Tai Chung and Chiufen, Taiwan

Let's turn back time and take it back to the start on Tai Chung.

We are lucky enough to have Eugene's cousin and his girlfriend, Olivia in Tai Chung. Olivia has been a superb host and I wish we could host better when she visits Singapore! 

(Anyway, Olivia showed us around Taichung in her car so we know nothing about the directions. This post is not intended to be helpful.)

Fourth Credit Union (第四信用合作社)

The facade of the building. Heck, I can't even read the name. Guess what's in store? (More)

How do you like the bank tour?

This place was once a bank but it has been restored into an ice cream parlour, although some of the accents still shows vestige of a bank from another era.

They serve great ice cream at reasonable prices. If you're feeling experimental you could do mooncakes or cheesecake for toppings, as shown above.

They are popular for pineapple tarts too, so if you fancy all dessert goody-goodies in a bowl, just take your pick!

Olivia and I

Miyahara Eye Clinic (宮原眼科)

According to Olivia, the first shop owned by the same owners is the ice cream parlor. However, business is brisk and the owners have expanded into another shop front which is known as Miyahara Eye Clinic. As the name suggested, the pastry shop has taken over a space that used to be an eye clinic. 

The following is a sight to behold. Doesn't it looks like a scene from Harry Potter?

My love for sky high ceiling knows no bounds.

Miyahara Eye Clinic carries much more pastry variety as supposed to Fourth Credit Union. In a way, they are same but diffierent. Perhaps one for chilling and ice cream, another for souvenirs?

The rest of Taichung was on the rush as we only had technically, half a day there. We proceeded to one of the cafe along the quaint private housing area, then went straight up to Feng Jia Night Market.

Having been to about 5 nights markets in the whole of Taiwan, Feng Jia beats the other night markets hands down in terms of scale and variety. We only covered 10% of the whole market due to time limitation.

It is also the place we had our first grass jelly and a carbo-overloaded noodle-in-bun which is worth every mouthful.

Oh oh. Have I forgotten about the shopping? It looks very promising and fantastic!! 

In retrospective, I am totally regretful for not allocating enough time for Feng Jia Night Market and the only thing spared from Feng Jia is probably my wallet.

I shall now present to you the night views of Chiufen:

If you want to see more of Chiufen in the day, please refer to this.

I hope you enjoyed these scraps of my Taiwan trip as much as I did for authentic Taiwanese grass jelly.

I would pull my lazy self together and do some serious Taiwanese masks reviews as well as the other bits and pieces of my trip in time to come.


Till then,
Mic

Cingjing Farm, Taiwan

If you're looking for alternative minsu instead of Starry Minsu or Misty Villa, you have came to the right place.

One of the better homestays we have had from our previous trip is Euro Country Villa (歐鄉美邸) in Cingjing, and henceforth, I am going to do a walk-through of the short 2 day 1 night we spent in the area.

It all began here.

Our lunch before we hitting the road again.

Albeit the car ride from Taipei was not comfortable, it is a blessing to be surrounded by cool air and to be able to wake up to a great view.

See through glass panes in the bathroom for letting light in.

Our balcony:

It was around half past 2 when we checked in. We dropped our bags almost immediately and headed over to Cingjing Farm.

Our stamp of proof for Cingjing Farm - it doesn't matter how you stamp, at the end of the day it'd be a combination of rain, skin and smudge mess.

If not for the entrance, one would have thought they have walked into a moss garden. It was raining shortly before and the pavement remained slippery.

Umbrellas from the courtesy of our homestay. Thankfully we had one to ourselves if not we would have been drenched during the horse show.

Sheep shearing shows are only available on weekends so we catch the horse show instead. The performers are Mongolians (if I am not wrong) and they would perform dangerous moves while riding on the horse back.

Our ration from convenience stores:

The "Ah Q" noodles are sweet  and not to our liking whereas we find ourselves wanting more of the other brand which is savory with a tint of spiciness.

Big boy's ootd for a night trek.

The rain has been ongoing for most of our free time thus there wasn't much scenery to speak of. When night falls, we move about to get to know our surroundings.

The villa is surrounded by thick fog and the cute shed beside the villa calls for a photo opportunity.

I couldn't decide which is better.

 We had to walk out to the road to reach a Starbucks and some other shops and cafes in the vicinity.

It was foggy and visibility was poor but the walk is manageable. We reached Starbucks pretty quickly and the walk is actually quite thrilling.

Does this reminds you of the scenes in Troublesome Night (阴阳路)?

Fear not, just keep walking and you will be sipping Starbucks frappucino in no time.

The day I had zilch makeup on because we left Taipei early in the morning.

It started to pour again as we stayed sheltered in Starbucks and almost had the entire place to ourselves. Apart from Starbucks, they have a tiny MOS Burger, a few souvenir shops and a few other cafes, and one with a singing duo. The place offered the right amount of seclusion and coziness, more than what I could asked for in a rainy holiday.

Pork cutlet rice, egg and soup for dinner.

We decided to fully utilize the otherwise purpose-defeating tripod we brought for the sunrise. We relinquished the sunrise tour after seeing so much rain the day before. (Sunrise tours are pointless if it rains heavily the day before.)

A group shot with our driver:

Alrighty! This marks the end of our trip to Cingjing. Time to scrimp for another vacation. Goodbye.