Hotel Hopping

It was check out day for us at the Ambassador as Dee-Dub only had the hotel for two days. He needed to travel around Taiwan for work but we somehow convinced him to come along with us to Taichung where his friend booked a room for him at the Splendor hotel.

We took the 1-1.5 hour drive from Hsinchu to Taichung by what I call a mini-limo. It's not quite as lavish as a limosine (it looked like a regular black car) but it's definitely better than the average taxi. The bill was quite as expensive too, running about $100+ USD for a one-way trip.


Blurry picture from Splendor Hotel in Taichung


View from the hotel down below

We got to the hotel in the afternoon and decided to check out the mall next door called Sogo. It's a nice place if you want to do some shopping. Later in the afternoon we met up with Arr at a teahouse "nearby". Jay-Dub and I thought she meant across the street from Sogo but it was more like 3-4 blocks away and we were taking alot of turns in the process (what better way to get acquainted with a new place huh?).


Sogo department store, an upscale shopping destination

This would be my first of many teahouses on the trip. At first I thought it was some fancy place with religious symbols, historical landmarks, and a tea ceremony to follow. Turns out it was just a really nice place to drink tea and have some food... kind of like a restaurant. =]

Another thing about Taiwan that's different from the states is that drinks are absolutely huge here. If the average pearl milk tea drink in the US is 16 oz, I'm guessing the same drink in Taiwan is 32 oz. And it only costs $2 USD. Sometimes even cheaper.

Jay-Dub and I walked back to our hotel where we watched some movie on HBO for about 2-3 hours. We got hungry again so we went to get dinner. I had sour soup and some bad dim sum from a street vendor with this funky rice triangle thing from 7-11. I've seen them in Japanese shows and in Japan but I don't know it's name but here's a picture of it:


Rice ball.. thing... from 7-11


They come in a variety of flavors like tuna, chicken, and pork fu. This one happened to be ham with corn and a little bit of mayo. Mmm.. yummy

After our meal Jay-Dub wanted to see the nightlife in Taichung. We headed off to club Seduce which was recommended by the hotel staff. It seemed like a hip place to be as there was a crowd mulling around when we got there. Jay-Dub tried his best to get us in but the bouncer kept asking the same question over and over again. Too bad we didn't know what the word meant.

It took awhile but we found that you needed to reserve tables to get into the club before a certain time. After that time they'll let in the general public. That kind of explained why there were so many people waiting around. The odd thing was, they weren't in a line of any sort, just scattered around.

Ok, so we got rejected. On the way to Seduce we passed by some other bars and clubs so we decided to try them out. Strike two. No chance there either. They also wanted reservations.

In a desparate move to have *some* kind of fun we went to the Catwalk club located in the hotel. Success! We got in with no problems. Except no one else was there and there was a live band playing. Strike three! We got bored really quick and decided to turn in for the night.