I had one more day in Taichung and was hoping to use it to go on a day trip to Sun Moon Lake… Sadly it was not to be as the weather was so atrocious, the hostel staff advised I wouldn’t see anything really and it wouldn’t be worth travelling such a long way under these conditions. So I needed a new plan, so decided to go to more far flung attractions within the city itself.

I first made my way to Tunghai University in the far west of the city to admire the Tang Dynasty style architecture and in particular to see the Luce memorial chapel, as its architecture is particularly striking. It seemed to take forever to get there but was greeted with more rain, and some students practicing street dancing to ‘Uptown Funk’ – brilliant!

After wandering around campus, I decided to go to the National Museum for Fine Arts which is in south Taichung. I saw there was a bus that directly connected the two locations, perfect! Or it would have been had the bus arrived. It was supposed to come every 15-20 minutes but in fact took nearly an hour to arrive. Don’t trust the number 75! I was thankful that our bus stop was actually sheltered from the rain, as the one across the road had no shelter!

The art museum was quite enjoyable (for those who know me they’ll know just how weird that sounds!) – it was free which always helps, and had exhibitions of photographs of Taiwan from the last 120 years which is well worth seeing to show how the country has changed, and particular to understand more about Taiwan’s indigenous tribes. The exhibition of prints had some beautiful pieces… And the museum was the perfect shelter from the rain!

I then walked down the rest of the greenway past the canal to visit Taichung’s best known and oldest temple, Wanhe Gong, from the 1700s.

A quick bit of uninspiring “Japanese” food then off to bed!