Posts Tagged ‘Taichung’

Carton King Creativity Park 紙箱王 (Taiwan – Taichung)

February 12th, 2013 365days2play

After our dinner at Quan Hotpot Restaurant (寬巷子) near Shilin MRT Station, we got onto Taiwan’s High Speed Rail 台灣高鐵 and made our way to Taichung. The distance from Taipei to Taichung by High Speed Rail is about 160km, but it took just an hour to get there!  I wish we had High Speed Rails in Singapore! It takes a bloody hour to get from Pasir Ris to Boonlay for god’s sake, and that’s only 36 km! Of course, the price is very different. The trip from Taipei to Taichung cost NT700 which is about SGD$33. But still, sometimes it would be nice to have a choice.

After our massive eating the last 2 days, Day 3 of our Whirlwind Trip to Taiwan courtesy of iSee Taiwan Foundation turned out to be a very hands-on day, of which I am quite thankful. I’m going to be blogging about Carton King Creativity Park first, which is where we had our lunch. Will blog about our coffee roasting and sampling experience in the upcoming post.

Carton King Creativity Park is a pretty little garden with adjoining restaurant, honey store and souvenir store. As the name suggests, cartons are the rule here. It’s actually quite unbelievable that most of the things you see here are really made of cardboard!

Carton King - (23)

Carton King has been in the paper industry for more than 20 years, engaged in the development and design of paper. They have more than 2000 products and over 100 patents. So it was only natural that they showcase some of their interesting and creative designs in their very own park.

Carton King - (27)

Check out the tables and chairs in Carton King’s restaurant. They are all made of cardboard. We tend to think of paper materials as being rather flimsy and easy to tear apart. However, if you pack them together into thick cardboard form, they hold their strength pretty well! I was just a tad apprehensive sitting down for the first time, but you soon forget that they are not “real furniture”.

Carton King - Boston Herb Roasted Spring Chicken NT360 SGD17

Boston Herb Roasted Spring Chicken NT360 SGD17

More about the cardboardy stuff later. First up, LUNCH! Carton King’s restaurant serves up a pretty good variety of food. The set lunches are rather affordable, at about NT350 (SGD$15) so that’s what we all had. The set lunches come with mains, side dishes like rice, soup and dessert, and also a drink in a nifty little cardboard box. All the meats are from Taiwan Agricultural Livestock Industry.

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Posted in Country Guide - Taiwan, Travel Tags: , , , , , , Comments Off on Carton King Creativity Park 紙箱王 (Taiwan – Taichung)

Whirlwind 5D4N trip to Taiwan

January 24th, 2013 365days2play

If you have been following me on Twitter or Instagram, you would probably have realised that I was missing in action last week in the Blogosphere and was instead very active on Twitter and Instagram!

To cut the long story short, I was invited by the Isee Taiwan Foundation to visit Taiwan and blog all about it. Actually, when I first received the email from the Isee Taiwan Foundation, my first reaction was….”Is this a spam??” The entire email was in Chinese, and TRADITIONAL CHINESE for that matter! Reading simplified Chinese characters is already a monumentous task for me, what more TRADITIONAL CHINESE. I asked a few of my friends to help me translate, and more than one told me to be careful.

In the end, it all turned out to be totally fine. The 5 Day 4 Night Taiwan trip was very well planned to the extent that even a tour guide was hired to accompany us to almost all the places that we had to visit! We visited numerous restaurants and eateries ranging from skewered innards to intricately presented Ma La Hot Pot to atas Zha Jiang Mian. In Taichung, we also tried our hand at roasting our own coffee beans all the way to brewing them; and making our very own Taiwanese Bubble Tea. We got to speak with numerous proprietors who shared with us their vision in setting up their own businesses. We even traversed from Taipei to Yilan, braved a 4 Wheel drive up a steep hill to visit the Bulao Buluo Aborigine Tribe.

It was definitely a trip to be remembered and for the 1st few days upon returning to Singapore, I actually kinda missed Taiwan a little! For some reason, I had this huge urge to try GongCha or Koi again, just to consume something of Taiwanese origins! Prior to this, I had never stepped foot in Taiwan, and I made an effort not to read up on Taiwan either, so as to be able to be totally surprised when there.

And indeed, if there’s one thing that amazed me the most there, it’s that there are SO MANY cafes and eateries all over the place, down back alleys and in almost every corner that you turn to! And for this, I hope to return again soon with more time to spare to sample more of the cafes around Taipei and Taichung!

Watch this space for more updates on what I did in Taiwan!

Posted in Country Guide - Taiwan, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on Whirlwind 5D4N trip to Taiwan
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