After settling in and getting over my jetlag, Thom and I headed to Changhua, which is approximately 13 km from Yuanlin, 30 minutes with the scooter. We took the scenic route, which is nothing like the Rocky Mountains, but a nice change from concrete.

Changhua serves as my first cultural experience on this trip. Apparently, one of the largest Buddha statues in Asia resides in Changhua. That’s enough reason to go, right? Absolutely!

The statue is of the Buddha Gautama (or Sakyamuni), is 23 meters high and overlooks the city, while sitting on a lotus flower. Inside Gautama, different scenes of Buddha have been recreated so you can learn a bit about how he came to be Buddha.

If you are lucky, you can climb to the top of Buddha (by using the stairs provided) and reward yourself with a view of the city. We were not lucky enough, but there is a wooden sidewalk when you enter the premises and from there, you have a very decent view as well.

Once you are done with Buddha, you should check out the temple behind him, go all the way up, as you have another view of he city, plus the temple has brilliant colors. Towards the back of the Temple are two pagodas and in between the two is a very nice little garden with a koi pond.

It was then time to get lunch. We drove down to the city and ate at a local “imbiss”. They cooked right in front of us, kind of like a Japanese grill, fresh cabbage, bean sprouts, your choice of meat, rice, and tea. All for a whopping 2 Euros! I’d like to be able to tell you where it was, but all I can say is that it is close to 7-11, but that won’t help, since there is at leat one 7-11 on every block.

Afterwards, we headed over to Changhua County Art Museum. It is th largest and best equipped county art museum in Central Taiwan. And free of charge! But unfortunately, if you don’t speak Mandarin, then you won’t be able to appreciate much because nothing I translated in any language, although the brochure is in English.

After checking out the exhibits, which only took 30 minutes because of the language issue, we headed back home.

Thom and family have taken a vacation day and we are heading to Taipei for the weekend. This will be my first family vacation in quite sometime. 😉