Got kids? Take 'em to Taichung!

Taiwan Parenting
1

Seriously, your kids should love it. Taichung is not just KTV, binglang girls, and love motels. Though there’s nothing wrong with all that. It’s also a great place to take your kids.

They’ve got a science museum that surpasses anything I’ve seen in Taipei, with lifesize dinosaur skeletons and, better yet, lifesize realistic looking automated dinosaurs that move their heads and tails and roar. Very realistic looking. And there’s a great grassy park behind the museum.

Better yet, they’ve got a terrific modern art museum that also surpasses anything comparable in Taipei and I guarantee your young kid will love it. I know what you’re thinking. Art museum = booooring. But in this case you’re wrong. As an adult, I enjoyed the huge impressive architecture of the place, surrounded by lots of grass, trees and sculptures, and the nice art displayed inside. But my 2 year old also couldn’t get enough of the place.

They’ve got an outstanding hands-on play area upstairs that rivals the exploratorium in San Francisco, with numerous art-themed play areas that can easily thrill your kid for hours: giant foam colored blocks, building houses out of large colorful cardboard pieces, drawing with markers on glass, etc. You’ll have to drag your kid reluctantly out of there at the end.

And downstairs is the best childrens’ library I’ve ever seen, built like disneyland, with an arctic scene complete with igloo, a rainforest scene, a castle scene, and so forth, each with great painted structures and scenery that the kids are thrilled to run through and explore, but with pockets of book shelves all over the place, covered with great childrens books, and the kids all seemed thrilled also to stop, grab books and sit down and read.

We stayed in the Landis hotel, which was very nice and cost NT$3300 (maybe a lot for some poor teachers, but a very reasonable rate for a nice hotel). There are lots of great restaurants in Taichung, and on this last visit we went to the art museum two days in a row with none of us (not adults or child) tiring of the place.

Taichung :thumbsup:

Childrens's Art Museum in Taichung
2

Great post, MT! Thanks for the info. I hadn’t known about the great museums in Taichung–and how kid-friendly they are.

Thanks for the hotel rec, too.

Looks as if we’ll be heading down to Taichung at some point.

3

Wow I had no idea! Sounds really great.

Thanks MT

4

That rate you got at the landis… Was that a special rate? Did you get a Taiwanese person to book it? I took the Mrs there a few years back, and it set us back nearly 5 grand for the night. Also, I have to say that the Landis in Taipei is the best of the 4 we have stayed at. Very fancy rooms!

Other great things about Taichung:

  1. Da-ken.
  2. Less humidity.
  3. MUCH MUCH (I can’t stress this point enough) cheaper than Taipei.
  4. Art street and TungHai University area.
  5. More tea stalls, now is the time for a Mango Bin-sha!
  6. Loads of little bum-fart towns to trip through… Dadu, Dajia, Shalu etc.
  7. GOLD CLASS cinema at Tiger city. (A regular cinema with a mere 30 seats inside, theyfully recline to a bed position, and there is a regular waitress service, and beer! All for 400 dollars each!!! Taichungs best kept secret!)
5

Cin Shuei! Don’t forget Cin Shuei, my happy, little bum-fart town!

6

[quote=“Dr_Zoidberg”][quote=“TomHill”]
Other great things about Taichung:

Loads of little bum-fart towns to trip through… Dadu, Dajia, Shalu etc.
[/quote]

Qingshui! Don’t forget Qingshui, my happy, little bum-fart town![/quote]

And Qingshui.

Why are these places great? You’ll be the first big-noses to trip through in a while, apart from the good Doctor Z of course, and they will fawn all over your kiddies!

7

I had no idea either, but I’ve been discovering how great Taichung is on the last few visits. While there are other draws , I’d put the art museum at the top of your list if you have kids. As I said, we went there two days in a row with no complaints from any of us (and we could return again in a month or two and enjoy it again).

Oh, it may have been.

Yes, my Taiwanese wife booked it and (a) she’s very clever about getting discount rates and (b) I’m guessing it may have been a special rate due to use of our AmEx cards, but I’m not sure.

8

好可愛好可愛好可愛. Can’t wait.

9

And don’t forget nearby Dungshih 東勢 if you like authentic Hakka food or a scenic mountain drive.

10

You can rent a bicycle in Shangang and take the bicycle road all the way to Dongshih, about 8km away. This ride will take you past wreckage from the 921 earthquake (see my yahoo photos). It’s a great day’s outing. In fact, I’m thinking it might even make a good Forumosa (Taichung) Social Event: A weekend bike ride and lunch. If we could score some of Belgian Pie’s pastries in Fengyuan… :ponder:

11

well why not staying at the splendor hotel next time?
it’s right beside the science museum and we often have package discounts

don’t hesitate to PM me if you’re thinking of it…

12

Spent the night in Taichung again (on xmas eve) and, as always, greatly enjoyed our trip. Especially if you have young kids and haven’t been to Taichung’s art and science museums, you really owe it to them. They’re better than any art or science museums in Taipei (Taipei’s National museum is crap by comparison; Ju Ming’s nice, but Taichung’s museum is better), lots of fun for kids and adults, inside and out. And, Taichung has abundant great restaurants and things to explore.

As for the museums, here are the great, life-size, robotic dinasaurs in the science museum.

Here they are in action.
youtube.com/watch?v=BK-XEmy29Jw

Here’s just a tiny portion of the great children’s play area in the art museum.

I wish I’d had more time this morning to upload additional photos, because both museums are great. Both have large, beautiful lawns outside that are fun to explore. The art museum is surrounded by interesting sculptures and, in addition to the fun play area upstairs, also has a fantastic library downstairs – one of a kind – in which kids can run through the colorful and fairly realistic igloo, rainforest, egyptian pyramids, etc, to rummage through the shelves of nice childrens books scattered about.

And, of course, it’s an art museum too, with rotating and often interesting shows. Presently they’ve got a decent collection of French romantic oil paintings from the late 1800’s. Not the caliber of Renoir, Matisse, Picasso, Van Gogh, but still very interesting works. It was the first exposure to such works for both my wife and daughter and they both greatly enjoyed even that part of the whole experience.

This was our fourth visit to Taichung and those museums and parents and child are not bored yet. I’m sure we’ll return and enjoy them again. We always stay at the Landis, which is very nice and convenient. If one has AmEx, as we do, they offer a special rate of NT$3300, which is a terrific deal. Their regular rate is NT$5000 something. Finally, Taichung’s only a 3 hour drive from Taipei. Not bad.

13

MT, did you see the terracotta warriors? They’re still here for a while I think. Must get myself to the museum and see them!

14

They are there, in the science museum. I saw posters for them in the museum and samples on display to lure one into the show and replicas on sale in the museum, but we had a young child, a full menu, and enjoyed the dinos, so we passed on them. Certainly if we were at their original site in China, we wouldn’t have missed them. Oh, well, maybe we should have checked them out. But we had a good time anyway.

15

Just wanted to check that you didn’t stay at the hotel ONE owned by Landis?
taichung.hotelone.com.tw/

My 5yo has been dying to go inside to see the ONE building and I was wondering if you or anyone on a trip to Taichung has ever gone there. I hear they have a couple restaurants there, although I think at least one of them is ultra-fancy/has dress code. So no taking the young kids there. I don’t think they have an observation deck either. So has anyone been there?? If so, what did you do and how was it?

16

They are there, in the science museum. I saw posters for them in the museum and samples on display to lure one into the show and replicas on sale in the museum, but we had a young child, a full menu, and enjoyed the dinos, so we passed on them. Certainly if we were at their original site in China, we wouldn’t have missed them. Oh, well, maybe we should have checked them out. But we had a good time anyway.[/quote]

Saw them (with everybody else on the planet) on Sunday. Pretty impressive, and detailed to the point of being individualised to an amazing degree. Too, too crowded to see all clearly. My kids(8 & 10) loved it all but did enjoy the activities at the Art Gallery more.

17

After reading this thread, I decided to take my two kids (3 and 6) down to Taichung to stay at the Landis and visit the Science and Art museums there.

The Landis was beautiful and we got a special internet deal of 3666nt per night for a deluxe room with one king sized bed. Our room was excellent and the breakfast buffet was awesome. The only criticism would be that at the hotel pool, they expected my two young sons to go BY THEMSELVES through the men’s changing room to the family changing room on the other side. Reason being that some hotel guests complain about having members of the opposite sex in the dressing rooms. I flatly refused to send my 3 year old, and after they insistes that it was barely ten feet to the family changing room, I agreed to let my older son go with a male attendant. The walk through was confusing and much longer than they said it was, and the male attendant left my 6 year old son ALONE next to the pool while I was looking for him! The next day after they still refused to let my older son go with me after that scary episode, I just pulled both my kids through the women’s changing room with the attendants trailing behind yelling at us. But otherwise, it was great.

The Science Museum was very impressive, and the look on my sons’ faces when they saw the lifelike dinosaurs was priceless. They also had a cool human reproduction exhibit with a giant womb you can climb into and hear the baby/mother’s heartbeat! Lots of other really cool stuff- needed at least a full day or two long mornings to see everything.

The Art Museum was nice as well- although with very small children it was a bit nerveracking walking past exhibits with only a piece of gray duct tape on the floor that says “Do not cross this line.” At the children’s activity area, they had lots of cool things to explore- things to build and draw with, dress up stuff, etc. But there were also lots of rules to follow and attendants would pop up out of nowhere if you were even close to not following one of them (which included no loud noises and no running) which also made it a bit less enjoyable.

The parks outside both museums, as the previous poster said, were awesome and we spent just as much time exploring the parks as in the actual museums!

Taichung really is a must-visit place for anyone with kids! We were very satisfied, and it was only a two hour drive straight down the highway from Taipei.

18

I’ve lived in Taichung for 5 1/2 years now…and I’ve never gone to the Art Museum~ amazing… when my daughter gets past the stage of ripping every piece of paper she can find, then I’ll definately be taking her… Thanks

The Science Museum on the other hand, is somewhere I’ve been plenty of times… great place for kids, and quite a lot of interesting things to see… The park is fairly nice, and often used for wedding photos too~

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My wife mentioned this to me today… found out about it last week… it’s free for March, but starts charging from April we believe…

Taichung Children’s Art Museum (in Chinese)

artsfun.com.tw/
taichung.gov.tw/file_news/VTS_01_1.wmv

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相關訊息您可以上我們臺中縣文化局首頁與臺中兒童藝術館網站聯結，也可以點選兒童藝術館簡介片，歡迎到時大朋友帶著小朋友，闔家一起來遊玩。
臺中兒童藝術館開館試營運
時間/96.3.1至96.4.3止
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專屬網站http://www.artsfun.com.tw/work.htm 電話/04-24862948
[/quote]

20

Can someone post the address of the Science Museum in Taichung. Enough comments about it, but I didn’t see any links or address.