Hsinchu 2019 Day 5 – Window on China Theme Park, Leofoo Village and Hsinchu City God Temple

The dreadful weather continued into day 5 with the overcast clouds stubbornly dripping droplets till day broke. We were all up by 9 and pretty smoothly with the morning routine – I used in Korea seemed to work here as well.

We managed to get ready and go for breakfast on the 4th floor. There weren’t many people and the variety was limited as it was only serving continental breakfast. K was struggling with his cereal but I found the garlic spread that when applied to sliced bread and toasted, gave the perfect formula for K’s fussy tastebuds.

At 10, we all gathered on the ground floor ready to board the vehicle for our last day trip. We were going to the Window On China theme park to see miniature models of famous landmarks. It was an open air theme park so the bad weather was going to be a bummer to the visit. We paid the price of 5 full price tickets of NT499 and 3 at reduced price of NT399 for the seniors and K.

The theme park was quite well done I thought as the models were pretty realistic and there were quite a variety of buildings that I could relate too. It also garnered the interest K’s interest.

After the landmarks of Taiwan and China, we took a mini train that brought us to the other section. Here we found an indoor theme park, an outdoor one which was mostly closed and a theatre. There were also European miniature landmarks and American ones.

We saw the European ones and proceeded to look for the NASA space rocket in America before returning to the theatre for a show that had magic and comedy and the Chinese traditional art of face changing. It was interactive show as the performers came down from the stage and got close to the audience, giving the kids high fives and at times requiring “help” from the kids to do something.

After the show, we went to the restaurant serving fast food nearby to have our lunch. K had not much of a problem eating that as there were his favorite fries.

We headed for the exit after our lunch after deciding to pay Leofoo village theme park a visit, considering that there would be not much time left as it would close at 5pm and that the rain would limit the amount of outdoor activity at the park. It would have been fine too if we had chosen to stay as there were also indoor and outdoor rides at the Window on China.

The drive to the park was quick since the distance between the 2 parks was really close. I made a purchase quickly on Klook and plus entering a promo code ended up with us paying only $157 for 5 adults, 1 child and 2 seniors, less than $20 per pax. Got my tickets from the customer service office and we entered the park that wasn’t crowded (because of the weather of course).

The target visit was the animals and thus we checked out the white tigers, and the many many types of monkeys there. Later, we returned to board the safari bus ride that brought us to see bear, lions and tigers, these animals were free roaming as the bus entered their compound thus the experience felt like a safari. It was an interesting experience with the animals very close by.

K wanted to visit the birds enclosure while mommy and the rest went on to take the train. While at the enclosure, one of the staff handed K a syringe to feed the parrots and that ended up with parrots standing on both of our heads, fearless of getting close to humans when it comes to food.

We walked to the goat enclosures and saw them baaing at the visitors waiting to be fed with goat feed that could be purchased there. K wasn’t interested since he had done a lot of that at the Flying Cow Ranch. We walked to the Alcapa enclosure but couldn’t see those animals as they might have gone into the shelter.

Then at one time, the meerkats were out in full force as the staff fed them. It was easy to identify the one on guard duty as it was doing that role diligently up atop a rock. Soon mommy returned with the rest to join us and we walked out of the animal theme section to have a look at others.

Barely touched the palace section before I brought K to the America section where he vaguely remembered playing an arcade machine of firefighters and wanted to see that again. As I ran there, we found that place was closed and instead, we tried our luck at the air rifle games instead. That gave K some experience with a air rifle (not a real one) of loading the cock and shooting, though we didn’t win any prizes from that game. Mommy joined us and tried as well but also in vain.

Before leaving, we watched the last fountain show and that was pretty disappointing compared to the various fountains that we have seen in throughout our travels. The unimpressive water fountain that had some of their nozzles choked ended up with a messy and lazy kind of a water display. They would need something better than that to attract people.

We exited the park at closing time and got aboard our vehicle for a visit to another adhoc location, recommended by the guide, the Hsinchu City God Temple.

It was about a 40mins drive back to the city and we arrived into a busy place that was lined with lots of food stores. We got off to the temple walking through a doorway that seemed too obscured to know that it leads to the main temple. While in the temple, we lighted up the joss sticks and did the prayers before visiting the toilet and looking around.

K and I returned to the vehicle a short while later while mommy and the rest visited a store selling meatballs to get some local food before joining us.

Next we were off to our dinner location, a popular roast chicken store that originated from Yilan, where they would roast their chicken in dome shaped kilns, Weng Yao Ji, 甕窯雞, . We arrived at the restaurant which quite empty though, however the many Taiwanese celebrities photos on the walls convinced me that it should be quite good to garner the interest of these people.

Our food came and the main dish of the roast chicken came last since it had to take time to roost. Being a fan of roost chicken, I did find the chicken tasted better than those I am familiar with because the meat did feel juicier, even at those sections that were particularly dry. The rest of the other food was ok but the free soup tasted bad.

Before returning to the hotel, we informed the driver that we regretted not getting any bubble tea and so he made a short detour to drop us off to get our boba milk tea from 50 Lan, aka Koi in Sg. With just NT50 we got to satisfy our milk tea cravings before we went back to the hotel.

Night was the usual stuff plus some packing. There wasn’t anything planned for the next morning before flying home so we just chilled for the night.