台中：天马牧场、宫原眼科

The next 1.5 days was spent in Taichung, we didn't book our train tickets in advance but luckily for us there were still seats available. If you want, you could also book tickets online at this site: http://railway.hinet.net/net_eng.htm 

This site would also be useful for you to check the timings of the trains to your desired destination, so that you do not show up at the ticket counter realizing that the next train is a few hours away: http://www.railway.gov.tw/en/

We chose to take the High Speed Rail to Taichung, which was faster but more expensive than taking the rail.

 Bought some food for breakfast from the convenience store.

 Arrived at the Taichung High Speed Rail station, and walked to the Xin Wu Ri (新乌日) station which was literally just beside it, to take our train to the Taichung Railway Station. According to one of the conversations which we had with one of the locals, only the Taipei and Kaohsiung stations have their High Speed Rail and Railway located at the same place, so for other stations such as Taichung, you might have to make some transfers, so be careful when you book your hotel and take note of which kind of train you'll be taking!

 Our hotel was located just behind the Taichung Railway Station, which was also another very conveniently located hotel.

 We stayed at the CityInn Hotel Plus Taichung Station Branch . I really liked this hotel because of its decor and the sleek interior of the rooms! After checking in, we made our way to our first stop: 天馬牧場 to see some alpacas. Due to my erroneous research, we ended up walking a very long (and wrong) way to get to the place. I followed the instructions to get to its old premises and assumed its new premises would be nearby, but I was so wrong...We walked for 2+ hours aimlessly, until a very kind gentleman who saw that we were stranded asked us if we needed help. Turns out he was the 理事长 of that area and invited us to visit again next time, as they would be developing that area for some farm-concept tourism destination. Was very touched that he agreed to send us to the entrance of the farm, because after calling the farm, we found out that if we had continued walking, we would have walked 2-3km to just reach the entrance (after that we would still have to climb a 'hill' to reach the place where the alpacas were roaming)

Anyway, here are the directions to the farm, courtesy of the CityInn Taichung Station Facebook page:
From the Taichung Railway Station, take the Coastal Line towards Da Jia station. From the Da Jia station, take bus 212 and get off at Sheng Nong Hui Mu Chang. The bus only departs from the station thrice a day at 10:10am, 12:20pm and 4:40pm. When you reach there, you will have to pay an entrance fee, and proceed to climb a hill (or if you don't really want to do too much walking you could just take a taxi haha) to get to the alpaca area.

 The Feng Yuan bus interchange which we erroneously went to

 Ventured into the forest following the signs, and just didn't see anything which looked like a farm.

 Reached this area where I really really hoped the farm would be, but the more we walked the more I realized that perhaps the farm was not very nearby.

 The climb up to the alpaca roaming area.

 Finally saw the alpacas!

 You can actually stay here but I don't think there are any people staying here...

 A satisfying bowl of bee hoon after the longest walk of my life. Thankfully, my father did not get angry with me for searching for the wrong directions, and thankfully he was clear-minded (more clear-minded than me) to decide to call the farm and ask how far away we were haha. Thank you for walking such a long way with me just to find the farm!

 Where we ate the beehoon, and where they have a variety of local snacks for sale.

 Before entering the alpaca area, a woman will be selling some alpaca feed. It's quite cheap so you can just buy more so that you can interact with the alpacas more :) It was quite scary at first because you don't know if the alpacas will bite your palm when you feed them, but they'll just use their lips to consume the food on your palm, just that the hot air they breathe onto your palm might be a little shocking lol.

 Such a cute face!

 They shaved a mickey head on the alpaca haha

 Liked the brown one more though

 After walking around the alpaca area, you can walk around the...small animals area since it's also free and since you already paid to get into the farm.

 White peacock!

 You can even try out how it feels like to sit on an excavator.

 Prairie dog..Always felt that my rabbits look like prairie dogs when I can't see their ears.

 Very adorable wallaby but in a very small tank

 What is a trip to the alpaca farm without alpacassos? (http://item.rakuten.co.jp/nui-zakka/c/0000000128/ ) although these might not be the real thing, they looked quite similar and were so cheap compared to the real ones in Singapore...so I bought two, one for me and one for my brother haha.

 The crude term which they use to call the alpacas in Chinese, because it sounds like you're scolding a vulgar word.

 More empty BBQ areas (really don't think anyone comes here to BBQ)

 Beautiful flowers on the way down.

 Temple with sofas

 Stumbled into a rather affluent area on our way to Da Jia station.

 Taking a bus back to Feng Yuan. I cannot describe how happy I was to be able to go back to Feng Yuan, a familiar place, after walking aimlessly for so long.

 Wordplay on 卢广仲's song 早安晨之美. (the 对阿对阿 song). I was very entertained by the very interesting shop names and advertisements in Taiwan which used a lot of word play!

 DBS in Taichung

 Satisfied by the many different kinds of beverages available in the convenience stores. One of my hobbies when we go to new places would be to visit their convenience stores or super markets, because I like to see how different the products there are from what we have at home, and see if there are new flavours of products we already have!

 The view from our hotel room. Liked the mountains a lot.

 Very nicely decorated hotel room, even had a ukulele at the side!

 High-tech switches for the various lights

 A rather popular chain in Taiwan, which sells sushi very cheaply! Main outlet in Singapore is at Citylink

 Ate at their food court (which is known as a 美食广场 and not 食阁 as we call them in Singapore)

 A rather value-for-money meal!

 A very long escalator which took up my whole camera screen

 A whole row of bubble tea shops outside the mall

 Suddenly saw that 鲜芋仙 (Xian Yu Xian) had an outlet near our hotel, and did not hesitate to ask my father if we could eat there, because my friend had told me that this was her favourite dessert chain in Taiwan!

 Did not regret it, because the dessert was really delicious and they had really generous portions!

 MODE mall, the mall which we visited. It was very near our hotel and had a big Carrefour there

 Hotel breakfast which had a wide variety of food for people to choose from.

 Amazed/amused by the soap dispensers in the room..lol

宫原眼科
After having breakfast, we proceeded to find our way to this ice cream shop which I had read about online and seemed like a very nice place because of the many ice cream flavours (tea-flavoured ice cream, how could I resist!) that they had. Finally found it but also found many cameras stationed at the front of the shop lol.

 The reporter explained that this ice cream shop was so popular on weekends that the queues would stretch out to the streets and cause traffic problems, so they wanted to interview anyone who had visited this shop previously (unluckily for them, both my father and I and the other pair of locals were all first-time visitors!)

 Can see why they were so popular. On top of nice food, they also had a very nicely decorated interior.

 If you want to try their ice-cream, it is located at the first floor (the upper floor is for a cafe I think). After buying your ice cream you can walk around the nicely decorated shop to admire the decorations haha. Look at the many tea flavoured ice creams they had! On top of tea-flavoured ones, they had so many different kinds of chocolate ice cream as you can see from the 1st column, and also fruit ice-cream (2nd column)

 If you choose 2 scoops of ice cream, you will get 3 complimentary toppings. They were very generous with their toppings, as you can see below. They gave people an entire piece of pineapple cake (one of Taiwan's most famous souvenirs)

 My two scoops of tea ice cream (Earl Grey and 闪亮的日子 which had lavender in it). Chose cheese cake, almond cookies and almond meringue for toppings. Very generous right?

 While we were walking out, the reporters started rolling the cameras (maybe I appeared on Taichung news that night hahaha) and I also started taking photos of them.

 My father's ice cream, guava and lychee. Very nice too!

 As you can see, even the packaging is so intricate and beautiful (that means the price is very beautiful too)
so we just spent the time walking around ooh-ing and ahh-ing.

 Very run-down building opposite the ice cream shop.

 Taiwanese can buy their concert tickets from 7-11!

 After the visit to the ice cream shop, we proceeded back to Taipei. Here are some souvenir shops which were located at the Xin Wu Ri station, on the way back to the HSR

 A restaurant made entirely of cardboard!

 Had to try the 台铁便当 after watching some TV shows recommend it. It was very nice! or maybe I was just hungry.

 Very generous, with a big piece of 排骨, one fried scallop, a slice of ham, pickled vegetables, and beneath all of this was a bed of vegetables. Healthy!

Came back to Taipei once again, after a really tiring journey :)