SATURDAY, MARCH 26, 2016
After doing laundry, I went up to Hsinchu to meet up with Tory, Rebecca, and Tracy. We ended up going to Big City. Big City is one of many department stores in Hsinchu. Big City is about 15- 20 minute walk from Hsinchu Train Station.
How To Get There
From Hsinchu Station, you can take out your cell phone and walk it or you can take the free shuttle bus. The bus comes every 20 minutes and the bus stop is across the street on the left side of the big SOGO department store. The bus ride can be between 5-10 minute depending on traffic.
Tom’s World
The best comparison I can make to what we have in the U.S. is Chuck E Cheese’s. Tom’s World is like the Chuck E. Cheese’s of Taiwan. Actually, it’s more of an arcade. I haven’t seen slides at Tom’s World. Yes, we’re twenty something girls and we had a blast at Tom’s World. You’ll find their games are slightly different from games in the U.S. My favorite is the four person air hockey table. It’s starts off simple enough with 4 players and 1 puck, and then 2 pucks, and then 60 small pucks. It’s so much fun.
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We gave DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) a try and found I should probably stick to dancing in my room alone. Where no one can see me dance.
Tracy and Rebecca tried a “hopper” game that was entertaining to watch them play. Meanwhile, Tory and I tried our luck at spinning and almost won.
It seemed we only won big with this ‘color roulette’ game they had. Tory put in the coin, Tracy and I each chose a color, and Rebecca pressed the button to stop the spin. It landed on our color and we got the max number of tickets you can get from the game. Yeah, we lost our chill.
The line was too long to exchange our tickets, so we just gave them to a random kid. We each exchanged 100NT for 20 tokens.
Movie Theater
Rebecca, Tory, and I then walked to the City God Temple Market. There’s a movie theater across the street that is only 100 NT! We grabbed some spring rolls from the market and went to watch the 5th wave.
How Taiwan Movie Theaters Differ from U.S. Movie Theaters
1. Seating: Typically, movie tickets are between 300 NT to 400NT and seats are assigned. So, you’ll be able to see where you’re going to sit. At this ‘discount’ movie theater, seats are not assigned. Yes, it’s cheaper, but if you don’t get there a little bit early and there are no more seats, you could end up standing in the back.
2. Food: You can bring outside food into the movie theater. I mean, let’s be honest. We’ve all gone to Walmart and bought candy and hide them in our bag. In Taiwan, you just don’t have to be discreet.
3. Showings: This ‘discount’ theater was a new experience for me. As Tory explained it to me, each theater shows two films. For instance, the theater we were in shows the 5th wave and another Chinese film. These two films are on loop all day. You can watch the one you were there to watch and stay to watch the next one because it literally starts right after it. Potentially, you could watch two films for the price of 100NT ($3 USD)!
4. That being said, don’t wait outside the theater for people to come out. We actually went in a few minutes before the movie ended and there’s a row of people just standing in the back. I thought they get seats, but they are actually there so they can snatch seats for the next viewing.
