We spend two nights in Taichung but because during the day we are off exploring the mountains we do not really have time to explore the city except in the evening. Our hotel room is a very basic but functional Western looking one with breakfast included as a bonus.
Both evenings we are there we explore the mall beneath the hotel. One night it is more forced as we cannot find the way from parking to the hotel without exploring the whole mall and then finding the hidden entrance. The second time it is by design we want to find some clothes to replace some that have worn out but we do not find anything interesting.
The first night we explore the downtown area trying to find a place to eat. Unfortunately all of them are closed, it is quite surprising that nothing is open even though it is only eight PM.
But not to worry we have a plan, there are two famous ice cream places that also sell food so we plan to visit them and get some food and ice cream as dessert.
The first one is Miyahara, a former eye clinic now transformed into a nice ice cream shop. It is quite a nice place but when we try to buy food we find out they stopped already at six PM, no idea why. Now they serve only ice cream, weird. So we decide to try the second place as it is quite nearby, maybe we get lucky.
The next and last stop is Fourth Credit Union a former bank and now also an ice cream shop like Miyahara. And like Miyahara they stopped serving food at 6PM. I guess no one eats dinner in Taichung?
So we do the only thing we can as we are quite hungry, we buy some of the famous icecream. It is really good but we are still hungry so we need something additional for dinner.
So we decide to go with a 7 Eleven at least they are open 24 hours and do have some hot food. We find one right next to the hotel and buy some stuff, guess we now have our dinner.
It is nothing fancy but quite good especially if you are hungry. And this way we can enjoy the great views of the nearby park from our hotel room for which we actually paid extra.
The second night we are smarter, we know that there is no hope of finding food outside so we go to a restaurant in the mall. It is an unusual, for us, setup we have to select on a menu and then bring it ourselves to the kitchen which is on a different floor.
But the food is really really good, the fried tofu especially is probably the best we had in Taiwan. We really enjoy our dinner at the restaurant to celebrate all the special birds we have seen in Daxueshan during the day. And then the next day it is time leave further south towards Kenting the next stop of our exploration of Taiwan.
But first we eat breakfast. The previous day we left early and weren’t able to eat the actual breakfast but at least the hotel gave us some fruit as an early breakfast. Today we have access to the full breakfast buffet with a nice selection of Western and Eastern breakfast foods.
We explore all of them and of course are attracted more by the typical Taiwanese dishes. That is because they are hot dishes but also we enjoy the pickled vegetables, they are quite good and taste interesting.
Another interesting feature is that you get a card for the table that you keep on one side while you eat and then turn around when finished so they know when you are done. Quite a good idea really. And then it is on we have a long drive ahead of us to Southern Taiwan.
