The first sight of Taichung wasn't impressive, more so after I had a short stroll around. The location of the hostel was a mess, I ended up on the right address but the place wasn't there. After getting lost for 15 - 30 minutes with my 10kg burden, I finally saw a familiar face. My friend had arrived and I managed to get into the hostel. The owner is a real beautiful Taiwanese woman, I swear the most beautiful I saw on this trip! And she carries a very unique style, I like her. She lives across the road but checking in is troublesome as she's not always at the place. There are only male and female dorms, and I had only one roommate, a Hong Kong girl who was travelling alone too.
It was great to get around Taichung with the locals. BS had arranged a steamboat dinner with his friend, and she had reserved a table and also came to pick us up from the hostel. Taiwanese are a welcoming bunch of people! The steamboat was in this lovely local restaurant that was apparently very busy... no reservation probably means you won't be able to dine there! The girls ordered so much food that I was already stuffed after the first 15 minutes!After the rest managed to clear the plates on the table (they really did, so impressed!), the girls drove us to an area of Taichung with uptown fashions. Things were definitely pricier than many places I been to, but it was a quiet and nice chill-out place. They introduced us the famous Taichung's "Sun Biscuit" (Thanks Fenny & friend), and I am so in love with it! I still can't bear to finish the 2 precious pieces in my box! Pineapple tart is another of the popular Taichung delicacies but I don't fancy them really. I tried the ones friends brought back, they were moist, sweet and a bit too heavy for my liking. I also found a cute affordable "Alice in the Wonderland" necklace in one of the petite boutiques the girls brought me to! Then we settled for a bubble tea place (which is also well-known), and only 2 of us still had some space in the tummy for the drinks. I couldn't find space in mine for even a sip!
The night ended with the girls surprising us each with boxes of sun biscuits and cheese cake. They are seriously too kind... Now we owe them a favour when they are in Singapore! We returned to the hostel. I took hours to settle in: showered, chatted with the roommate, laundry before finally knocking out... and more packing the next morning!
I forgot to mention I arrived on a Monday, the two exciting museums in Taichung are closed on Mondays. What a shame! It would be great to see them, oh well... next time! We also didn't go to the Feng Jia night market which was supposedly very good. It was rainy that evening and well we had very good dinner too. It all has to be a next time!
The journey to Cingjing the following morning wasn't the easiest but we had yummy cheesecake for a good start. We took a cab for 100NT to get to the Nantou bus station where we had to take a 1.5 hour coach to Puli and then another hour of bus up to Cingjing. The cab driver kept trying to talk us into taking a cab there which will cost 2500NT (after his discount!)... God, that is a lot of money! So glad we found our way there...
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