{"id":27932,"date":"2018-12-08T23:49:16","date_gmt":"2018-12-08T15:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=27932"},"modified":"2026-03-15T20:45:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T12:45:12","slug":"12-days-in-taiwan-day-02-shengxing-station-and-the-love-story-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2018\/12\/08\/12-days-in-taiwan-day-02-shengxing-station-and-the-love-story-hall\/","title":{"rendered":"12 Days in Taiwan \u2013 Day 02 \u2013 Shengxing Station and the Love Story Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

The next two stops after the strawberry farm were in the same area and literally almost beside each other. The first of the two was Shengxing Railway Station<\/strong>. We could easily tell that this was a well-known and popular tourist spot: on the slightly winding drive in, there were private vehicles and large tour buses already parked. There was a retail stretch on the road leading to the rail station with local snacks and produce, and woodwork artisans showcasing their works. Kudos to our driver, King Kong \u2014 he parallel-parked his fairly large yellow cab into a pretty tight spot, and even Ling \u2014 with her better-than-normal parallel parking ability \u2014 was impressed.<\/p>\n

The railway station itself was completed in 1905, and functioned as a working station for more than 90 years before the 1998 earthquake damaged the rail line so badly that the government stopped its operation. The railway station has since continued its existence as a tourist spot.<\/p>\n

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Both sides of the road leading up to the station are lined with cafes and shops.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Trying to spot interesting picture perspectives: this one is of wildflowers with the rail in the background.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Taian and Sanyi in either direction.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Don’t let this picture fool you: there were throngs of crowds \u2014 they are just behind me as I took this picture!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Check out those two dudes on the left!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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To get the car moving, use your feet!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A lot of tourists opted for the tram ride on the old railway track: we skipped it. Peter looks sad.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

About a 5-minute uphill walk away from Shengxing Station is \u52dd\u8208\u611b\u60c5\u6545\u4e8b\u9928 \u2014 or literally, the Shengxing Love Story Hall<\/strong>. This wasn’t on our original itinerary but Kong brought us there for a look. The place is fairly small, and comprises a house\/restaurant that’s fairly dense with cute props, toys and furniture that again provided plenty of photo opportunities. There was an admission charge, but the charges there can be redeemed if you dine at the restaurant \u2014 which we did. The admission also includes photographs that their in-house photographer \u2014 toting a Canon DSLR and 70\u2013200mm f2.8 L lens \u2014 will take for you. You’d be able to choose one of those pictures for a complimentary hardcopy print too. The original digital JPGs can also be purchased for NTD100\/SGD4.45 each. A little pricey, but you get to choose the ones you’d like to purchase, and the staff were very nice about it too and didn’t push or pressure us into making any kind of purchase to begin with.<\/p>\n

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The piano was badly in need of a retune, but H made do and did well enough for the restaurant staff to compliment how well she could play for her age.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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House pets! A very tame dog who let the two kids stroke him.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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But H really loved the few-month-old but very shy kitten!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Hope the two don’t get any ideas!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Lunch was hearty: three lunch sets with beverages, and an additional bucket of nuggets just for fun. LOL. Cost us NTD929\/SGD41.40 after discounts had been applied.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Taken by the in-house photographer. If only I had the RAW files to work with: I’d do some corrections on the utterly blown highlights in the backdrop just behind Peter.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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We didn’t walk the short hop from Shengxing Station: Kong drove! There’s a nifty amusement center just downhill from the Love Story Hall that features a child-friendly go-kart-like race track.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Next stop: Zhongshe Tourism Flower Market<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The next two stops after the strawberry farm were in the same area and literally almost beside each other. The first of the two was Shengxing Railway Station. We could easily tell that this was a well-known and popular tourist<\/p>\n

Read More 12 Days in Taiwan \u2013 Day 02 \u2013 Shengxing Station and the Love Story Hall<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27934,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[608,613,618],"class_list":["post-27932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-traveling","tag-sony-a7-iii","tag-sony-fe-24-105mm-f4-0","tag-taiwan-2018","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/blog-2018-taiwan-day-02-A7_09138-dahu-shengxing-rail.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27932"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38582,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27932\/revisions\/38582"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}