The bus ride from Alishan 阿里山 to Chiayi HSR Station 嘉義高鐵站 took around 2.5 hours. The bus that we took also stopped at Fenqihu 奮起湖 for 5 minutes but we didn't plan to visit because we only have half a day at Taichung 臺中. I think I spent most of the time sleeping in the bus. We spent NT$ 122 per person only instead of NT$ 278. I think we got discount by using EasyCard 悠游卡.

We reached HSR Station around 1 PM-ish. I decided to just have our lunch at the station by eating the HSR Lunchbox 高鐵便當. Eating railway lunchbox is a must-do in Taiwan because their lunchbox are said to be very filling and tasty. Although my initial plan was to eat the Train Lunchbox 臺鐵便當 on the train but I thought we weren't going to have chance to do that in this trip. 

At first, it was quite hard to find the place they sell the lunchbox because I didn't know how it looked like. And according to their official website, they only sell it during 10.30 AM -1.00 PM and 5 PM - 7 PM only. Luckily, the Chiayi HSR Station was not that big and I managed to spot the small booth in front of the ticketing counters.

I think there were 3 varieties to choose from and I chose two pork chop lunch boxes and two chicken chop lunch boxes.

It's just a simple and common meal but I liked the home-cooked taste.

After we finished our meals, we boarded on the 2 PM HSR to Taichung 臺中. The HSR ride took 30 minutes only and costed us NT$ 300 per person. BTW, same as the normal train, some HSR trains stop at more stations than others so be sure to choose the one with fewest stops if you want to reach your destination faster.

When we reached Taichung HSR Station 臺中高鐵站, we straight headed to the taxi pick-up point to get a ride to our AirBnb. Something quite funny happened here. Usually, the taxis would be queuing up in a line to wait for customers, right? But we saw two taxi drivers from two different sides waving and calling out to us. It was confusing for us whether to take whose taxi. By right, I should have followed the arrows on the floor leading towards the start of the line but I don't know why I ended up went the other way haha maybe the driver looked more inviting hahaha. Anyway, the taxi driver was friendly and talkative so we enjoyed the ride. He warned us that some homestay in Taiwan were not safe because they didn't follow the safety regulation lol. The taxi ride costed us NT$ 290 because the Taichung HSR Station was quite far from the town.

We asked the taxi driver to drop us at the meeting point as instructed by the AirBnb host. Then we called the AirBnb host and a girl came right away in a Scooter 小綿羊 haha. This AirBnb that we chose was managed by a group of friendly Taiwanese youngsters who I think were hired by the owner. I chose this place mainly because of it's strategic location in the Fengjia 逢甲 area.

One good thing about travelling during off-peak seasons --- you get the best room. So, we got the room at ground floor so we wouldn't have to drag our luggage up the stairs.

The room decoration was not like the photos sent by the hosts to me but the size and furniture were pretty much the same. They have many rooms with different decoration and our room decoration was the cute and a bit princessy kind. 

My review on AirBnb site as below:

Our AirBnb link

Before we came, I've already paid a deposit of NT$ 500 through AirBnb. So, I paid the remaining by cash when we checked-in. The total cost of the room was NT$ 1500 per night.

After that, seriously I didn't know where to go because the reasons I came Taichung were to visit the Gaomei Wetlands 高美濕地, Rainbow Village 彩虹眷村 and Fengjia Night Market 逢甲夜市. It was still early to visit Gaomei Wetlands and Fengjia Night Market. I had planned Rainbow Village for the next day. So I decided just to visit the National Taichung Theater 臺中國家歌劇院 although I was not really interested to go. 

In Taichung, the main transportation were cars, scooters, buses and trains. There was no Metro there. So, the most time efficient way for tourists who cannot drive to travel within the city was by Uber or taxi. Uber would be slightly cheaper than taxi and also you won't have to be afraid of getting conned. Taking the buses and trains would be the cheapest way but very time-consuming!

Therefore, I used Uber to get a ride to the National Taichung Theater around 3.20 PM. This was my first time using a Uber so I was quite nervous hahaha. I was afraid that I accidentally set up the wrong pick-up point or the driver bail out on us. Seriously, I never used Grab at my own country.

Luckily the driver did come and it was a new Honda C-RV. But the driver was very very quiet. In fact, I didn't hear any sound coming from him, even when my dad greeted him. I was a bit worried that we annoyed him because his face expression seemed dissatisfied all the time. Anyhow, when we reached our destination and said thank you, I think I did saw him nodded his head lol. This Uber ride costed us NT$ 116.




  NATIONAL TAICHUNG THEATRE 臺中國家歌劇院  

OK this place was quite boring for me as it had nothing much to see besides its special architecture.

  MOLECURE PHARMACY 分子藥局  

Then, I decided to just visit the insta-famous Molecure Pharmacy 分子藥局 because duh... I'm a pharmacist! It's obligatory for a pharmacist to visit a pharmacy in every country that he/she visits lol.
.... The truth is, it's just located opposite the National Taichung Theater and we still had plenty of time before the sunset.

This is a rather special pharmacy because it has a minimalist and modern interior design. The things they're selling were less compared to a regular pharmacy.

There were many of these small crabs in the wetlands where the tourists were restricted from stepping in to preserve the ecosystem.

Oh ya, as opposed to my expectations, Gaomei Wetlands was filled with people! I didn't find this amount of crowd in any other places that I've visited in Taiwan (except the night markets). And it was a weekday, mind you. I believe a lot of them were locals though and I heard Malaysian slangs a lot too lol. Yeah, so I guess don't need to worry about availability of Uber service back to Taichung city area since there were so many people in Gaomei Wetlands. They most probably came by Uber ride too so the Uber drivers would probably just wait around Gaomei Wetlands for customers who want to go back to the city.

They built these long wooden walkways that tourists can walk on without stepping on the wetlands. At the end of these walkways tourists can walk on the part of wetlands where there were mainly just mud, some sea water and nothing else. The walk to the end takes around 15 minutes. You can see from the photo above that the walkways were filled with tourists and the nearer you got to the end, the more the tourists.

Maybe in the photos, the sun was not as obvious as in real life but we could actually see the egg yolk very clearly with our naked eyes.

Beef cubes - nice

Dried bean curd - was not in my list but turned out the sauce was nice

Sweet potato balls - mehh (maybe coz I didn't buy from the famous one)

Black tea yeast stinky tofu - not from a famous shop but also nice. It's really stinky and tasty.

Drumstick roll - nice, tender drumstick with crispy skin and MSG

Sausage with sticky glutinous rice - bought from the famous shop, nice

Green bean shaved ice - not sure if this is famous but nice

Japanese grilled squid - because mum wanted to eat squid, mehhh

Fried oyster - supposed to be Taiwan's signature snack but this was not from famous shop, mehhh couldn't even taste the oyster and very oily.

Minglun Pancake - from famous shop, nice coz I like egg

This brand of coffee was so good that I bought a second bottle another day! NT$ 30 only in Taiwan. They sell double the price in Malaysia! Somehow I only saw a few choices in convenience stores though... mainly latte...

We went back to our AirBnb around 10 PM~

Generally, things in Taichung were cheaper compared to Taipei so it's a nice place to buy all your souvenirs. Don't buy in Shilin Night Market because they sell higher price due to concentration of tourists!

Yeah, so that's all for my day in Taichung~