Looking for tips to do in Taipei? Check out our previous blog post for Taipei.
How to get to Taichung from Taipei
There are several ways to get into Taichung from Taipei. Taichung is about 180km south of Taipei.
By bus
By taxi/limousine
By high speed rail (THSR)
By train (TRA)
I'm not going to talk much about the bus and taxi options in this blog because of two reasons:
Busing would be the cheapest option but also the slowest which could increase your travel time by another 1-2 hours depending on traffic and you would have only saved NTD$100 (CAD$5). We thought that saving an extra 1-2 hours by taking the train is worth the additional cost.
As for taxis, we didn't even bother doing more research on it since it would cost us 10x the price and it would be slower than taking the high-speed rail.
Our options were narrowed down between taking the high-speed rail (THSR) and the normal train (TRA).
Time: The THSR would take about 1-1.5 hours while the TRA can take between 2-3 hours depending if it’s the local or express train.
Cost: The cost of the THSR is twice the price as the TRA and we would only have saved 1-1.5 hours.
Accessibility: Another factor we considered was that the train stop for the high-speed train is outside the center of Taichung city and it would take another 1 hour to train into the city. After taking this into consideration, the total travel time wouldn’t be as far off as if we had taken the TRA.
Taking the TRA was an easy process. We went to the Taipei Main Station to get on the TRA (this will also be the same station if you take the THSR). Taipei main had signs where to go to TRA so it was easy to follow. Prior to getting into the station, we looked at the hours of the train using Googlemaps so when we got to the station we know which time to book our tickets for. We only paid for one way since we wouldn’t really save any money by booking a round trip and since we didn’t know what time we’d come back to Taipei, this seems to be the better option.
WHAT DID WE DO IN TAICHUNG?
Every time we visit a country, Cam and I will each choose one thing that we have to do while we are there… and of course Taiwan being the country who first invented bubble tea (at least as what they claim and what the public believes), I had to choose something bubble tea related.
As I was doing my research, I found out that you can make your own bubble tea in Taiwan and so I thought if we were going to make our own bubble tea why not go to the first ever store that made it?! So off to Taichung we go.
1. Visit the Miyahara gift shop
From our walk from the Taichung central station to Chun Sui Tang (Original Store), we did a quick stopover at this gift shop. We found the prices in here quite expensive but the decorations inside made it worth checking out. It's free to go into the store and they also have an ice cream shop.
Miyahara Ice Cream | Address: No. 20號, Zhongshan Road, Central District, Taichung City, 400
Hours: 10:00 AM - 10:00 PM everyday
2. Make your own bubble tea at the first ever store that claims to have invented bubble tea
The store that claims to be the first one to invented bubble tea is called Chun Shui Tang (original store). We travelled 3 hours with the hopes that we can make our own bubble tea. Unfortunately, the day we went they were not offering that service and all the reason we got was that “closed – no person working”. We tried to ask if any one else can help us but they said “no” which was hard to believe because you’d think that any of their employees can help you how to make bubble tea but we didn’t bother asking them more questions as it was already a struggle for them trying to explain to us why we cannot make our own bubble tea. So that was a bit of a bummer, but they were still nice to sit us in the area where you make your own bubble tea. The walls outlined the history of bubble tea and its making, so it wasn’t too bad after all – at least we got to learn a little something about their bubble tea.
Chun Shui Tang (original store) | Address: No. 30號, Siwei Street, West District, Taichung City, 403
Hours:
8:00 AM - 10:00 PM everyday
3. Walk down the Anime Street Art
After our breakfast in Chun Shui Tang, we walked to the ‘Painted Animation Lane’ – it’s about a 10 minute walk (750 meters). It wasn’t that big – we probably spent 10 minutes walking around the area. What I liked about it is how it reminded me of my childhood – I remember watching most of these anime shows growing up where most of them air in the television after school. I still vividly remember those times when traffic was so bad on the way home, I will try to get off the jeepney close enough that I could start running home so I don’t miss Flame of Recca or Slamdunk.
Painted Animation Lane | Address: Lane 100, Linsen Road, West District, Taichung City, 403
Open 24 hours
4. Admire some artwork at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine arts (note that you can also make your own bubble tea at this location)
We were still eager to make our own bubble tea, so we tried the other store that also lets you do it. We walked to the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts from the Anime Street Art (15-minute walk or 1.2km). Unfortunately, there was an event happening at the restaurant when we got there so their workshop section is closed for the public. Similar to the other restaurant, there were not a lot of people who could speak English so all they said was “closed” and wrote something down in a piece of paper in Chinese characters when we asked where else can we go to make our own bubble tea. They were nice enough to help us in some way despite the language barrier. They gave us the piece of paper and said sorry. That was better than nothing so we went into the museum with the hopes that someone would speak good English and could translate it for us. We found out later on that what’s written on the piece of paper is the name of their own restaurant “Chun Shui Tang” – that didn’t really give us the information we need so at that point we just gave up and decided that we’ll come back here some other time and make our own bubble tea. So I advise to give them a call beforehand, especially if you’re travelling all the way from Taipei, to make sure that their store would actually let you make your own bubble tea. You can reach out to your hostel/hotel’s reception and they can typically make this call for you.
National Taiwan Museum of Fine arts | Address: No. 2號, Section 1, Wuquan West Road, West District, Taichung City, 403
Hours:
Monday Closed
Tuesday - Friday 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Saturday & Sunday 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM
5. Frolic around and have a photoshoot at the Zhongshe Flower Market
Keep in mind that this is 24km outside of Taichung center. It would take about 45 minutes by car or 1.5 hours by train. Since we were bummed that we couldn’t make our own bubble tea and already walked for a total of 2 hours in +30C weather, we had it and took an UBER* to the flower market from the National Museum. It only cost us around NTD$717 (CAD$30). The ride only took 30 minutes and we were very comfortable.
When we got to the park, the entrance fee is NTD$120 for adults and NTD$60 for children between 3-12 years old and elderly for ages over 65. The garden was not that big but it was still pretty spectacular. There is also free public wifi available.
*Don't have uber? Get a $5 discount when you use this link to register: https://www.uber.com/invite/lorrainep88
Back to Central Taichung
The issue that we ran into is when we were trying to get back into the city, we couldn’t find any uber drivers who would drive so far from the center to pick us up. There were a lot of taxis outside the garden but they were charging us too much and we also found them to be aggressive so we decided not to take a taxi. So we decided to take a bus from the flower market to the train station and take the train into the city.
I remember the bus ride being more attuned with Taiwan - it definitely felt very local since the bus took us to a more rural areas than what you see in the central city of Taichung or Taipei. We found that there are not a lot of people who speak English well there - one of the taxi drivers who was trying to convince us to go with him was speaking to us using google translate on his phone. He will speak into his phone and google will translate what he said into English words but as well all know google translate does not really work 100% of the time so our conversation was still difficult. In the end, I had to be aggressive as he was and be firm with my no and just walk away. One lesson that I learned in my travels is the best way to reject hagglers is to actually say no instead of ignoring them. I found that ignoring them cannot only be disrespectful but it also does not work 100% of the time. So when you say no make sure you are firm with it and walk away.
Zhongshe Flower Market | Address: No. 333號, Section 5, Sanfeng Road, Houli District, Taichung City, 421
Hours:
Weekdays 8:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Weekends 8:00 AM - 9:00 PM
6. Have a tea ceremony in a garden hidden within the city - Wu Wei Tsao Tang Tea House
We took the bus and the metro from the Zhongzhe Flower Market. It wasn't too difficult to navigate our way since there was wifi in the flower market so before we left, we planned our route to the tea house.
Keep in mind that there might be better transit options for you depending on when you are travelling and what days during the week as some of the buses we took might not be running on some days. I advise to use googlemaps to determine the best route for your travels. You can get free wifi at the Flower Market and the train station.
The tea house
I was amazed with the location of this tea house - it was very serene and traditional. The courtyard complex takes you back to the Ming Dynasty era. Their server speaks english and will show you how to make/prepare your own tea. The price was also not crazy expensive, you can have a tea set and a meal for two with NTD$600-800 (CAD$25-35).
Wu Wei Tsao Tang Tea House | Address: No. 106號, Section 2, Gongyi Road, Nantun District, Taichung City, 408
Hours:
10:30 AM - 9:30 PM everyday
7. Go to Taiwan’s largest night market – Feng Chia Night Market
After we had some appetizers at the tea house, we went to Feng Chia Night market to get our dinner before heading back to Taipei. The market was quite overwhelming given that it's the largest one in Taiwan. We had the deep fried cheese balls, pearl milk tea and some grilled lamb for just NTD$100 (CAD$3).
We had a long day and already took a lot of public transportation so we decided to take an uber back to the Taichung central station and it cost us NTD$197 (CAD$8). The uber took 30 minutes while if we had taken the bus it would have been an hour and would have cost us NTD$50. We thought the extra money is worth the shorter travel time and convenience.
Feng Chia Night Market | Address: Wenhua Road, Xitun District, Taichung City, 407
Hours:
4:00 PM - 2:00 AM everyday
Let us know if you are travelling to Taichung, we'd love to help you with your travels! :)
Here's a snippet of our walk through in Taichung City:
