After breakie in the hotel, we decided to go out for a walk before our hosts pick us up. Was planning to get some gifts for parents of our hosts who we will be visiting later.
It may sound funny that we are buying Taichung gifts for locals but it will be quite rude to go empty handed isn't it? Furthermore, Taichung is famous for its Sun cake(太阳饼） and there is a street near us where a whole row of shops selling the Sun cake.
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| Morning selfie in Taichung |
The shops around the hotel are yet to open for business yet so we walk further down nearer to Taichung station hoping to find the street. And I spotted a 7-11 on the way and went into it to exchange for my Rilakumar bear cutleries.
Tried asking the sales for direction to the Sun cake street but seems like she is not local and didn't know where the street is. We went outside to try our luck asking others who look like local and got lucky with a young chap who recommend us to go to a famous ice cream shop-宫原眼科 who also sells quite a lot of local delicacies (伴手礼）.
We were excited of course as 姗姗姐 had recommend this shop for their ice cream to us last night but I forgotten all about it until this guy recommend us this shop.
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| Fanciful display |
Turns out the shop is just a few doors away from the 7-11 we went earlier. The local guy helped us to search for the location on our phone and we were able to find it with ease in the heavy rain. Since it was raining heavily, we decided to forgo eating the famous ice cream here and went into shop of the local gifts.
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| Tourists shopping |
The interior of 宫原眼科 is beautifully decorated. Main selling hall has big glass display counters to display chocolates for sale. Prices are not cheap though. We moved on to another hall which is selling pineapple tarts (凤梨酥），Sun cakes (太阳饼） and a lot of other cakes that we have not seen before.
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| Display of the gift boxes |
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| Stocks display designed like a library |
We managed to catch hold of a sales who is helpful enough to introduce the different kind of goodies to us. She took out quite a lot of samples for us to try. The thing about Taiwan shops they are never stringy to let customers try their samples and will never give you attitude for not buying or never buy enough. But I was told, that is if we are not from their neighbouring countries.
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| Different packing of pineapple tarts |
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| More display boxes |
We end up buying quite a lot from here after tasting the various goodies. Service here is pretty efficient too. You order what you want from the sales assistance and they would key into their system and you make payment with them 1st.
After payment, you can proceed to a collection counter where the sales will confirm again your purchases before bagging it them up. Since it was raining heavily on the day we were there, the sales helped to put a cover over our purchases to avoid them getting wet.
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| Collection point |
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| Selfie at the counter |
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| Ribbons for the packages |
We brought too much things from here and there is no way that we are able to walk back to the hotel under the heavy rain. So we check with the staff and was told that Taichung Train station is just around the turn and there will be more taxis there. True enough, we are able to get a cab easily back to our hotel.
Address: 宫原眼科
台中市中区中山路20号 (No.20 Zhongshan Rd, Central Dist, Taichung City)
Opening hours: 10:00-22:00
Shop website
If coming from Taichung train station, take the underpass right in front of the station front, will come face to face with a 7-11 when you exit the underpass on the other side.
Walk left from the 7-11 and 宫原眼科 is just a few doors away.
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| Map of the shop |
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