Night Shopping at Ita Thao Shopping District (伊達邵商店街) @ Sun Moon Lake [Taiwan]

About ten years; that's how long it was since I last stepped on Yiyong Street! I still remember how crowded it was and my eyes went wide with excitement over the many street food and souvenirs shops.

Maybe it was pandemic, maybe it was mid-week, or maybe China has yet to relinquish their ruling on allowing more Chinese to visit Taiwan; it appeared to be not as bustling as I recalled.

Pity we just had dinner and my dad wasn't keen in sharing any snacks I was interested in. If it was Alex, I would have enticed him with something hot. 

I was however attracted to the calls of sampling for fruit vinegar, which were delicious! The lady was persuasive and I eventually parted with 600 Taiwan dollars for two bottles! 

Shop front for reference; I bet I could have bargained further to make full use of my marketing diploma but now that I am older, I am all for just securing a fair pricing instead of squeezing the profit margins of the businesses.

Aside from family mart, there's also a 7-11 convenience store! Do you know that Taiwan has over 6,700 7-11 branches? Malaysia, which is almost 10 times bigger, has only about 3,200 branches.

Generally, the shops in this district fall within four broad categories; street food, restaurants, local souvenir shops that sell trinkets and cultural, tribal stuff and those for tea, rice wine, fruit vinegar, honey.  

My intention was to save my shopping till the last few days in Taipei, so that I wouldn't have to lug along an increasingly heavier luggage! Having said that, I did progressively purchase some, especially when sampling was involved.

 

Contrast the two photographs; taken just minutes apart, one was at the busier Yiyong Street whereas the quieter one was the parallel Riyue Street. 

Another equally quiet street - the Wenhua Street where our hotel for the night, Einhan Resort, was located. Actually, Einhan Resort was connected to Yiyong Street as it had a side entrance there.

This brought much a lot of nice memory as I found the hotel that I stayed at ten years ago; Cherng Yuan Hotel! You can click here to find out more about my stay! 

Since I had more free time to spare ten years ago, it seemed a lot more fun back then; thanks to the memory stored in my blog; under day two of my Taiwan visit in 2014. That's why I enjoyed blogging as I am able to lock down how I feel then and make a comparison. 

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Address

Yiyong St, Yuchi Township, 

Nantou County, Taiwan 

Map

As above

Click HERE for the Summarized Itinerary for Our 8 Days 7 Nights See Iconic Taiwan Anew Tour Package via Chan Brothers