Taichung - friends & Family

old city center & train station

disney light show & new years even

around town in taichung

sightseeing with friend/photographer/guide

niece’s Visit

Old City Center & Train Station

Childhood friend, fantastic food... Good day!

Strawberry shaved ice -- Ice shaved, mixed with strawberries, then re-frozen. Very unique! It's a workout to break it apart.

Urinals or sinks? What do you think?

Restaurant upstairs, shop downstairs, great decoration throughout.

Tea bags inside the record sleeves of old classic songs. Very nostalgic.

Lots of traditional Taiwanese snacks here. Great for tourists and locals alike.

Icecream shop downstairs, with an eye chart as a nod to its "eye clinic" root.

Crazy long line on the sidewalk for this ice cream shop.

The new modern train station is built right next to the decommissioned old train station.

The old train station is decommissioned but preserved for tourists.

Do we look like the pyramid behind us?

A hot air balloon that's not going anywhere.

There's gotta be a better way to go down the stairs.

The old “Eye Clinic” building is now transformed into a retro-chic building with stores at the bottom and a restaurant upstairs. Ivan’s elementary school friend introduced us to this cool place. The train station a block away has Instagram-worthy decorations during the winter holidays, making it a fun quick stop.

disney light show & new years eve

We met up with Ivan’s childhood friend; M and A had fun playing with her kids. We visited Chong-Hsing University, the Disney light show, and went to a restaurant/bar with aborigine Taiwanese themed food and live band. Good times!

around town in taichung

We went shopping for toothpaste, ended up with a cart full of Taiwanese snacks.

Gogoro - The Tesla of scooters. When the batteries are depleted, you plop two in to recharge, pick up two full batteries, and off you go. An 8-second process.

First time seeing this... You drive into this little pod, then the doors close and the car is moved to a random spot. An "automated random put-away" system for cars!

The girls finally got to see Frozen 2. They loved it!

The food court in the malls are quite fancy.

Ivan loves his teppanyaki, we had it many times while in Taiwan.

Mopeds/scooters everywhere, making it challenging to drive.

Ding Tai Fung, possibly the best xiao long bao in the world! This one is a Michelin Star restaurant. The efficiency is amazing!

More teppanyaki!

Hot pot meal to celebrate Christmas. Yum!

The "Jade Market", great for buying souvenirs.

Tao Ban Wu, Ivan's mom's favorite restaurant in Taichung. The set meal is fantastic!

For women's safety -- Reserved parking for women, close to the stores, during night time. Brilliant!

No need for parking tickets or tokens, the camera picks up your license plate number when you enter and leave. You can pay at machine by license plate number. Brilliant!

Helmets are required for mopeds/scooters, so plenty of choices for kids helmets.

This sports goods store is great, they encourage customers to play with their on-display merchandise.

Hold it... hold it...

Jump-rope is a good exercise.

This is the street Ivan grew up on!

This is the house Ivan grew up in. So many memories...

While we didn’t do any real sightseeing in Taichung, we certainly took advantage of things the city has to offer, especially when it comes to food! We noticed lots of interesting ideas and technologies that would really benefit the U.S. if we implement them here.

sightseeing with friend/photographer/guide

Traditional Taiwanese breakfast is the best! Ivan's niece and her boyfriend joined us.

Alyssa did well in her calligraphy attempt.

Ivan's middle school moved to a place that was formerly a prison. What??!

This neighborhood is full of paintings of popular comics.

Lunch at a day market eatery before the young couple heads down south.

We moved on to a remote village, built to give tourists a taste of traditional Taiwanese village of the old days.

We went into this shop to get shaved ice. They still use the traditional machine not seen often today. The owner was happy to let Maren behind the counter while he snapped pictures with us.

Interesting way to wait for the bus.

Is that Totoro?

Ivan’s dear childhood friend is also a photographer and local guide. Ivan’s niece and her boyfriend from the U.S. came for a brief visit, we took them to nice restaurants and had the photographer/guide show us around. He was nice enough to take us to many cool places as only a local guide could.

Voyagers tips: If you want his service, let me know, he’s a great guy and is open for business. He can take you to the coolest places and take pictures for you with your camera as well as his professional gears.