Taiwan- Yilan, Jimmy Square

I knew about Taiwanese illustrator, Jimmy, from his famous picture book 向左走，向右走 (Turn left turn right). It’s about two people who live in the same building right next to each other, but have never met cos of their habit of walking only in a certain direction. One to the left, the other to the right.

They finally met at a park fountain and spent a happy day together. But it started raining and they exchanged numbers before heading in opposite directions. The rain smudged the phone numbers and they had no way of contacting each other, not knowing the other lives just next door separated only by a wall.

The illustrator got wildly popular for this particular book and a movie was made after it, spunning a series of merchandise and thereafter, a theme park was erected in Yilan, with structures and figurines from his books collection.

We took the Kamalan bus from Taipei Bus station (4th floor) to Yilan. It’s NT$129 (≈SG$6) and the entire journey was about an hour.We were a little lost when finally alighting at the Yilan main bus stop cos we didn’t know which way to go. The place was largely deserted and it took us some time before we caught a passer-by to ask for directions.

Basically, you need to walk to the right towards the train station as you can see below.

Once you get to the Yilan train station, you need to ask the staff for a pass to go to the front of the station (前站).

Go down the underpass…

Follow the sign to “Jimmy Plaza”.

It’s about 5-10 mins walk before you come out from the tunnel and… Voila! This is how the other side of the station looks like:

Just across the road, you can see the first installation of the Jimmy themed characters.

K literally monkey-ing around.

As it was near lunch time, we browsed the area for lunch.

Settled for some piping hot beef handmade noodles and tofu with century egg.

After lunch, we went back near the train station and headed for the main park.

It’s a 15 mins or so stroll to where the structures are.

The entire place is kinda small and you can probably cover the whole area in less than 10 mins. And if you spend some time waiting for your turn to take photos, maybe another 20 mins?

There’s quite a lot of locals and tourists when we were there.

And probably the most popular figurines…

The characters from Turn left turn right itself. I kinda like the following pic as well.

Across the road, there’s another few figurines but we didn’t bother cos it just seemed so redundant to queue another 15 mins to take some silly photos, lol~ The theme park was slightly run down but it’s a nice divergent from the usual Taipei itinerary I guess.

However, since it’s a tick off my to-dos in Taiwan, I probably won’t be coming back next time unless I’m passing through or something. Already expecting this part of the trip to be short, I had planned for another much anticipated activity in Yilan- Hot Spring!

少帅禅园 Shao Shuai Chan Yuan Hot Spring

Take No. 230 or 小25 public bus from the front of Yilan train station and drop off at 北文物馆 Bei wen wu guan. 少帅禅园 Hot Spring is located at No. 34, Youya Road.

It looks like a scene plucked right out from a kungfu movie.

The dusk view.

It costs about NT$1200 (≈SG$55) for a private bath (one hour).

I really liked the quiet atmosphere and you can see the Yilan greenery from the room.

We asked the kind staff to call a taxi for us back to Yilan train station, not wanting to wait for the bus. It’s another hour long trip back via the Kamalan anyway.

上瘾水产 Addiction Aquatic Development

Our last day’s brunch was spent at 上瘾水产, a Japanese seafood place.

We were introduced to this restaurant by a local taxi driver on our first night since it’s near where we were staying. The pic above is the exit, you have to walk further left inside for the entrance. There wasn’t much of a queue when we arrived cos as per the taxi uncle’s advice, we went earlier around 10 plus in the morning.

Quite an eye-opener cos there’s crabs three times larger than my hand.

And all of them can be ordered and cooked fresh.

The restaurant is separated into the aquatics area and the dining hall. Just the dining hall itself is further sectioned into the seated area, standing sushi bar and takeway/groceries area. Yes, this place is rather spacious. There’s even a second floor seated dining.

We chose the standing sushi bar cos it’s slightly cheaper compared to the seating area. Be prepared to wait a bit as there’s quite a queue. We took a number and shopped around the groceries aisle while waiting. Fortunately, there’s a lady who passed us her number for reasons unknown and we got in around 15 mins.

Although I pride myself on being slightly above average in Chinese language command, the menu still stumped me with curious names of various fish species and we ended up ordering a set meal and abalone that takes us back by about SG$50.

The soup was rather filling in itself. Not crazy about the grilled fish cos there’s alot of bones but see the white fish sushi on the wooden board? MUST TRY! I forgot the name of it already but it was sweet and soft and slides right down the throat and I can still remember the feeling now that I talked about it. Yum yum!

And that’s it for our Taiwan trip! Do share your experience with me if you’ve visited any of the mentioned places! ^^

 

Check out the full posts on our Taiwan trip here!