A Day in Taichung ~ Of Museums and History

As we are strolling in Taichung, one thing is obvious. There are many cultural places here, be it art or natural history. I guess this is really great for those that like to learn about the place and its culture. Right behind Kuo's Cheesecake has now been converted into an open air art gallery show casing alot of abstract and modern art by local artists.

There are also some souvenir shops but no photos allowed. So just take my word for it. I tried searching on Google map what this place is called but seems its not updated in Google yet. But the place is really a very relaxing place and I guess it was still work in progress in March 2015 but Im sure its completed now. So checkout the photos. Basically we walked all the way to the National Museum of Natural Science and that was where we took a bus to head to the night market.

The display of hanging pails

 They have all these colorful tires for people to sit I believe

A Day in Taichung ~ Walking along Yingcai Road

So after lunch, we took bus 290 to the town center of Taichung. Now can you believe that buses are free if you have a MRT card. Yes thats right, in Taichung its called the BRT and its a free bus service. Another thumbs up for them ya.

So we walk along Yingcai Road as this place is like a long central park in the city. Its surrounded by greenery which is really refreshing. As it was a weekend, we stumbled upon something like a flea market, though it was obvious it was proper business people running the individual stalls. The place was located next to Hotel One Taichung. There are alot of huge artpieces along the way and I spotted this huge metal Rhino! I think it can be a character in the Transformers movie with the all metal construction and mean look! As I was carrying my baby boy, I didnt stop and took another shop of the front face of the rhino.

A Day in Taichung - Rainbow Village

As mentioned, Rainbow Village was the first stop we made after alighting from the High Speed Rail (HSR). It was just a 10 minutes taxi ride and I suspect if really wanted can walk also la but probably takes like an hour or so. Taxi here is all by meter so no worries of being charged excessively.

The village was previously earmarked for redevelopment, meaning the place would have been torn down. In an effort to save it, one of the villagers, an old man supposedly now in his 90's, started drawing on the walls and making the place an overnight attraction. I heard its now a protected site, but not 100% sure about this. Anyway, its colored in a hue of rainbow colors thus the name. 

Hope you will enjoy the pictures. These were taken with my Samsung Note 2 and looks great on a sunny day :)

The path leading to the village. Really colorful paintings on all surface, even the pavement is colored

 There were many tourists, and Im sure there were a bunch from HK, Singapore and Malaysia. Can listen to the way they were talking. Haha

A Day in Taichung, Taiwan - Overview

Well, irony is that we only got to visit Taichung when we were about to return to Malaysia. But anyway, from Taipei, its really very very easy to get there. Just head to the Taipei main train station, where you can get there via MRT buy a ticket from the vending machine for the ticket and off you go. It only takes about 45 mins to reach Taichung and there is also 2 options, one is the express train which do not stop at all stations while the other takes slightly longer. There is alot of trains and I believe during peak hours its up to every 10-15minutes.

So off we went and the first place we visited, which is like a 10 minutes taxi ride from the Taichung HSR station is Rainbow Village. Imagine my disappointment when I realize that my cameras SD card was not in the camera!! I screamed in pain. 

Well, thus handphone pictures had to do but thankfully it was a sunny day and all pictures turned out alright.

Our rough itinary for the day as below

1. Rainbow Village

2. Lunch

3. Taichung Central - Various places

4. Feng Chia Night Market

Below is a preview as there are too many photos to put into 1 page so I will split them up. Hope you like them

Rainbow Village

Lunch