Changhua town, in Changhua county, Western Taiwan

Changhua County is located in the western Taiwan. It is a part of Changnan Plain. Changhua is well known for its fertile soil and it is called "Granary of Taiwan". The population is 1.31 million and the area is 1,074 square kilometers.

Another famous scenery, and I need to say - a something to must see, when you are in Taiwan -Taiyen flower gardens. It's a vegetation and flower "factory" of all Taiwan - locals say, from here - more than 90 % of live and fresh flowers are supplied to whole Taiwan daily, including trees, yes, also palms come from here!

Let's see, how this town and county looks like by our own eyes. For fact lovers, Changhua town's:

• Area is : 65.69 km²
• Population: 230,000 people

Geographical location: Changhua City is located in the central part of the island. It is bordered on the northeast by Dadu Stream to Dadu Township and Wurih Township in Taichung County. It abuts upon Huatan Township and Sioushuei Township on the south, Fenyuan Township on the east and Hemei Township and Fusing Township on the west.

Well, the picture is worth a hundred of words, and here it's a graphically shaded in red, on a Taiwan map:

Local news says, that this city and surrounding area are the one with highest crime percentage in a country.

I took a pretty nice birds eye view of Changhua from Great Buddha scenery:

The first you might see entering the town is naturally the train station:

That is how it looks like in a front view, in case you go out and look at it. At the time when I made this picture - middle of January 2009, the temperature on the meter here on the station showed +24 degree, at the middle of the day. It was pretty warm day in Changhua, consider that it was winter time. Taiwan is not cold country at all, so, as you can see you can home down here in January and still get a summer-like days, although, in evening it quickly drops to +17.

Let's go there and look around, I am giving you a insight like this:

Now, we are ready to move in a town! Grab a map with you, the one, in Lonely Planet guide will be OK, and not so far away from train station you are going to find an interesting district with narrow streets, where most of famous to this county restaurants are located. The first, what every guide and tourist review will tell you - try a Cat Mouse noodle soup. No, it  doesn't means that they eat a cat's here along with noodles - it's was because the owner's nickname pronounced similar to "Cat Mouse" in Taiwanese. "Cat Mouse" noodle looks no different from other noodles in Taiwan, but you definitely will love it after tasting. The soup is fresh and not oily, together with mushroom balls, meat balls and shrimp balls and you will find its difference. "Cat Mouse Noodle" now has been marked one of the three treasures in Changhua.You must try it, if you are in a town. It is easy to get lost and not find this place, since there is no any english sign on it, and we are here to help you. Here is how it looks like:

Address: 126 Chang Ann street, Changua county.
TEL: 7268376
Open hour: 11:00am to 8:00pm

Left side of the restaurant are very bright sign of clothes shop, you you won't miss it.



We are going in, to see what they offer. Let's go with us!

Restaurant is really quite a busy place as you can see, and the taste of noodles is really good. Another suggestion there - try a eggs - they also taste very good in this place. Once you are in they are going to handle you a menu:

First two options on the top are the ones you need, second one have more ingredients added. Finally, after we had made an order, this is how the famous Cat Mouse Noodles looked like:

Right side of this famous place are something what called Jesus is the lord church, which as it appears has the service hours, well, I always knew, that all has it's own service hours, also the Jesus has the office hours.

Now, turning your head right you will see the street heading you to the more restaurants in the area. Quick glance tell us that district s really quite old and much houses are not renovated for long time since now.



Left side has a small "factory" which makes another - very popular food in the area - BaoAn.

From here - we are ready to move to another famous place Changhua - Confucius Temple, which will be featured in separate post in my blog. It deserves it.