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.

My breakfast

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.

Window on China theme park
Gigantic bugs

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.

Miniature train that moved!
Building with an army parade
Airport
Panoramic of the little buildings
Model of a interesting builiding
Forbidden city in tiny size
Fountain in the WOC

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.

Train to the other section
Egyptian theme section

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.

European building
Moscow famous church
Outdoor them parkl
NASA space shuttle
Inca pyramids
Indoor theme park
Performers up close!

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.

Ferris Wheel restaurant
Our lunch

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.

Store from Window of 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).

Leofoo village entrance
Ticket

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.

Camels
Flamingo
Monkey running
Another type of monkey
Inside the safari bus
Tigers roaming about
Lion lying around in compound

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.

Baaing goat on a elevated rock

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.

Meerkat on the rock as a lookout

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.

Hippos with fountains
Carousel
Shooting carnival games

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.

Disappointing fountain show

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.

Busy central area where the temple was
Hsinchu City God Temple
Within the temlple compound

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.

At Weng Yao Ji restaurant
Kilns for roasting chicken

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.

Cabbage
Fried prawns
Fish fillet
Eggs
Soup
Roast chicken

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.

50 lan
Huge boba milk tea

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.

Taichung 2019 Day 1 – Arrival into Taiwan, drive to Taichung and Feng Chia Night Market

It’s the first time I was going on a trip that I didn’t plan at all, it was because this was an extended family trip that was planned by others and I am just a participant. Felt weird as it wasn’t as busy for me to worry about getting from destination to destination, just needed to take care of K.

It was still the June school holidays and leaving home at 8am had us arrive at the airport at around 840am, enough time for us to check in after meeting up with the in laws. The traveling group was a much smaller 7 people group, comparing to our Korea trip we had earlier in the year.

Had our breakfast at one of the many eateries in the departure of T3 and soon we were boarding the China Airlines flight on the way to Taiwan, no drama except some seat changes for the boys to sit together.

I was thoroughly disappointed with the entertainment system on the plane, with a tiny screen and not much choices to watch (only one Captain Marvel with a couple of other older shows). There were no games for K, who was looking forward to it since his last flght, so he survived on watching Lego 2 and 1 episode of Paw Patrol and countless Dora on repeat. Food was ok though and K had quite a mouthful of the meal.

Tiny screen

We landed after a relatively smooth flight and a last min pee emergency where K had to pee into a potable pee bag as there was a line queuing for the only 4 toilets available in the economy section.

Taoyuan airport

We waited just outside the tunnel for our stroller but it was brought to the belt instead, wasted our time waiting there but we were only informed after everyone left.

The immigrations was having a long queue and we took 40mins to snake thru it all before getting our luggage from the belt. We met our driver for the entire trip who brought us to the 7 seater vehicle, across the road from where the coaches usually depart to the carpark where our ride was parked.

After loading up, we then spent the next 2.5hrs on the road to Taichung. K was convinced to take a nap on the way there and he did. I fell asleep myself until we were in Taichung, and we decided to go to Feng Chia night market first before checking in.

Feng Chia Night Market not so crowded when early

The driver let us alight at the McDonald’s and we visited it’s toilet before going down the street to eat the street food. We had been to this night market long time back, and we saw the familiar entrance to the Feng Chia University before turning into the street full of food stores. Bought the big intestine wrap small intestine first, which we had the same some years ago. And then bought a BBQ chicken before entering a stall with sitting area selling soup based kuay tiao like yong tau hu. There were not many people now as it was weekday and still early.

Da Chang Bao Xiao Chang store
Da Chang Bao Xiao Chang
Chicken rolls on skewers
Chicken skewers
Food store
Yong Dao Hu
Dragonball paradise

The food took a while to come and the MIL was getting impatient. It did finally arrive and K had no problem slurping up the food. It was quite nice especially the Tau Hu with the meat in the middle. We were also eating chicken on the skewer which was quite juicy.

After this, we went to one of the many claw machine store to try our luck. Per game was only NT10, which was pretty cheap compared to Singapore. After just a couple of tries, mommy managed to score a Charmander plushie! However, after trying out further, we couldn’t manage another one.

One of the claw machines stores that were a common sight
The prize

Walking further down the street, we got more street food like red tea from 50 Lan (the originator of the popular milk tea store Koi in Sg), onion pancake and so on. There was also stinky tofu which K responded by blocking his nose with his fingers. We only managed to walk from one street to another before going back to McDonald’s to use the toilet and wait for our vehicle. This was just a small part of the entire Feng Chia night market.

50 Lan
Frothy red tea
Onion pie store
Onion pie eaten before photo

The journey to the Splendor hotel was a short 10mins drive. We arrived at the drop off and the staff of the luxurious hotel were first to the vehicle helping with the door and the mountain of luggage. We bade the driver farewell after aligning on the next day meet up timing and proceeded to check in on the 12th floor.

Grand looking hotel hall

We had 3 rooms on the same floor and ours came with a huge bed but only a restricted view of the pool. The night was spent mostly in the huge bathtub and some tv. K snacked on some Taiwanese Doraemon pastry that he used to have while he was here two years ago and then after a packet of banana milk and books, we were off to bed.

Our room
Inside the toilet
Bathtub
Separate shower
Separate toilet
Limited pool view