Today, we’ve officially melted under the summer heat. Summer in Taiwan is extremely hot, and the temperature in Kaohsiung was 37 degrees C. Thankfully, the E-DA Theme Park has a huge indoor play area (from B2 to 4th Floor and Rooftop) that kept us occupied most of our day.
➡ Day 1: Singapore > Taipei | Xinbeitou Hot Spring, Shilin Night Market
➡ Day 2: Taipei > Kaohsiung | E-DA World
➡ Day 3: Kaohsiung | E-DA Theme Park > Taichung | Fengjia Market
We woke up early, had a sumptuous breakfast at E-DA Royal Hotel, and took the shuttle bus to E-DA Theme Park (just a short 5 mins drive). The theme park’s opening hour is 9am to 5:30pm, so we got there as early as possible to maximize our playtime as we would be leaving to Taichung that evening.
E-DA Theme Park, in general, is not very big. If you’re looking for something like Universal Studios or Disneyland, you’ll be disappointed. There are not many thrilling rides, but it has a lot of kiddy rides. Thrilling rides are located outdoor, and kiddy rides are located indoor – which is good because it was so hot out there.
Help! Help! My little panda is melting!
I would say it’s more suitable for families with young children. It isn’t expensive for a full-day entry, and you can cover all the rides within a day. The fact that we planned our visit on a weekday is a bonus as the waiting time for each ride was not more than 5 minutes! For most of the indoor rides, we didn’t even need to queue.
Edison had so much fun at the indoor theme park. Some of the kiddy rides that I’d recommend are:
- Kid’s Driver – a driving circuit for the little drivers
- Splash Battle – mildly challenging boat ride, raincoat is required as you’ll get wet
- Bumper Cars – need no introduction, we all love that!
- Power Paddle – Edison’s favourite, he can paddle the boat all by himself
- Flying over Taiwan – a simulation ride “flying” over beautiful natural landscapes in Taiwan. Must try!
Kid’s Driver
Power Paddle
Apart from the rides, there are various shows and parades. There are also many themed dining options, gift shops that sell souvenirs for less than half of Disneyland prices, and the theme park staffs are all well-trained and friendly.
After 6 hours of fun at the theme park, we took the 3:30pm shuttle bus back to our hotel, picked up our luggage and took the bus to Kaohsiung HSR station (the same bus that we took when we came to E-DA the day before).
The HSR departed Kaohsiung at 4:54pm and arrived Taichung at 5:36pm. It’s just a short 40 minutes journey, and as I’ve mentioned in my previous post, I really love the convenience of HSR in Taiwan.
The hotel that I booked in Taichung is La Vida Hotel, and this is the most beautiful hotel in our Taiwan trip this time. The main reason we chose this hotel is its close proximity to the famous Fengjia Night Market. We took a cab from the HSR station to the hotel.
La Vida Hotel is very new as it was just opened in Nov 2014. It’s located in the center of Fengjia Business District and just 5 minutes walk to Fengjia Night Market. The hotel staffs are very friendly and helpful, particularly the Concierge who’s always there to recommend places of interest and nice eateries to us.
Our hotel room is big, clean, and spanking new, with a modern style. Our boy was thrilled to find out that the bathroom has a TV! Watching cartoon while soaking in the bath tub amused him to no end. It also provides classy toiletries and auto toilet seat / bidet.
After a quick shower, we were all refreshed and ready to head-out to Fengjia Night Market for dinner. It was a Thursday night, so I was pleasantly surprised to see the crowd at the night market. Compared to Singapore, I believe none of us will visit a night market on a weekday night.
Fengjia Night Market is touted as the most popular, the biggest, and the most interesting night market in Taiwan. It performed TWD 9.2 billion in business and drew over 118 million visitors in year 2013 alone. We also learned from our driver that Fengjia Night Market is rarely affected by economic downturn due to its competitive price.
In general, the crowd wasn’t too overwhelming that night despite traffic coming from all directions. The night market was full of clothes, bags, shoes, souvenirs, mobile phone accessories, and of course foods and snacks! You can find all these at reasonable price, and bargain was allowed at certain stores.
I didn’t try the food and snacks at the night market. The sight of bloody cake (made of congealed pig’s blood) and stinky tofu totally freaked me out. We had our dinner at “Na Ge Guo” – a spicy hotpot restaurant recommended by the hotel staffs. It was fantastic!
We stayed at La Vida Hotel for two nights, and we paid total S$387 including breakfast for 3 pax. Overall, we really enjoyed our stay at La Vida, and we highly recommend it too.
E-DA Theme Park
Website: http://www.edathemepark.com.tw/
La Vida Hotel
Website: http://lavida.hotel.com.tw/eng/
Address: No.275-2, Sec. 2, Xitun Rd., Xitun Dist., Taichung City 407, Taiwan
