Entree Kibbles: March 2024

Sunday, March 31, 2024

Hua Lu Flower Home (花露農場) @ Miaoli in Taiwan

Farm tours are always fun and more so when we are on tour packages!

Our tour guide will help buy the tickets, which would be part of our pricing paid for the tour package, and there will be someone assigned to bring us around. There are some disadvantages, which I would also include in this post.

The way in; walking past manicured flower beds, cute sculptures, koi-filled ponds etc. Since we had to follow the farm guide, here's the first advantage; not much time to take photographs but our tour guide did mention we would some free time later on.

Problem was, the flower home was humongous and I know tour packages usually don't allocate a lot of time. That's both a disadvantage and an advantage; latter because I would have to efficiently make use of the limited time!

Our first stop was this educational area filled with many plants. Frankly, if I were to travel solo or without tour package, this would have been so wasted on me.

Would you have known about their benefits just by looking at the plants? For me, the only recognizable one shall be the last picture; it's citronella and you would know by rubbing your fingers against the leaves, and smelling them.

This was fascinating; the seeds tasted like wasabi! We were encouraged to pluck and eat as the plants were not sprayed with any insecticide. Free one, I sure try; and imagine that moment when you realized it indeed had that wasabi flavor, without the nose-numbing punch.

Some plants had signage in Chinese, which allowed me to know what they were. I can pronounce doesn't mean I know what they would be used for though. I only know the first one, he shou wu, is good to hair growth!

Always nice to see bees collecting pollen from flowers.

Plus, I love honey drinks.

You know the tea tree oil? It's actually the above plant and its official name is melaleuca alternifolia. We shall be using the plant soon to DIY our own tea tree insect repellent!

Second stop: Aroma Boutique.

Guide explaining the history of the farm, including the distillation processes and equipment used to extract essential oil. Scientific stuff that seems to make us more informed but I bet we would forget 95% of them when we are back home.

A good timing to also let us try their products, in the hope that we would buy some to increase sales! Honestly, I have nothing against this kind of marketing gimmick but sometimes, as consumers, we do not really have a good grasp of knowledge to make an informed decision.

Prices were not cheap too! Take for example this rosemary shampoo; I have always been concerned about my hairline and thinning hair and the beneficial effects from the shampoo were so tempting! But almost S$100 for two small bottles were too hard for me to stomach. I shall save the money and maybe opt for hair implant at Bangkok instead.

The selling continued and I must say the guide was so convincing! Thankfully, I have a "strong" heart and my dad, a super stingy person, was dissuading me from spending my money.

Before we stepped into the room for our DIY tea tree insect repellent activity, it's a must to wash our hands. Oh well, washing hands are important to remove germs, virus and bacteria; we should learn about it during the pandemic.

Over here at Hua Lu Flower Home, there was this natural liquid that would work itself into a lather for handwashing! Of course, you can purchase the product from the shop too!

Let's start to make our very own tea tree insect repellent!

Photographs of the retail wing. The items were enticing and I eventually rationalized that this was only day two of my trip and I should leave it to fate to decide if there were more of such "farms" for me to make some comparison. It's so easy to overspend when one is on tour package!

Zen mood.

What's the price like now for essential oils?

I thought S$30 for such a small bottle is quite expensive...

Outside Aroma Boutique which had an open field with a nice, little cottage at the far end! Just one photograph of dad as we were being ushered to have our lunch first!

Our balanced lunch at one of the farm's restaurants.

Free and easy after that for an hour!

Landscaped garden with pots of flowers that made it into a huge and impressive art piece! Imagine if I have a drone to take some spectacular pictures from high up!

There's an elevated platform that helped!

Looked like a painting made by tufting!

Back to the field with the cottage.

A disused mini-train track; I bet this was maybe a former attraction for kids to take a ride around the garden. I remember something similar at Sun Moon Lake's Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village.

This tree would be very pretty at night when night falls and the lights are activated. Hua Lu Flower Home allows overnight stays but I doubt I am willing to pay S$200 a night.

Permanent, farm-provided props for photo-taking. I am not complaining as the temperature then was really soothing and I think it just made my mood a lot more relaxed, and happier I guess. Singapore is just so freaking hot!

I am going to name this section, the flame of phoenixes; a majority of red, orange, purple! One thing I realized was that flower pots were generally used for display; does that mean you can choose any pot and decide to buy it there and then? Ingenious of the farm if that's e case.

Let's have the rose ice cream from Roses Bar!

Click here for more information.

Checking out the treetop walk above Roses Bar; okay, treetop was a bit too pushing the limit and I guess mid-tree walk was more correct.

Helicopter view from mid-tree walk!

There was this cool treetop hut in the shape of an owl and I thought it would house something special; turned out to be an empty shell. Even a table and some chairs within would have been nice.

Chanced upon this indoor orchid garden that's at the far end of the farm, along a route that most people wouldn't even both stepping on. Most of our tour mates were just staying put around the close vicinity of Roses Bar.

Aroma Boutique concentrates on scents and essential oils whereas this retail shop was focused on flowers and ornamental plants, which wouldn't attract too much attention from us as Singapore authorities require a plant health certificate for plants with a potting medium.

Dad was enamored with this pot of Rose Christmas Red. Priced at just 200 Taiwan Dollars (less than S$10), I guess we are not crazy enough to haul this back home, even if we could secure a plant health certificate!