Taichung (finally).

After so long, I finally got down to some determination to write my Taichung travelogue. Sorry for the delay – I think procrastination is becoming my forte. Anyway here goes…

17 May 2008 (Day 1)

My sis and I flew out to Taipei (or Taoyuan as the airport is there) in the morning on a China Airlines flight. The thing I like about travelling on China Airlines to Taiwan is that there are a lot of flights each day, so it’s really easy to plan for the trip. After a short flight of about 75 minutes, I’m at the Taoyuan airport, and what followed was a 2-hour bus ride to Taichung.

The bus took us to the Taichung Railway Station, and I think it looks similar to the Yilan Railway Station, which I went last August:

After settling down in the hotel (which was a 5-star hotel, may I add), my sis and I headed out to the Yizhong Commercial Circle to do some walk walk see see, and most importantly, head to the Mayday Concert!

The concert was really wonderful – it was my first ever outdoor concert! It was hot, I was perspiring all over, but it didn’t matter! To be there to see Mayday perform for 4 hours was just brilliant. To cap it all off, my seat was actually pretty near the rear stage, so I actually had a very good view of the band when they were at the rear stage:

The concert ended at about 12 midnight, and I didn’t collapse to my bed in the hotel until about 2 in the morning. W00t!

18 May 2008 (Day 2)

My sister’s tactic of coming to Taichung on the day of the concert worked wonders – we had one full day in Taichung! We first went to the Science Museum where we saw a lot of near-real-life animal models, which included dinosaurs, orang utans, and:

Bear!

For those who have me listed on their Facebook accounts you would probably see a picture of me taken with this bear. I bet you can spot the difference between me and the bear. For those who don’t have me on your Facebook, you can see the picture here. If you can’t spot the difference, drop me an email to the usual address.

After the Science Museum, we took a walk to the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. We thought walking there wouldn’t take long because the Taichung map I got from the Railway Station the previous day seemed to suggest so. The walk was actually OK – it took about 20 minutes – but it wasn’t really fun because it was very hot! The Museum was actually a huge place, but sadly there really wasn’t a lot of things to see. The DigiArk was quite an interesting concept too, so I think this Art Museum is still worth visiting.

We headed back towards the Yizhong Commercial Circle later because we wanted to see Wanwan, the famous Taiwanese blogger, at her autograph session. I was dumb enough to have forgotten to bring her book to Taiwan with me so that I could get it autographed (I realised after I returned to Hong Kong that I actually lent it to a colleague anyway), but seeing the queue at the bookstore, both me and my sis agreed that we wouldn’t want to waste a day just to get her autograph. So we satisfied ourselves by taking pictures of her, which was good enough IMO. And just to round off the visit to the bookstore, I bought a couple of books as well.

For those interested in Wanwan’s blog which have registered more than 10 million hits, it is at http://www.wretch.cc/blog/cwanny.

One of the landmarks of Taichung is Chungyu Department Store. Besides being a high-end shopping centre, one of its classics is its Coca-Cola decoration in some parts of the store:

Try guessing where were these decor found? If you know the answer, drop me a mail to the usual address again! A little prize awaits… hahaha…

Then we went to Stock 20, which was a godown-turned-museum by the Taichung Railway Station. They turned what previously was a godown into a museum and art centre. When we were there, an exhibition related to train travel was going on and you could see the exhibits all have something to do with travelling. It was quite interesting, and for those who want to find out more about this depot, you can visit their website at http://www.stock20.com.tw.

Some small-scale concerts are sometimes held here.

19 May 2008 (Day 3)

We didn’t really do anything special, except going around to buy the souvenirs and gifts (and whatever everyone back in office asked me to buy). After we were done, we took the High Speed Rail to Taoyuan, and then a bus to the airport. It turned out that it was actually a good choice, because it took less than the 2 hour plus that otherwise would be needed to travel on the bus, with no fear of traffic congestion!

So there you have it, my 3-day walkabout in Taichung. My overall impression of Taichung is that it’s not really a big place (most places seem to be within walkable distance from one another), and it’s definitely not as cosmopolitan as Taipei (which isn’t that cosmopolitan to start with actually, if you compare it to Hong Kong). And I also noticed that the Taichung people are really a nice lot – like what one of my blog visitors last year who lives in Taichung said – That said, I probably still prefer Taipei to Taichung, primarily because the transport system is much better in Taipei. But then again, given the size of Taichung, it probably won’t be economical to build a subway system of any sorts. And I guess if I have been given more time to live in Taichung, I probably would have got the public system figured out.

My next destination would most likely be either Taipei (with some fellow CityU Postgrads, probably in June but still highly tentative) or Nanjing (for work). I promise I’ll take more pictures and update my travelogue earlier the next time.

Back to work tomorrow. Not fun – it seems to be always the case after a weekend, or a long weekend, or a holiday. Guess it’s time to find new inspiration somewhere.