14th Apr 2018, Saturday
We planned to head out at 9am like the previous day. In fact, for the rest of the days we started out at that time and Xiao Xu is always early! Us, not so much. There was no breakfast provided, but I brought my own - including my bowl and spoon! Haha
 |
| Oats with lots of other stuff 😋 |
 |
| Sugarless black bean milk which I bought from Hi-life the previous night |
 |
| I helped myself to a second serving as I was hungry |
My parents went out for breakfast. Not sure what they had but around our hotel there are western and eastern cafes open for breakfast.
 |
| Street view in the day |
 |
| On the highway, headed for Nantun District of 台中 (Taichung) |
 |
| From the highway, we could see the 高鐵 (high speed rail) tracks in the distance. |
Our first stop is 彩虹眷村 (
Rainbow village) which used to be where the soldiers live when 蔣介石 (
Chiang Chieh-shih) brought them over when he retreated to Taiwan in the latter part of the 1940s. These villages were not meant to be permanent and after time, the government started demolishing them. However, one particular retired soldier which in local terms is known as 老荣民 (
lao rong min) wanted to save the village from being demolished. He, 彩虹爷爷 (
Grandpa rainbow), is 92 years old this year (although it seems that his age has been hyped up to be much older) and years ago, he and his grandson started drawing on the walls of the houses in the village. This brought media attention and saved the village from being demolished.
 |
| Instead of looking at the drawings, the first thing my mum did was to visit these stalls 😅 |
 |
| Rainbow boutique |
 |
| This was taken outside the fitting room |
 |
| Grandpa rainbow was around! So happy to be able to see him! My mum donated $ in exchange for this pic 😁 |
Prior to going there, I actually thought it wouldn't be worth seeing. Because I've seen pictures of it online posted by my friends, and I'd thought that the place is quite small and it's just a village with paintings. But I was really impressed to see that the ENTIRE village is covered with drawings/paintings and each portion of the wall seems to have a theme.
 |
| About love |
 |
| Exams |
 |
| Kids |
 |
| Don't let my other pictures fool you. There was a significant number of tourists at 9+am! |
We left rainbow village and along the roads, we saw Mazu (Empress of Heaven) devotees who were doing the annual Mazu Holy Pilgrimage which spans over nine days. Covering four counties, 60 temples, and a distance of 400 km, it is the country’s largest religious and folk activity. Apparently Xiao Xu took part in it before, but he chose to do the 2 days' walk. The ones with yellow flag at the back are those who have pledged to walk the entire journey. It sounds really tiring!
 |
| Devotees spotted |
Our next destination is the 扇形車庫 (literally
fan-shaped train garage, or
railway roundhouse) in 彰化 (
Changhua) county. There are not many of these operational railway roundhouses left in the world. It is used for servicing and storing trains.
 |
| I believe the black one is a steam train! |
 |
| Side-view of it |
 |
| We were lucky to see this train driving out! Although after awhile it went back into the garage. Not sure if they did it to entertain us tourists. 😅 |
 |
| Railway turntable. So many people at the viewing deck! |
 |
| I waited for it to get onto this railway turntable, but it never did! |
Moving on... We headed to 八卦山 (Baguashan) where there's a big Buddha statue.
 |
| We could already see the Buddha statue from the city |
 |
| Entrance |
 |
| I have no idea why they would sell Ostrich eggs at Baguashan... |
 |
| You can get a good panoramic view of 彰化市 (chuanghua city) from Baguashan! |
 |
| Big Buddha statue 🙏 Is the tree on the left dying? |
 |
| You can enter the statue! |
 |
| On the ground floor |
The stairs leading upstairs are steep and narrow. My parents stayed on the ground floor while I explored the next few floors. The floors above contained stories of the Buddha and also actual figurines to depict the story.
We exited the statue-building and wandered around the grounds.
At the back of the temple is a fish pond, but they were cleaning it. There's also a gift shop where my mum bought Taiwan souvenirs. She actually tried to ask for a discount because she wanted to buy quite a number of keychains but was rejected by the cashier. 😂
It's time to eat! So for our next destination, we headed to 鹿港老街 (Lukang old street). Xiao Xu dropped us off at the main road and told us to follow an alley which would bring us towards the old street. He asked me to bring along his portable WiFi so that I can pin our location to him once we get tired of walking. He would then drive over to the nearest main road to pick us up.
The first place we saw was a shop selling oyster omelette. My parents wanted to give it a try, so we went in. They went with the expectation that it'll be like Singapore's oyster omelette (which is just oysters, eggs and flour), but were surprised by the extra ingredients like bean sprouts.
 |
| Oyster omelette shop |
Whilst they were eating, I went to Happy Cow to search for a vegan establishment nearby.
 |
| Didn't seem too far from where we were. We didn't follow the suggested route, but instead walked through Lukang old street |
 |
| 天后宫 (heavenly queen temple). Taiwan has lots of temples! |
 |
| Some biscuit/cake thing which had an okay taste |
There were a number of vendors selling taro balls. My parents bought some after trying the free samples.
 |
| They bought the taro balls from this shop |
 |
| It comes in 3 flavours - vegetarian, meat and scallop |
 |
| Shop selling rice stuff |
 |
| Tried it and hmm.. I think I prefer my rice like rice instead of weird cake-like thing |
 |
| Uncle selling DIY maltose candy |
 |
| Look at the mouse he made! |
 |
| He asked the kid to do the finishing touches (I can't rmb if the kid was supposed to blow on it or what) |
 |
| These are the shapes available... They are all animals |
 |
| Hats made from recycled materials! |
 |
| Epic ring toss |
 |
| Down the much narrower street we went |
 |
| Along the way, we saw quite a number of shops selling 面茶 (season millet mush). I believe it is not vegan/vegetarian/halal-friendly as it's made with lard |
 |
| Wow a glass artist at work! |
 |
| I don't get why he stood on the umbrella that he's selling... Is it to show how sturdy it is? |
 |
| 'Carving' in progress |
There were some game booths along the way. From playing the game, you get points which you can exchange for food prizes (whatever food they are selling)!
 |
| Main road towards the vegan eatery |
Along the main road, we stopped at roadside fruit stalls to check out the available fruits. I found the fruits quite pricey... I wonder if they are organic? My parents kept asking about custard apples and their prices. And in the end they decided not to buy...
When we got to the address stated for the vegan eatery, to my disappointment, there was no shop there! 😑 I should have at least double checked on Google! It was almost 3 o'clock and I was quite hungry and spotted a food shop a few metres away. However, the owner told us that it's already closed and will only reopen at dinner time.
We informed Xiao Xu where we were and he picked us up to head to our next destination. He was quite surprised that we walked that far from the Lukang old street area. 😅
I was really hungry so although we had 东海国际艺术街 (
Donghai International Art Street) on our itinerary, I was more interested in going to 勤美诚品绿园道 (
Park Lane by CMP) which is a shopping mall. I'm not sure what we would have seen at Donghai International Art Street because it seems more like an area with shops from a Google search than an area with lots of art pieces for viewing.
 |
| One of the entrances into Park Lane by CMP |
I don't think I've ever been happier to see a shopping mall. Partly because I really wanted proper food (no more fried snacks!) It's still hard to find vegan food in the mall though. Decided to have pasta because all other restaurants in basement 1 have zero vegan options. Except maybe the sushi place which had one or two sushis that are vegan.
 |
| Bellini Pasta Pasta's menu |
I ate alone while my parents went up to the bookstore on Level 3 to shop to make full use of our time there.
 |
| Spaghetti with sauteed vegetables in homemade tomato sauce |
The pasta is really nice so I ordered another pasta to go for dinner!
The mall was quite boring actually because it's just a mall so after my parents were done browsing in the bookstore, we decided to tell Xiao Xu that we were done.
We didn't have time to go to 一中街夜市 (
Yizhong street night market) because of the time (Xiao Xu ends work at 7pm..). It's quite some distance from our accommodation and there's usually traffic jam. But it's okay, we didn't finish walking Fengjia night market.
It was about 6.30pm when we reached our hotel. I think because it was a bit early, so Xiao Xu decided to give us a quick tour of Fengjia night market from the car given that we walked the 'wrong' part the previous night.
My mum was really unhappy that I insisted on having my dinner first before going to Fengjia night market. It was because I didn't want to walk the night market and have my dinner after, which will probably be after 9pm (I have this rule not to eat after 9pm). So she asked me to bring my food along to eat while walking but um... eating pasta while walking is not one of my skills. She ended up complaining that if I didn't want to eat at 9pm, she didn't either, which makes no sense at all. I told her it'll just be like 10 mins of her time and it'll just mean that she eats 10 mins later at the night market, not after 9pm. So yes, I got to eat first! Nom, nom, nom 😋
 |
| Spaghetti with corn, garlic and yuzu pepper |
It was weird at first having corn with Spaghetti. But the yuzu sauce made it okay. And imagining it as an Eastern dish rather than a Western dish did the trick too. hahah
Shortly after, we headed towards Fengjia night market. This time, on the correct path. A popular mode of transport in Taiwan seems to be the small motorcycle. Thank god I don't have to drive there. What a nightmare to deal with motorcycles!
 |
| The proper entrance |
It was really crowded. My mum bought food to share with my dad and I shopped for clothes (which are comparable to Bugis street prices, but better in quality). BTW this was the only place I bought clothes from on the entire trip.
Mum decided that her strategy for the night is to join all the long queues for food. 😅
 |
| Prawn pancake |
 |
| Tell me, who would want to catch these hands????? |
 |
| Shop with the longest queue |
The above shop sells chicken cutlet. It has a horrendously long queue and thankfully my mum did not join the queue. We actually managed to finish walking most of the night market. It was drizzling by the time we were ready to go back to our hotel.
 |
| Day map |
Stay tuned for Day 3!
