Fencihu. Fancy, how?

Fencihu is a one street village that spills down a hill. The top part of the street is very narrow and is lined with shops selling snacks and souvenirs. The rain was incredibly heavy but fortunately “snack street” was covered with a tarp so we didn’t get wet as we sampled bean jam buns, the hottest wasabi on the planet and ginger tea.


Fencihu is famous for “railway lunchboxes” which are basically a Taiwanese take on Japanese bento boxes. I liked them more than Japanese bentos for 2 reasons. Firstly, the food was hot (in Japan food has always gone cold). Secondly, they are packaged in biodegradable containers. In Japan there is so much plastic and polystyrene involved when packaging a bento. The Japanese versions are definitely more artistic however with prettily cut taro leaved for garnish and so on whereas in Fencihu everything is just piled on top of the rice. We liked them so much that we had lunch boxes for lunch and dinner that day.










We stayed at a hotel called Fancylake which must be a play on words (fenci=fancy??) as it wasn’t fancy and there is no lake. “Hu” in Chinese means lake, but Fencihu incorporates a dry basin rather than a lake. Our room was Japanese style, but far nicer than any ryokan we have ever stayed in in Japan. I would actually consider decorating a room this way as it took the essentials of a Japanese room such as tatami mats and futons, but added funky furniture, sympathetic artwork and inventive lighting. My version would also include somewhere to sit that has back support however. I can’t perch on a cushion for long, I’m not used to it. The bath was hilarious. I took a photo of David squashed in it but I promised I wouldn't post it on my blog. If you e-mail me, I’ll send it to you. I couldn’t stop laughing for a full hour.




















The views from the hotel would have been great if the weather had been better. It had been raining non-stop, but eased a little around dusk so we put on our hiking boots and waterproofs and took a walk up to see the ruins of a Japanese Shinto shrine. There wasn’t a lot to see, but it was a great spooky little walk in the foggy half-light up the stone steps. Sadly, that would be the only hiking we would do in Taiwan.