April 15, 2026
Back to Main
Six A.M., another morning. From our 8th floor hotel room, we watched another sunrise over the
over the city and the 民俗公園.
We'd soon be off...
...to breakfast. They had 小籠包 this morning, as well as plenty of other
good stuff! We knew we were going to have an early lunch, so we came down
for breakfast quite early, before anyone else. (We actually had to wait
for them to open the doors.)
We relaxed in the hotel until Zhiwei and Mingqi picked us and Meihui up at 10:00, then headed off down the road for
some adventures around 三義 (Sanyi) and 苗栗 (Miaoli), about a half
hour north of Taichung, starting out at...
...三義鄉勝興車站 (Sanyi Township ShengXing Station), an old no-longer-in-service train station. On the way there, a section
of the road into the mountains was winding and hilly (1:03), leading
us to...
...a highly commercialized area, now a very popular tourist spot
surrounded by a cluster of tea shops and
restaurants.
But it wasn't the old train station that people were there to see. It was the Old Mountain Line
Rail Bike that draws students and adults alike. These
4-passenger vehicles with hand controls controlled by a rider in the front left
seat, travel several 70-80 minutes routes, offering different sites and
scenery on each onenoteBecause these were 4-passenger vehicles and there were
five of us, we weren't going to take a tour. But I think even if there were only four of us, the more-than-one-hour trip
would take too long. We had other things we wanted to do. .
The cars were all lined up awaiting passengers for the next tour, and before long, people were
loading up for their ride. Once quite a few cars were loaded (maybe 20 or more!), off
they went through the first tunnel, one by one.
While on the grounds of the old station, we took some miscellaneous pictures. Click here to see them. Around noon, we left the train station and rail bikes
and headed to...
...三義 (Sanyi), just a short ride away, where we planned to have lunch at 金榜麵館, a
very popular (there was another
room off to my left) Hakka (客家noteThe Hakka people are a significant minority ethnic group
(approximately 20% of the population of Taiwan). ) noodle restaurant. As feared, having had a big breakfast earlier,
I wasn't at all hungry, and, as much as I wanted to, I didn't order anything. I just sat and enviously
watched the others eat. Besides being
good (so I was told!), the food was really cheap!
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