Trip to Hsinchu: From the Main Station to the East Gate

Part one of my short trip to Hsinchu, 2010

Hsinchu (also Xinzhu or Chinese 新竹, pronounced something like "Sheen-choo") is one of the biggest cities in Taiwan (with around 400.000 inhabitants), located in the northwestern part of the island. My girlfriend and I decided to visit it and do some sightseeing and to try some local food. It was just a day trip with the train from Banqiao. It took us only about 1h to reach there. We could have taken the high-speed train, that only needs 15min, but we wanted to save the money for food, especially for Hsinchu's delicacy: the famous rice noodles. Besides that, Hsinchu is famous for it's colorful history, the glass industry and for being one of the richest cities in Taiwan.

Let me show you what we saw that day:

The Hsinchu train station near the tracks.

Inside the main train station.

Outside the Hsinchu Main Train Station. It was built in 1913 by the Japanese.¹

Main road near the train station.

Motorcycles are very common here as well, like in most of Taiwan.

A Sogo shopping mall. There's one in almost every Taiwanese city.

We were headed to the famous East Gate.

The beautiful Chin Hsue Park and the historic moat in the central area of Hsinchu.

The famous East Gate (東門), one of the four big historic gates of the city.² The other 3 were destroyed by the Japanese.

Read my post about the old Hsinchu City East gate here>>

The East Gate is a popular venue for rock concerts. It's really a cool place to hear rock music and see many young people enjoying the historic site in their own way.

The crowded East Gate on a Sunday: Taiwan's youth enjoys some solid rock music.

The crowd is very colorful: Tough guys together with girly girls.

Good music and cute girls. What more reasons do you need to visit Hsinchu?

The East Gate from the other side.

And then we were headed to the City God Temple and the day market nearby.

Read more about that in my part 2 of the 2010 Hsinchu trip>>

[My TAIWAN page][My HSINCHU page][Info: [1][2][All photos by MKL, 2010]

Trip to Hsinchu: From the City God Temple to City Hall

Part two of my short trip to Hsinchu, 2010

Continuing from part 1, here are more photos of our Hsinchu trip 2010. We went to try some local food and then slowly walk back home. It was a short, but refreshing trip. Let me share our images of Hsinchu with you:

A nice little temple on the way to the City God temple.

Streets in Hsinchu are straight, long and mostly clean.

The City God Temple Night Market (城隍廟夜市). Read about it here>>

Looks like the Singaporean Merlion, but it's not. It's a fishlion or something.

The Fishlion close-up. Read about the real Merlion here>>

The famous Chenghuang temple or City God temple.

After we tried the yummy food, we were walking around a bit, but didn't go far.

Looks like an old house from the Japanese times.

Another old building in Hsinchu.

Hsinchu City Hall or the City government building.

The crossing near the government building. We made a turn and headed back.

A shuttle bus to a famous shopping mall, seen here quite often.

A lovely building on the way back to the train station.

And then we were back to the historic moat, which is one of the most beautiful spots of the city. It's very peaceful. People feed the fish or just sit and take a break. I really like this part the most.

All in all, Hsinchu is worth a day trip, but more than a day would certainly be a bit hard to fill with sightseeing, because it's not a classical tourist destination like some other Taiwanese towns, such as Wulai or Jiufen. But that's just me, maybe for you Hsinchu is so amazing, you want to spend a week there. I'd certainly be happy for you and would look forward to read about it. Read also part 1 of my trip, if you haven't.

[My TAIWAN page][My HSINCHU page][Info: Source][All photos by MKL, 2010]