Wandering Fel

Continuing on our foodie adventure at Fengjia Night Market, this night market in Taichung is simply a food heaven. So many type of food is offered in the biggest night market in Taichung (or maybe Taiwan) from heavy dish (e.g. Noodles, rice, etc) to fried stuff to light bites. Since we already had the cheesy fried chicken and fried squid, we decided to go for something sweet (and yet, still fried), sweet potato balls. They are piping hot so better let them cool off for a while before consuming them. 

When we went deeper toward the side of Fengjia Night Market which is just one step away from Fengjia University's gate, we saw a snaking long queue for something which looks like Gua Bao (Meat-filled Chinese Buns). Since the queue is so damn long and the Taiwanese is known for their affinity to queue for something good, we decided to join the queue. Easily suggested by the peer pressure it seems, we are. We could only see what's on the menu when we are nearer to the gua bao stall named Bun Bun. Some of the name is not easily translated into English to be honest with you. For instance, what seems to be pork belly bao in the picture is called Five Flowers Meat Bao in Chinese when you directly translate the name into English. Hahaha. 

I decided to go with Beef Filled Bao instead. You can add cheese or egg or more meat if you'd like to. I personally prefer the Gua Bao sold at Gongguan Night Market in Taipei though although this one ain't bad either. Make sure to eat them immediately or at least within few minutes of buying because they are not that nice when they become lukewarm or cold. 

Spotted new flavour of Lays which are not available in Singapore when randomly venturing into convenience store in Taichung. I'm such a weak person when facing against wonderful variety of chips. 

I can resist better against sweet stuff though like this strawberry frappucino which definitely is not coming out from Starbucks. 

Variety of Haagen-Dazs, omg there's a Winnie-the-Pooh one. I will surely buy it if not for the fact that the size of one tub will not be so merciful toward my existing belly. When will I be able to eat so much without gaining weight?

At the end of the day, I ended up with three different kinds of potato chips while travelling buddy bought her Ovaltine cookie. It's blatantly obvious who is the chips-junkie here. Hahaha.

Fengjia Night Market is the biggest night market in Taiwan and it is super popular with both locals and tourists. This was my first time at Fengjia Night Market though because despite being in Taiwan for 7 months back in 2013, I have not had the chance to go to Taichung. Probably partly due to the fact that I was not really confident in conversing in Mandarin and Taichung does not really have the convenient of subway which means you have to converse with either cab driver/ anyone who drive you around here. Now, I still don't have the required level of conversing professionally with people but I have gathered enough heck-care attitude with my super basic Mandarin and decided to just go by with it in Taichung. 

The heck-care decision was worth it though because otherwise, I would not be able to join the queue for this yummy fried squid in Fengjia Night market. Tee-hee. 

There are so many flavours available for the fried squid although all of these flavours are basically in powder form. I find it so tourist friendly for the stall owner to show the English translation for each flavour. Otherwise, tourist with crappy Mandarin like me can probably only understand flavour number 4 because of the character "Hai" which means sea, which most likely lead to "Seaweed" flavour, which I don't mind. XD

Anyway, we really went for seaweed flavour at the end. Voila, the powdery seaweed fried squid to satisfy your taste bud. It's chewy, salty and sea-weedy (does such word exist?) at the same time. Serve as a great snacks while waiting or queuing for other food which is swarmed by more people. 

We were actually in the midst of waiting for another food while ordering the fried squid. The neighboring Cheese Chicken stall is so popular with the crowd, the stall owner has to keep the order in check by tracking the order manually via pen and paper on his notebook. 

To be honest with you, I can't help to be lured by this Cheese Chicken stall because of the picture alone. The picture of the fried chicken filled with oozing cheese can make any passerby at Fengjia Night Market drool and join the queue. You will be given a number and the stall owner will call out your number (in Mandarin of course, so you better learn the basic numbering in Mandarin) once your fried chicken is ready for collection. 

Totally don't know how the real food blogger manage to capture Instagram worthy picture of street food because I already have difficulty in carrying all my stuff plus my phone and the fried chicken is so piping hot. So yeah, here you go, my best-shot fried chicken. I did not even bother to try to capture the oozing cheesy moment because I was so busy eating it. Hahaha. #failed

Fengjia Night Market is located at: 

Fengjia Road, Xitun District

Taichung City 407

Opening hours:

5PM to late (Daily)

Fengjia University seems to be the biggest university in Taichung and its location is super convenient as it is so near the night market district. I bet the students here eat at the night market every day. Well, at least that what I would do if I am studying here. 

Fengjia University is pretty big from the map, I suppose our exploration gonna take a while. Not that we mind though, since we have been doing nothing but eating during our trip in Taiwan so far. This was probably a great chance for our body to burn. 

The main road of Fengjia University which connects the main entrance to the farthest building within the university complex. Not many people sighted although it's probably because we visited the university on Sunday. 

We did not do anything much aside from walking until we reached the "more interesting" part of Fengjia University. That big building over there is the sports hall of the university. Not sure what is inside but since Shida University at Taipei has its own swimming pool and gym, the sports hall of Fengjia University probably has at least the same facilities for its students. 

My travelling buddy and I were more attracted by the outdoor sport facilities like running tracks. Not that I am a fan of running but at least the dorky side of me would not let go of this chance to pose. I don't think I have the right starting pose though, I should have watched Megan Lai's movie, 10,000 Miles over and over again to get the right pose. Hahaha. 

The next prop that piqued my curiousity is this pole which I think is used for obstacles run. Oh my gawd, running alone has been such a difficult challenge for me throughout elementary school to high school, I don't think I can go through life if I need to run and jump over this kind of obstacles. I can, however, play with it though. Happily somemore. Hahaha.

The next prop that we stumbled upon literally make me wonder how these people has the willing to try out this kind of sport. Well, I suppose rock climbing is supposedly fun if you have the right props to climb the wall with. But with heavy body like mine, it gonna take a whole lot efforts to climb this wall. I suppose for now, this is all I'm gonna do when I see this kind of wall in my life. Hanging on. LOL. 

After all those fun activities that we do over at the sporty section of Fengjia University, we continued our walk to the most corner part of the university complex, a lovely pond. Is this where all the university couples go for date? Hmm~~

Hungry after all those walk and random weird activities, we ended up at McDonald's because we need to use their wifi connection to find our way back to Le Parker Hotel (our Changi Wifi modem is not stable when we use it at Taichung, not sure why). As usual, I try to order food menu which is not available in Singapore's McDonald's and this is what I got, McChicken with Cheese. XD

Tried not to eat so much because we have our foodie adventure coming up at Fengjia Night Market soon. Woots!

You would have to collect your HSR tickets from either convenience stores (e.g. 7-11, Family Mart, etc) or the ticketing machines at Taipei Main Station though. We prefer to collect the ticket at 7-11 (with handling fee charges of 20NTD per ticket) because the 7-11 staff is always ready to help us whenever we got lost in reading the traditional Chinese characters. After paying the NTD 20 fees, the 7-11 staff will give you the pink ticket like above where you can scan your way in to the train platform. Since there are many trains leaving Taipei (once in every 15 minutes), you have to pay attention to the train number and the destination before boarding the train. 

Within less than an hour, we have reached Taichung HSR Station. I was kinda having a mixed feeling because I love taking train and yet, I also like the fact that I don't have to waste time on commuting. Such a conflicting feeling. We stayed at Le Parker Hotel in Taichung and as expected, our bedroom was not ready when we arrived around 12-ish. 3 hours later, we finally got our twin bedroom key. The twin bedroom at Le Parker Hotel is definitely more spacious and comfortable than our twin bedroom at Diary of Taipei in Ximending. The room rate for Le Parker Hotel is usually lower than 100 SGD per night so I think this is quite a great deal to find for accommodation in Taichung. 

Shower room is pretty standard and there is no fancy bidet on sight but we are quite satisfied with the clean bedroom and bathroom.  Amenities such as tooth brush, tooth paste, comb, sanitary bag and hairdryer are available too. 

While waiting for the room key, I managed to drink this popular convenience store item in Taiwan, Uni-President's papaya milk. It tastes so good and always makes me want to go back to Taiwan whenever I think about it. 

After we are done checking in, it's time for us to walk around the vicinity of Le Parker Hotel. The main reason for us to choose to stay at Le Parker Hotel is actually because it is located within walking distance to Fengjia University and Fengjia Night Market, which is supposedly the biggest night market in Taiwan. 

But the night market is still empty in the afternoon obviously so we just spent our time walking around Fengjia University (weird post coming up) and convenience stores. Oh look, Gudetama biscuits. It seems that Gudetama is well loved here in Taiwan. 

Le Parker Hotel is located at: 

No. 16 Lane 234, Chih Shan Road, Situn District

Taichung, Taiwan