Day 2 - Taichung

Woke up on the second day and my heart sank when I saw that it was still raining. It was a huge bummer as that day was our last full day in Taichung and we were planning to go to Sun Moon Lake. We skipped the hotel breakfast as we were all tired, but met in the lobby at about 11am. The hotel receptionist called a cab for us. Our initial plans were to take cab to Gancheng bus stop then take the SML bus from there. The cab driver convinced us otherwise, he told us that he's willing to take us to SML and be our designated driver for 8 hours at a cost of NT$3000. We felt that given the weather and that there were 4 of us to split the cost it was actually quite an ok bargain so we took it up. It was indeed more convenient for us.

He brought us to this Paper Dome near SML which we felt that erm...can don't go lah hahaha basically it's just a small building built with really really stiff and thick cardboard. Entrance costs NT$100 which is redeemable in the restaurant. The restaurant serves pretty decent fare actually.

After a while at the Paper Dome we went back to the cab driver. Shortly after we reached SML. Need to pay NT$300 to take a ferry again. *frowns* First stop off the ferry: Xuan Guan Temple. SO CROWDED. Full of tourists from Mainland China. It was raining and everyone was holding umbrellas. There were lots of shouting, shoving and being poked in the head and eyes by the umbrellas. The rain didn't help things, we had an unspeakably miserable time there. The ONLY saving grace was the 茶叶蛋, the tea eggs. Each costs NT$10 and we bought one each. They were piping hot, which was really welcomed in the cold weather. 

After our miserable time there, we wanted to take the ferry to the second stop, but the boat staff told us that due to the very heavy fog, they are stopping all ferry rides. The ferry we were queuing up for was the last ferry ride back to the pier where our cab driver was waiting for us. We were all so tired from the travelling that day that all 4 of us fell asleep on the ferry. By the time they reached the pier, the fog had dissipated and ferries were resuming service but we all decided to give the second stop a miss coz we were too tired and the weather too bad to continue travelling around. 

We went to a cafe at the pier for some coffee, bubble tea, waffles and piping hot fries. The ambience of the restaurant and the hot food did loads to soothe an otherwise very miserable and wet day.

After eating, we went back to our cab driver and asked him to drive us to Yi-Chung Street (the other quite famous night market in Taichung). We walked around and ate and thankfully the rain had stopped by then so it was easier to walk around. We actually bought quite a lot of stuff there. It is comparatively smaller than Feng Jia Night Market so we finished walking around the area quite early. They have this thing called 炸牛排 aka Fried Steak which was pretty interesting. It's worth a try!

We then decided to go for what they called "Cosmos bowling" (I think) which is a bowling alley that has the lights switched off and only has UV lights or something like that. Pretty interesting to bowl in the dark but you get used to it pretty quickly and forget you're in the dark haha.

After bowling we went back to hotel and bought cup noodles to sit at the rest area again! Cy and I were especially excited and happy coz we were heading to Taipei the very next day!!!