Changhua Travel and Cuisine

Pitch black and 20 meters tall, this is the famous Buddha statue that sits atop Bagua Mountain. You know, this used to be a strategic military point because you can look over the Taichung and Changhua plains from here. Now it��s just a great view for the statue and its visitors.

Everybody says that when you come to Changhua, you must try the "ba-wan" here. What is a "ba-wan?" Well, it's a kind of a meatball. Let me show you.

Even though it's steamed, it'll still get cold. We just need to heat it up a little bit.

��Ba-wan�� are dumplings that are first steamed then fried in Changhua. The outside is made of sweet potato flour and the inside is a pork filling. Gentle frying it makes the outside al dente. It��s popular as a snack or as part of a meal. Sweet sauce made of rice flour and savory sauce made from broth are both added to it when eaten.

After a couple of ba-wan's, you're bound to be stuffed and ready for a walk. This is Changhua��s Confucius Temple, built 285 years ago.

And this is a fan-shaped train garage, another historical site.

During the Japanese occupation, several were built in Taiwan, but this is the only one that��s still in use, and you might have to go to Japan or Poland to see another one of these. The tracks fan out in a radial shape, and trains engines are maneuvered into the garage for maintenance with help of a turntable.

Changhua��s is one of the fewer traveled places in Taiwan, but it��s an area with lots of stories waiting to be discovered.