First-time in Zhongshe Flower Market

My second trip to Taiwan was met with rainy days. Good thing that the sun shone brightly during our visit to the Zhongshe Flower Market or Chungshe Flower Garden. If my first trip to Taiwan brought me around Taipei and to New Taipei City in the north (READ: First-time in Taiwan), my recent trip gave me the opportunity to explore other areas in Taipei and towards the south in Taichung City.

Getting to Zhongshe Flower Market

Most of the sites about Zhongshe Flower Market that I’ve read indicated that the travelers went there through a packaged tour. While they also indicated how to get to the site by bus or van, they weren’t as detailed as I hoped it would be. At, 9:30 am, we set off to the Taipei Main Station, which you can access via MRT (red line or blue line), bus or cab. It’s a 20-minute walk from our hotel, but with an elderly in tow, we took a taxi to the Taipei Main Station which cost us NTD 95 (about USD 3).

There’s a visitor information center inside the station, where you can also inquire. There are two options to get to the Zhongshe Flower Market. We could buy tickets to Taian station and walk 20 minutes from there. But as we prefer to take the cab from the train station to the market, we were told to buy tickets to the Houli Station of Taichung (next station after Taian) where taxis are lined up that could take us the garden.

At the main lobby of the station, we lined up to get our tickets for the local train. There were many counters and transactions were fast. There’s a digital signage indicating the next counter available where you can buy your tickets. It was already 9:50 am at that time. The one at the counter gave us tickets to Houli that was to leave at 10:05 am. Each ticket cost NTD 210 per person (almost USD 7 per person). The next train would leave at 11:06 am. Even though we haven’t had any breakfast, we decided to take the tickets for 10:05 am. He told us to proceed to Platform 3 where the train bound to Chiayi will pass by. Our train was 2173 via Mountain Line (Keelung to Chiayi).

Since we weren’t familiar with the station and the platforms, we went down to Platform 3 without buying any food. There are several food stalls at the Main Station’s lobby but we were afraid that we would miss our train. In hindsight, we should have quickly bought some food because the train ride took 2 hours and 36 minutes long.

After 32 train stops, we arrived at the Houli Station, which was unique because of its vertical gardens. At the Houli Station, we exited to Jiahou Road and immediately found a café nearby where we had some noodle soup and sandwiches. After our meal, we took a cab just outside the Houli Station that took us to Zhongshe Flower Market. Please note that taxi drivers charge a rate of NTD 200 (around USD 6.50) from Houli Station to Zhongshe and vice versa. For more information on the train schedules, please refer to this link.

Entering Zhongshe Flower Market and BBQ Spot

The façade of the garden is unassuming and really looked like a flower market where pots of various plants are put on sale. As we walked through what seemed like a fusion of greenhouse and market, we also passed by the indoor barbecue spot. It looked like a food court on both sides. If you dine at the BBQ-on-the-spot restaurant, it will entitle you a free entrance to the Flower Fields Zone.

The place is good for the family as there are play areas, claw machines and other gaming machines inside the BBQ zone. Children can also enjoy a mini-playground right outside the covered area.

All kinds of barbecue ingredients are available and are unlimited. There are things that diners should note when using the BBQ zone. Pets are not allowed in this area. There’s a table limit of 150 minutes, and an extra charge of NTD 50 (about USD 1.60) for the use of cooking utensils if there are less than four guests. More info on the rates and barbeque ingredients in this link.

Exploring the Flower Fields

A few steps from the flower market and the BBQ zone is the flower fields. Since we came only for this, we paid the tickets to enter the place. Please note that from January to March, full-price tickets are NTD 150 (or about USD 4.87) per adult (junior high students and older) while half-price tickets are at NTD 75 (or USD 2.44) for children of 3 to 12 years old, persons with disability, and elderly aged 65 years old and above. However, between April to December, the full price is NTD 120 (or USD 3.90) and the half price is NTD 60 (or USD 1.95).

As we entered the area, colorful flower beds met our eyes. There were also vertical gardens and various attractions around the flower fields. Some make as wonderful backdrops for wedding photographs. There’s the Pavilion of Happiness, the European Fairy Tale Cottage, Wedding Gown Arch, White Piano, Moon, and other Instagram-worthy spots.

The flower fields are filled with flowers of various kinds such as rose, tulip, lily, cosmos, calla lily, marigold, lotus, and many more. We took our time going around the different flower beds.

Zhongshe Flower Garden is open from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm. For more information, visit http://www.flowerjs.com.tw.

Contact details:

Chungshe Flower Garden
No. 333, Section 5, Sanfeng Road, 
Houli District, Taichung City 
Reservation Line Tel. 04-2557-6926 
Fax Phone Tel. 04-2557-3047 
Email: [email protected]