台中：本物の台湾体験 🇹🇼

台中：本物の台湾体験 🇹🇼

Hello, everyone. In today’s video,
we’re going to be getting off the bikes and exploring Taichung,
from a rainbow village to discovering the origins of the bubble tea that you love. Let’s see what makes this city
such an underrated place, shall we? Okay, so good morning. Today, we go to Taichung, 臺中, which is the third biggest city in Taiwan, basically after Taipei, Kaohsiung,
which is in the south, and then there’s Taichung. There’s Taipei, Taichung, Tainan. Those are three cities,
and it’s basically Tai-, and then bei is north, chung (zhong) is center, and nan is south. Hey, Fabio. If you want to skip ahead to the Taichung
stuff, we won’t be offended. Otherwise, here’s how the biking
trip to Taichung went down. Oh, yeah.
How do you feel today? I feel okay. I’m not sure I’m ready to cycle 60 kilometers under the sun.
Yeah. But hopefully, we won’t have slopes. The good news is my butt is so
much better than it was yesterday. We’re getting used to it. I think you develop a callus on your ass,
if that’s the thing, which is kinda gross. T.M.I.
Let’s make a recap of what we did so far. We started in Taipei. We got these amazing
bikes from MathewBike. Then we biked to Hsinchu
that first night. It was a really long one. Then yesterday, we biked to Baishatun,
which is a really small village in between Hsinchu and Taichung. We got to see the festivity
of the moon, of the full moon. The Moon Festival.
The Mid-Autumn Festival. Yes. I’m noticing is that time feels
really slow when you’re on a bike. We just started two days ago. We’ve seen so much already. I think it’s just because
you’re seeing so much, right? So you’re experiencing a lot
and it really does slow down time. So if you want to slow down time, if
you’re saying in life we rush too much and that time goes so fast, just hop
on a bicycle and go for a long trip. The road was mostly highway,
and it was honestly a bit monotonous of a start of the day. But just as we were about to lose sanity,
we suddenly came across this field of the wild flowers.
Wow. Wow. Somehow, the vividness and spontaneity
of it stands out as one of our favorite memories from the trip. And as if that wasn’t cheerful enough,
just a few minutes down the road, we came across another incredible site. Oh, my God, there’s so many ducks. We just came across the est area
of water, and there’s just all these ducks huddled around all over the water. I’ve never seen so many ducks
in my life in one place. Okay, we are at the Gao Mei wetlands, which is at the mouth of one of the rivers here, the Daijia River. It’s very beautiful. There’s also those crabs with
one arm bigger than the other one. Oh, my God. The one-arm crab. The Kingler. Anyway, it’s meant to be a migration spot. During the winter,
a lot of the birds stay here. If you’re a bird watcher, come here. We’re kind of on the outskirts of Taichung,
so we head inland after this to go to the city for lunch. For the first time, we will be able
to really reach the water, the Taiwan Strait. We saw it from afar,
so far because the Coast is quite muddy. Yeah. You don’t have the most wonderful beaches,
at least on the west side of Taiwan. And there isn’t such a huge,
huge beach culture. In any way.
A lot of reasons. Apparently, there’s a lot of superstition. And also, during martial law in Taiwan,
citizens weren’t actually allowed to go into the water. And on top of it, correct me if I’m wrong,
but I guess there’s not like obligatory swimming lessons or anything like that. People don’t really go to the beach
as much, at least in this area. We just got some food. Just a really random
hole-in-the-wall place. We’re going to put it in a map so
that you know where to find it. It was actually really nice. Really good. I think today I’m having the best food,
really, since we’ve arrived. Like the breakfast, and now this kind of ramen. Yeah, it was like ramen soup, with an egg. It’s so affordable when
you’re outside of Taipei. I think my favorite thing about this bike
from MathewBike, the Froging model road bike,
is that there’s gears embedded within the brake, so I can brake,
but then I can also switch gears on both sides just by pushing
the brake over to the left. It’s actually really
convenient because I don’t have to switch my hand positions when I want to change. I’ve never had a bike like this. I think it’s just so cool. I just feel so badass on the road. Thank you, MathewBike. We’ll save you the boredom of us trying
to climb up our first major hill, but basically,
we realized we were on the Taichung Port side and needed to get to the city,
but there was a mountain happening to be in the way. Last update was probably 30 minutes ago,
and we’re still not up the hill. Still walking.
Fabio is really enjoying himself. No, it’s just the slope. I wonder why we didn’t find a better option. But it’s beautiful. There are mosquitoes, too.
Yeah. But I feel like we’re
almost at the summit. I keep saying that, and then there’s more. Okay, we finally made it to Taizhong. There’s a lot of traffic
because it’s almost seven. It’s a hard city to drive through. For sure. We found this little canteen for 300
Taiwanese dollars. We got three different plates,
a massive piece of chicken for two of them, and lots and lots of veggies. It’s like the Taiwanese-style
canteen, I guess. Anyway, Taichung is the birthplace of the bubble tea. We’re going to show you that tomorrow. Though we have a little
bit of bubble tea here. We have like the bobas. The bubbles, which are
usually made of taro. Tapioca.
Tapioca. Yeah, and then there is taro
in here and also sweet potato. This is a typical Taiwanese dessert. We also got a banana ice as well. Normally, I like the mango one,
and we’ll show you more of those later, but they didn’t have that today. We got a banana-shaved ice, which is huge.
I see it coming. We got a lot of dessert.
We need it. We are in our first hostel in Taiwan. Here’s the place for our shoes. We can get some clean slippers. I guess large.
Oh, there’s only one pair. Yeah. The Stray Birds Hostel was surprisingly
one of the best places we stayed in during our biking trip. It was so clean. The common area was fantastic. Plus, it was really cheap. Definitely book it if
you come to Taichung. Good morning from Taichung, day 2. We worked for the whole morning. Yes, today we are taking a break
from the bike, and I can feel it. I’m really tired today,
but we’re going to wander a bit around Taichung and see what’s going on,
and we’ll show you a bit before we move on to our next place. So just in front of our hostel,
there’s this little market which works on honesty, basically. You just pay for it,
you put the money in this box and you can get all these really cute items. Like a key holder. I’m not sure this could work in Europe or somewhere else, but in Taiwan, it does. Hands down, the best restaurants so far
have been these unassuming places that we’ve just walked into. And this one is rice, chicken, duck,
and pork, I think all in one dish. It’s a bit hard to be vegetarian here,
by the way, although there are options for sure. Okay, since we are in the origin city
of Bubble tea, and we’re going to show you something about that later hint-hint. We got our favorite ice cream in Asia with Bubble tea inside. Yeah, baby.
We made it to the, as you can see, rainbow village of Taichung, Yes. Rainbows are a symbol, so we had
to go check it out, naturally. Rainbow Village in Taiwan is a colorful
wonderland brought to life by Huang Yung-Fu, a former soldier in 1924. After moving to Taiwan following
the Chinese Civil War, he stayed behind when most of his
neighbors left as the village faced demolition. It feels like we are in Mexico
or in a Mexican restaurant. He was bored and lonely,
so he began painting birds, animals, and people on his home,
and soon the entire village transformed into a vibrant canvas. Discovered by local students,
Huang’s artwork was preserved, turning Rainbow Village into a cultural
hotspot that now attracts over a million visitors a year. Personally, I think all buildings
in the world should be painted this way. No?
Do you agree? More buildings in the world
should be painted like this. This is like the sandiest
slide I’ve ever been on. This is all the Chinese Zodiac. There’s a group of Filipinos
which seem very tired. They weren’t enthusiastic at all. Only the tour guide. The tour guide is like,
“Let’s take pictures.” Their face is just like, “Hell, no.” Considering usually, Filipinos are quite
enthusiastic people, generally. These one must have been very tired.
Yeah. Yeah, anyway. We are at the Origins of Bubble Tea, the
shop where bubble tea allegedly started. It’s called the Original Store
of Chun Shui Tang. It started in 1983. Some say that the paternity
comes from Tainan. That bubble tea actually comes from Taïn.
I don’t know. Some say.
Yeah. It’s always up for debate when you have
such a famous item that’s spread all over the world, right? Everyone wants to claim the fame on it. Actually, the idea comes from the Dutch
colonial past when, for most of Taiwan, was a major trade hub. And Taiwanese just saw Dutch adding sugar or milk to their tea, so they thought,
Why don’t we add something like bubbles made mostly of taro? Not taro. Made mostly of tapioca. Fabio messes this up a lot.
I always mess this up. But boba naicha, which is the
way of saying it in Mandarin, it consists of these taro… Oh, my God, I just messed it up, too. Tapioca balls, but it could also consist
of other things, like litchi pieces, anything with chunks it, basically. Okay, so here we go with the bubble tea. The cool thing is you can pick how much
ice you want and how sweet you want it as well. I went with 30% sweet
and a little bit of ice. The balls are just magnificent. So good. We got some wantons on the side. No more balls. I got most of them. We are at the old station of Taichung. It’s so cute. They have basically
a train that they repurposed into a bunch of gift shops and stuff. And also they sell pizza
in another wagon. Really?
Pizza, too. You can walk through from shop to shop.
Let me show you. That was it for our day in Taichung. We didn’t get to spend much time here,
but it really impressed us with how much food and culture there was. We wonder why it was never
recommended to us by others. But it was time to head to our next place,
Chiayi, and we may have cheated on our bike trip for the first time ever. But more on that next time.
Thank you for watching.

In this video, we made it to Taichung (Taiwan’s middle city)…and honestly? Taichung might be one of Taiwan’s most underrated cities. Between dive restaurants, rainbow villages, muddy wetlands, and bubble tea debates, this leg of our “cycling around Taiwan” trip was pure, chaotic magic.

Taichung surprised us with colorful streets, friendly locals, and one of the best food scenes in the country (sorry Taipei). If you’ve ever thought about biking around Taiwan…or just exploring beyond the usual spots…this is your sign. 🇹🇼

Thanks again to https://www.instagram.com/mathewbikeshop/ for setting us up with bikes in Taipei….and to everyone cheering us on as we continue this wild journey.

🎥 Subscribe for the next part: Chiayi

🇹🇼 Watch Part 1 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlEFnHn_oq8
🇹🇼 Watch Part 2 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ1pIhGqW8s
🚲 Follow our Taiwan adventures more in real-time: https://www.instagram.com/thefabryk/
🛠️ Get Your Bikes (100 TWD off by mentioning Fabio and Ryan sent you): MathewBike — https://mathewbike.com/en/
🚵 For our full guide to cycling around Taiwan (for non-professionals), check out: https://thefabryk.com/blog/cycling-around-taiwan-guide

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⏱️ CHAPTERS

00:19 Biking Adventure to Taiwan’s Third-Largest City
01:26 Biking Recap: From Taipei to Baishatun
03:16 Visiting Gaomei Wetlands and the One-Armed Crab 🦀
05:31 Testing Out the MathewBike Froging Model 🚴
06:51 Made it to Taichung, Dinner at a Taiwanese Canteen & Late-Night Traffic Chaos
08:01 Staying at Stray Birds Hostel…Best Budget Stay in Taichung
08:35 Day 2 in Taichung: Rest, Work, and Local Market Charm
09:12 Honest Market: Trust-Based Shopping in Taiwan
10:11 Exploring the Famous Rainbow Village 🌈
12:00 The Original Bubble Tea Shop — Chun Shui Tang Origins
14:01 Old Taichung Train Station Turned Art Market 🚂

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