台湾春天之旅 2013- Back to Taichung and onwards to Feng Jia Night Market(逢甲夜市）

 We were just in time to catch 1 of the last ferry back to our starting point. Was thinking to utilise 1 of the coupons to catch a bus ride up 向山.

Interesting cafe name

 But things were not meant to be, by the time we reached the bus stop which is opp the visitors' centre, we realised the bus has departed. The next bus is ard an hr away. By the time, skies would be dark and also we need to consider the 2hrs bus ride back to Taichung.

Because of time constraint, we gave 向山 a miss much to our disappointment.

Bye bye 向山, hope to visit u the next time

 The bus departing for Taichung is also an hr away, therefore we decided to stick ard and shop at the rows of shop nearby. As usual, my 1st stop is the convenience store to buy some happy food. Brought a whole load of chips for to last our 2 hrs ride back. Haha

We then stumbled across a shop selling Assam black tea and brought 1 big cup to try. Warned Mr Love not to buy any more tea leaves back as our cabinets are still full of the tea leaves we previously brought from China. Haha.

The waiting area for the trip back is right outside the visitors' centre and we stood 1 in the line haha. The next bus is at 6pm and there is a timetable that you can collect from the VC to plan your time here.

After attacking all the snacks, we fell aslp, and in no time, we reached Taichung. Got down that the railway station cuz we wanted to transfer to another bus to our next destination Feng Jia Night Market （逢甲夜市）.

Ticketing area of Taichung station

View frm Taichung Station

According to my research, we can take a bus from the bus stop right in front of Taichung station to Feng Jia Night Market, number 33 or 35 goes there.

Various station fares

Being the Kiasu Singaporean, I still decided to ask ard while waiting, incase my research is wrong. Hehe.. I thank mummy for my good command in Chinese and thus have no problem in communication in Taiwan. In fact, I can even understand 台语 cuz of its similarity to hokkien plus me watching Taiwanese 乡土剧 in their original language.

It is confirmed that there are these 2 buses going to Feng Jia Night Market from here and we proceed to wait patiently for our bus to arrive.

Bus timetable

There is no MRT/LRT in Taichung and thus I think buses are depended heavily upon. I cannot speak for other bus stop, but the stop that we are at has a super integrated bus tracking system. Showing you not only the timing of arrival of bus but even how many stops away is is from us. On top of it, unlike the verison back in SG, it updates itself frequently.

It was accurate as far as I can see while it updates itself. We were impressed by the system.

Better than those who always claim that they provide world class transport system to their people by keep increasing the fares but their systems failed big time and fell flat on their face. I dun even bother to check the timing in SG when I wait for the bus as I knew it is bullshitting me most of the time.

Tracking system

Bus 35 came and we boarded it. Its was very crowded and luckily, we found 2 seats though separated. If you using their ez link card, the fare will be waived for the 1st 8km. But we paid cash as the card we r holding is the Taipei version. I didnt go find out the Taichung equivalent as we did not intend to use much of the bus transport here.

Crowded bus to Feng Jia

The bus ride turns out to be pretty long, 45min to be exact from Taichung train station. By the time we alight from the bus, our legs turned jelly from the hunger..Its was 8pm when we reached here and the night is just starting.

The location where we alight is in a midst of a row of shops, it is when the driver announce den we realised we had reached. I read smwhere that the crowd here during wkend is crazy and thus, I deliberately chose to come here on a wkday. It is still crowded, but manageable.

1st Look of 逢甲夜市

Feng Jia Night market is known as 1 of if not biggest night market of Taiwan. Its is situated right in front of Feng Jia University and hence the name. The shops here sells pretty trendy fashion and accessories, partly due to the fact that there is a huge presence of the undergrads.

Being the hungry us, of cuz we went for the food section 1st. There is a lane full of food stalls right beside the row of shops we alighted from. Everything looks good here. Shan Shan Jie told us that many of the famous street food we heard about Taiwan originated from here. Hubs was so excited to be here..

Prawn cakes..

1st up, we ordered 1 portion of prawn cakes (pardon my translation) (虾饼) which is deep fried and comes along with a sweet & sour thai sauce. We ate it hot and it super crispy. The Thai sauce makes it more appetizing and we finished it up in no time.

Crispy fried prawn cakes

A few stalls away, a big banner caught our attention. Its Mr Love's favourite chickie chop!! The version sold here is charcoal grilled, which is different from the conventional deep fried version we had in Taipei. There is a pretty long queue and we joined in while deciding what to order.

The big ass banner that attracts us

Queuing up

We ordered 1 portion to try out 1st. The tactic we practice in Taiwan night market is to order 1 portion of what we saw n try. If we like it well enuff and had space for another 1, we will come back again after going thru the whole night market, trying out the things we are interested in. This way, it leaves space for other food instead of feeling bloated after the 1st 3 stalls. We are not young anymore and realised the space in our stomach got smaller as we aged. Hahah

Receipt to claim the chickie

The chickie they served here is 1st deep fried and then charcoal grilled with their special sauce. The deep frying makes the skin stay crispy even though they grilled it with the special sauce before serving.

Yummy chickies

We walked around more checking out the stalls while we ate the chickie chop. By this time, I am half full oredi. I was checking out the nail sticker stalls instead of food. Hahah

We came to a stall where they have a small shop area u can sit in n njoy your food. Ordered 1big portion of oyster & pig innards mee sua and then proceed into the sitting area to rest. hehe

Menu

Stall front

As we sat there resting and enjoying our mee sua, I realised the family beside our table is from SG too as I listened to their conversation. Haha Feels good to see fellow countrymen..Hahah

There is nothing realli memorable about the mee sua but still consider acceptable. Perhaps I still haven got use to the pig innards they added and is turned off by the smell of it in the mee sua.

The mee sua

After much eating, we got thirsty and started to look for drinks. Came across a stall selling black bean tea which offers sample. Haha..We found the taste to be refreshing and brought 1 original to share. There is quite a few flavour to choose from too.

Black bean tea

We came to near the end of the lane and decided to turn back to where we came from. Mr Love sported another fried chickie stall and decided to try another 1 before calling it for the night. We ordered 1 fried chickie and 1 fries.

Turns out that in Taiwan, their fries r mostly make of sweet potato unlike ours in SG is make from potatoes..If you didnt specify you wan the potato version, they will assume you wan the normal 1 made from sweet potatoes. And it is not everywhere they have those made from potatoes..

Ordering again

We made the mistake here by not specifying what we want and hence got the sweet potato version. I for 1 hates sweet potatoe for its sweetness. Ironic isnt it? Hating sweet potato for its sweetness. Haha I hate pumkin, yam all these for their sweetness and stickiness too. Hehh

Manning the stall

The chicken here is not bad too, we ordered the deep fried version this time though they served  grilled 1 too.

Menu

I tried 1 of the fries and decided that it is not to my liking, haha and Mr love gotta finished them all by himself. Sweet potatoes are known to be extremely filling and after eating what we brought here, we couldnt eat anthing else.

Sweet potato fries

We then went to the row of shops opposite where we alighted from to check out the things offered there. I brought some nice accessories from here after abit of haggling and decided to call it a day. We flaged a cab to take us back to our hotel which costs NTD 200.

Aftertots of visiting this night market is it is not as big as I imagine it would be. It was later then we learnted from Shan Shan Jie that the rows of shops are inclusive too and there is a certain part where we didnt explore. Perhaps, we are too tired out by the day trip to SML oredi. Nevertheless, we r glad to make a trip here and perhaps next time, we should ask Shan Shan Jie to bring us ard here if we ever comes to Taichung again. Haha