Bare with me, this Taichung post will be quite extensive. But make sure you have some sort of snack before reading this post, because it is food based, so it might make you hungry, just warning you!
Basically, when people think of Taiwan, their first thought usually wanders to food of some sort...that or boba, so what else did we do in Taichung? Nothing much, pretty much just ate every second of the day. You'll never go hungry here, even on Chinese New Year's Day, the one day that everything is usually supposed to be closed.
This post will mainly just contain pictures and descriptions. The end of this post will include something that was exciting that we did in Taichung that was surprisingly not food related, so read till the end to find out.
Probably my favorite fruit ever. Sadly, it is only really in season during the winter time, and hard to find in the summer. I've seen it called a wax apple and a bell apple, so I'm not too sure what the official name of this fruit is, but it does have the consistency of an apple of some sort, but juicier, and in my opinion 10x better tasting. Another fruit that I love, but haven't had in YEARS, is starfruit, which is also in season during the winter; therefore, I tried to stuff myself with as much starfruit as I can, since I'm not too sure when the next time I will be able to go to Taiwan in the winter is.
Taiwan...the creator of this glorious drink, boba, or as some like to call it pearl milk tea or bubble tea. Chun Shui Tang claims to be the inventor of pearl milk tea (it used to go by another name), but whether they are the inventors or not, it's still my favorite boba place in Taiwan (be warned, it runs more expensive than other boba shops in Taiwan). In Taiwan, there is a difference between boba and pearls. Pearls are the middle sized ones, and boba are the larger ones. (This can only mean that the east coast made up their own version of this by calling it bubbles...even though the term bubble tea comes from the bubbles that are created in the tea from the shaking of it.)
Another "weird" but delicious drink option, papaya milk. This can be found either freshly made at the night markets, or at 7-11 and Family Marts.
Sometimes, the most famous places can only be found in the middle of nowhere, as we experienced at this popsicle stand. There were no restaurants or shops nearby, just a whole residential area, yet there was a popsicle stand that was attracting a lot of tourists (you could tell that they were not just the residents of the nearby apartments). They offered popsicle flavors such as peanuts, taro, mango, logan, and etc. However, their specialty was the soda flavored popsicle. (Chloe got the soda pop flavored one, and I got the mango one).
Desserts in Taiwan are rarely baked goods, such as cookies or cupcakes. They are usually some form of sweet soup or shaved ice of some sort. Here, we had shaved ice topped with taro and sweet potato balls (which have a chewy consistency, yi ren (which is a type of healthy grain), grass jelly, taro paste, and melted brown sugar drizzled over the whole thing. Other topping options include boba, red beans, kidney beans, pinapples, etc. This specific location's specialty is the taro and sweet potato balls.
KFC....so why is this not available in the KFC's in the US?! Probably the best egg tarts I have had...anywhere (the KFC egg tarts in Taiwan are better than the ones in China). They offer the Portuguese style egg tarts which have a flakier crust than the normal egg tarts.
All-you-can-eat Sukiyaki at Chu Shao Guo Wu Liao Li Two words: Too Full. This is concept is similar to hot pot, except the base of the pot is sukiyaki, which is pretty much just soy sauce and sugar. There are two types of meat to choose from, beef and pork, as well as a variety of veggies, ranging from 3-4 types of mushroom, green vegetables, pumpkin, and etc. The meal is set up as almost a pre-fixe, meaning that after you are seated, you can choose one appetizer, one drink, and one dessert. The main course being the all you can eat sukiyaki pot. There is an eating limit of an hour and a half and reservations are highly suggested, because of the set eating time.
Hot Pot is a very popular dish in Taiwan. The more well-known locations have a waiting time of up to 2 hours during busy dinner times. Even on a weekday at 2-3pm, there are crowds of people waiting outside of these restaurants. No one blames them, hot pot is somehow better in Taiwan than anywhere else. Maybe it's the freshness of the ingredients...that or my biased opinion, you choose.
Since this was Chloe's first time in Taiwan, we decided to hit up a night market, Feng Jia night market to be exact (It was also my first time at this night market, because I usually go to Taiwan in the summer, so it's way too hot during that time period to venture into a night market). Night markets are essential to any tourist's visit to Taiwan. It is one of the most popular aspects of tourism in Taiwan. Another famous one is Shilin Night Market in Taipei, but we did not have time to visit that one. Night markets contain stalls on stalls of clothing, accessories, and miscellaneous stuff, as well as stalls serving all types of food, ranging from the sugar glazed strawberries pictured above to pork's blood served in soup.
On the second day of Chinese New Year, it is tradition to head over to the temples to pray for the well-being for you and your family for the upcoming year. Another part of this day is to untie the knot of a zong zi (pictured above, which is almost like a Chinese version of tamale but with sticky rice inside of it). You untie the "knot" of anything bad inside of you and then you just eat it! It's all somewhat superstitious, but still tradition nonetheless.
Hand-pulled noodles from Noodles Everyday.
Snow King...offering 73 flavors of ice cream, ranging from the normal flavors such as chocolate, to some normal asian flavors such as taro or lychee, and then really weird flavors such as pig knuckle or pork floss. Unfortunately, we weren't very adventurous and ended up just trying taro, honey, and Taiwanese green tea.
So, onto the more exciting stuff!
During our time in Taiwan, my uncle works for Formosa TV (FTV) and decided that he wanted us to be on a short segment for Lihpao Land, an amusement park (fairly large in Taiwan, but to put it in perspective, it was much smaller than say Knott's Berry Farm). The segment was on the park's promotions/news ad during Chinese New Year's. He "interviewed" Chloe and I on our thoughts on the park, filmed us "screaming" on the rides, and had us hold the mic for the director, aka we were the interns for the day.
The first ride that we went on, where we were told to scream really loud, even though the ride was a kid's ride. I think we were fairly successful, aka screaming when we saw the camera, and shutting up when we weren't being filmed.
Chloe and I both said how we enjoyed the park during our "interview." She spoke English and I spoke Chinese.
Granted, we didn't even get to see this segment on TV, we did see the final production of this segment before it was sent to Taipei FTV's main office before it aired later that night. Needless to say, it was still a pretty fun experience.
Taiwan, you will be missed. See you in May!
