sun Moon Lake, you can always get the one-day tour from Klook, which includes hotel pick-up, lunch, insurance, and Sun Moon Lake cruise.

921 Earthquake Museum 九二一地震教育園區

The museum was set up to conserve the devastating aftermath of the Jiji earthquake to the Guangfu Junior High School which struck central Taiwan on September 21, 1999. The moment magnitude was 7.6 and the Richter magnitude was 7.3.

The various exhibits included the collapsed classroom building, crumpled running track and a living room which was made to shake to simulate an earthquake.

Zhonghua Road Night Market 中華街觀光夜市

Zhonghua Road Night Market was a last minute decision to visit as I wanted to visit Taichung Second Market initially but by the time I arrived, I realised that they have closed for the day thus I searched for a nearby location to visit and the night market popped up on my screen and there I went for my yummy dinner.

Unlike those busier night markets with fashion and game stalls, the night market was just a stretch of street food stalls lining both sides of the road.

Food and Beverage

Feng Chia Night Market 逢甲夜市

Taichung Station

Zhonghua Road Night Market 中華街觀光夜市

Departing Taichung

After my adventure in Taichung, it was time to pack and move on to the next leg.... Chiayi.

For more information on Taichung, you can always search on Klook.