Pictures taken inside the campus of NTHU
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Category: Roaming around Taiwan
Chowmein, Chaomian
We all love fast food at some point of time. And when it comes to fast food, it is hard to resist the Chinese fast food. It is such a delight to tummy after all. I think that it can be found almost in any country (of course if that is not an anti-China country). Chinese fried noodles are famous as Chowmein in many parts of world. Being in India, these can be found in many parts with taste varying from dull to spicy. Till the time I came to Taiwan, I knew them as Chowmein thinking that there is no certain meaning behind this word.
Once in my last semester, when I was studying Chinese and was discussing something with my friend, then I came to know that the modified word Chowmein is actually derived from Chaomian. In Chinese, Chao means fried and Mian stands for noodles. So, it actually is Chaomian in Chinese and while it is exported to somewhere else, it becomes Chowmein. I wonder why? Not only the name, I have found that the style of cooking these fried noodles is different. Indian Chowmein usually is very spicy while on the other hand, Taiwanese Chaomian is a bit sober in taste. It could be different in other countries where noodles are included in restaurant’s menus.
Are you a Chinese fast food lover? Do you like Chowmein or Chaomian? Let us know in the comments 🙂
Day Three: Yehliu Geopark
(Read it on MultiEMOtions Android App)
This is the last day of our trip. After the morning hike, as we reached hostel, luckily other people were planning to go to Yehliu too and we caught up along with them. We left the hostel around 10.30 AM and grabbed some breakfast and took the bus to go to Keelung. Here is the detailed journey:
After we were finished with Yehliu, we thought that we could spare some time to go to Tamsui (Danshu), but the bus took around 1.5 hours to get there and it was already quite dark. So, rightaway we took MRT from Tamsui to Taipei and got back to Hsinchu.
Day Three: Tai’An Waterfall
This is the next morning. Luckily I got enough rest at night and unluckily, I overslept. I wanted to wake up before 6 to go to this nearby mild hiking place where we have read a signboard of a waterfall. Anyway, we woke up around 6 .30 and quickly prepared ourselves to go to this little destination instead of wasting a pretty morning on bed.
For me as a tiny traveller, I prefer to do something specially in the morning time. This place was near to the hostel we were staying in. It has a pretty scenic view with a peace and solitude offering environment in the early morning.
Night Two: Keelung Night Market
We are now in a bus from Heping Island and heading towards Keelung Night Market (Cheelung Ye Shi would be the name in Chinese if you wanna ask somebody). I was pretty hungry by now as I had not had anything in my lunch because I was roaming and wandering all over. Night market is a perfect place to feed yourself 😀
This market is not as big as you would expect but it has a lot of foods and things for you. I have always loved that many different variety of food, activities are maintained in Taiwanese night markets no matter it is big or small. This night market ends our tiring day and we headed back to our hostel. Because I had planned to go to a nearby waterfall for mild hiking and to see the beautiful morning.
Day Two: Heping Island (Heping Dao)
(Read it on MultiEMOtions Android App)
We left Yilan around 1PM to get into the train from Yilan to Qidu where our next hostel was located. I would really love to mention about this hostel first of all. Amy and Ann (staff) were extremely friendly and resourceful. They told about every nearby destination and what should be taken care of during our visit. We reached Qidu around 2.30PM and Ann was there to pick us. After taking a little rest, we set on our next destination, Heping Island. It is not really an island if you are thinking that way, it is connected with Keelung city by a bridge of around 100m in length. Since we had Chinese people with us, we did not bother to ask people about the bus numbers. We take bus 402 from Qidu to Keelung and bus 101 from Keelung to Heping Dao (Chinese name of Heping Island) as I remember. From the bus stop, after walking for some distance, we were at the main gate of Heping Dao. Students can have discounted tickets of 40NTD while the regular ticket costs 60NTD.
As the clock hit 6PM, we were already outside this park. I guess this is the thing about Taiwan. It has some places extremely close to nature where you can find some time for yourself in solitude. I would highly recommend this place to go at afternoon till the evening. I am pretty sure that these pictures could convince you more than my words.
Guess what could be our next stop if it is almost night now? NIGHT MARKET! Let’s go.
Day Two: Su’ao Cold Water Spring
Taiwan has a lot of hot springs but when it comes to cold springs, there are only two of them in this WORLD. Correct me if I am wrong. One of them is in Europe while the other one is on the little island. Since I was in Yilan county, by no chance I could have missed this opportunity to go to such a unique place. Next morning, we headed to Su’ao (Yes the name is Su’ao cold spring) from Yilan train station and the journey was merely half an hour.
To sum it all, it is a decent place to go and have some time to relax in really cold water. Private pool is good enough for two people at a time while public pools are cleaner than you can think of. It could be an ideal family place as it maintains a sweet serenity inside. We spent around two and a half hour in this place till we were all fully satisfied and headed on to eat something. This was my journey of two days and one night in Yilan: Fulong, Luodong and Su’ao. My next stop from Yilan was Keelung about which I am gonna post in a while.
Night One: Luodong Night Market
Taiwan is very famous for it’s night markets. Last time, when I was in Taipei, I got to see many of the night markets of Taipei. Luodong on the other hand is famous for it’s night market in Yilan county. This market was BIG and we did not had enough time to go through it all because out hostel needed us to come back before 11PM. It takes around just 15 minutes from Yilan to reach Luodong by train however check the train schedule before buying tickets.
We spend around one or one and half an hour inside this market and bring a pleasant end to a pleasant day. If you do like night markets, I recommend this market highly if you are around this area. I still wanna go there and keep eating till I become a pig LOL.
Day one: Fulong Beach
Taiwan usually don’t have a lot of holidays, but I was lucky enough this time to get it such that I had a really long weekend, from Friday to Monday and I want to take the best out of it. I had planned for Kenting at the beginning but couldn’t make it because of already rushed crowd who had booked all the cheap hotels in which a poor guy like me likes to stay LOL.
This is when I thought about the other part of Taiwan which I hadn’t explored yet: North-East. With an extremely mesmerizing ocean view, NE Taiwan has a lot of places to go for. We started our journey by taking a bus to Taipei from Hsinchu and moved on to Yilan from Taipei.
We had booked a YHA hostel in Yilan but because the check in time was 3PM and we were too impatient to just wait there, we cut our three bags in one and headed on to Fulong. Yilan to Fulong journey takes about 40 minutes, depending on the type of train you are travelling on. It is while this journey, you can get a glimpse of ocean as the railway line is laid down along the coast.
After reaching here, we went to their visitor centre to check about the tourist spots there while knowing that we are here for the waters and the beach. It is quite a small town but naturally very beautiful. All the places can be covered by foot however the weather could play a critical part if you want to go here as most of the places are directly under the sun and sky.
We spent around four or five decent hours around the waters and headed back to the train station to eat some noodles and got a ticket for the next destination,
P.S. Fulong beach has a sculpture festival which is usually around May-July. So I can suggest this as the best time to be here, but if you want some time in solitude, any time across the year is good to be close to nature. Come with your swim wears and beach stuff to make it the best.
Lavender Cottage, Neiwan
(Read it on MultiEMOtions Android App)
Neiwan is a little peaceful place in Hsinchu county. Not a lot of tourists, you can peacefully spend your entire day in this small town. If you are in Hsinchu and you’ve worked hard enough to exhaust yourself in weekdays, I will suggest you to take a trip to Neiwan on weekend. Let me start my trip.
Just at the entrance, we got inside a gift shop which was selling a lot of things, mostly related to lavender such as scents, soaps etc. To summarize, many things in purple.
And then without wasting much time, we spent around 2 hours inside the cottage which was pretty relaxing, beautiful and silent. Pictures will take on from now.
I think it is very convenient to go to this place as the transport bus is not so rare. It is a nice place to have a good time with friends and family in the not so known side of Hsinchu. I hope this post will convince you to go to this place atleast once while you are in Taiwan. In case you have further questions, I would be glad to answer.
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