I like how they have a random holiday (ok not exactly random, it's their tomb sweeping day) on a Tuesday and then their Mondays will be a make-up holiday too. Don't really get how it works but hey, no complaints since I get an extra day off and we don't have makeup classes. 

A month ago, my housemates and I discussed and decided to explore Taichung, Nantou and Hualien during this long weekends. I usually have psychology class on Friday morning but that week my prof happened to have a meeting elsewhere so he cancelled class. You see the thing about NCCU is that the profs seem to be very occupied with meetings overseas so it is not surprising that they will cancel class (note: cancel, not postpone) and inform you only a week beforehand. So anyway, Yanin and I were glad we didn't have to attend class in the morning, which meant we could leave earlier for Taichung. 

Friday morning we woke up at 8.30am to wash our quilt cover, pillow case, and bedsheets. Then some of us headed out for a gym session before we came back to wash up and leave for the bus station. We overlooked that many people will be leaving Taipei as well, which resulted in us queuing for quite a while before we managed to get on the bus to Taichung. Somehow it never fails to rain on the first day of our trip, happened to us when we were in Yilan too. 

Taichung
We check-in into the accomodation and went to the highly raved Fengjia night market where we had the best oreo churro and papaya milk ever.



Next morning we were out of our airbnb by 9 a.m. cos that is when our driver was supposed to pick us up. Our first stop was the rainbow village. It is a painted house done by a 93 years old veteran. Really impressive. I can't remember the number of times I took off my jacket because when we were in the shades, it was cooling but it gets really hot when we were out in the sun. It was a quick 30-40 minutes stop before we headed to our next attraction.






Carton king consists of exhibits which are made up of cartons and its really creative! You can find all the carton miniature of the world landmarks–effiel tower, big ben, leaning tower of pisa, the colosseum, and holland windmill there too. We stayed slightly longer because they had interactive activities such as requiring us to collect the stamps at certain stopover. At the end of the activity, we exchanged for a gift and we were each allow to purchase stuffs using the NTD100 coupon. We pooled the coupons and got ourselves a chocolate soufflé.




Next stop was the lavender cottage where I sent a postcard with the lavender scent back home. I wonder if they received it already but anw I wanted to send one to my friend but y'know 很想给你写封信 却只是想想而已. I bought a lavender sachet pouch for my family using the coupon that was incorporated in the entrance ticket. Love how they made the entrance fee so worth it. Went up to the wishing bell area to write down our wishes on paper leaves, chant the wishes thrice before ringing the bell then hang them on wooden branches. Anyway, we wanted to try the lavender ice-cream but went the wrong path and because we limited ourselves to an hour for the cottage, we had no choice but to forgo the ice-cream plan. (We had them later on at Nantou)







Up next was 中社花市 which was pretty good too. They have a variety of flowers, although can't be compared to Singapore's flower dome, but there are mountains as backdrop which makes it extra beautiful. Not to the mention the entrance fee was cheaper as compared to Singapore.



We ended the day with a scenic sunset at gaomei wetland. It was exceptionally windy, I honestly thought I was going to fly off because when I was walking, I could feel that my body was sort of lifted up (dramatic as usual). I spent half the time questioning my decision of not bringing the windbreaker along for this trip. I must have been too complacent and lazy to pack it in my backpack. Btw look at the eggyolk in the sky, worth the cold definitely.

All the attractions were generally far apart from one another so we were tight on time. I am glad that we managed to visit the places that we planned to...yet I felt that we didn't get to truly soak ourselves in the surroundings as we were speeding through things. This is also something that I struggle with internally. Whether we should visit more attractions as possible or slow down and take in more.

I have since come to terms with the fact that this is not supposed to be a chill holiday, we were supposed to conquer as many attractions as possible. Certain holidays can be chill and relaxing but this is just not one of them.

Up next will be on Nantou, which I personally love the most...