Summer Grad Trip 2013- Taiwan: TaiChung Day 1

TaiChung 3 days itineray: Day 1

It's never easy to plan a travel itineray and now it's even harder to pen it down together with my experience and thoughts. Hope you find this post useful when you're planning yours :)

Upon arrival, you may choose to purchase a prepaid mobile plan which costs NT500 and comes with 100mins free talk time and unlimited 3G for 10 days.

Basically when you reach Taoyuan airport, head towards the bus terminal and purchase tickets to your preferred destination. The first stop of our trip would be Taichung and the one-way ticket there costs around NT150. 

Traveling around Taichung is not easy since there's no MRT available and bus routes are super hard to understand especially if you're not familiar with road names or you can't read Chinese. But the best thing about getting around in Taichung is that it's almost free if you have a Easy Card (悠遊卡). Bus rides are free for the first 8km, so if you can plan your route beforehand, you can definitely save a lot on transportation costs.

If you don't mind walking, that's another alternative for saving transportation costs as most places within walking distance. That is, if you don't mind wasting the time and energy walking from one place to another. 

First stop, Taichung National Arts Museum. Entrance is free I suppose, we didn't get to go in cause it closes at 5pm and it was already past 5 when we got there. There's a outdoor area which is available 24 hours so you might still want to drop by after closing hours. Beware of insects like caterpillars and mosquitoes and bring along your insect repellents. You won't want those insect bites to spoil your trip. 

Then we took a bus from the National Arts Museum to FengJia Night Market. Can't really remember which bus to take, all I know is you will need to transfer somewhere. That was the highlight of our day- some decent food finally. Here's the 大肠包小肠, one of the most recommended stall by locals and tourists. There shouldn't be any difficulty spotting the stall cause it's just at the entrance and the queue is always forming non-stop. 

Another one of the recommended stalls we found online, bbq scallops. NT45  for 1 stick (4pcs) and you get to choose your own seasoning/flavors. Tastes not bad but the service is slow, like really slow. So I suggest you get some other snacks while waiting for your food.

The last snack for the day, bbq prawns! I think it costs about NT60 for 10pcs and again you get to choose your favourite seasoning. We chose the most popular one, which is the pepper and salt flavor. The prawn can be eaten together with the shell so you can save time trying to de-shell it, and that's what makes it unique.

And so this is Feng Jia Night Market, one of my favourite ones throughout the entire trip.