Taiwan 2012 – Sun & Green Leisure Farm

I’m back, and am finally blogging about my Taiwan trip!

After our 42-day trip to Europe, we were craving for another long holiday but as we have already started work, we aren’t able to take so many days of leave. So after some planning, we took 13 days of leave, and with 2 public holidays and 4 weekends, we ended up with 22 days of long holiday, which we decided to take spend it on Taiwan. X planned the whole trip and took almost all the photos during our stay in Taiwan while I’m mostly in charged of deciding where and what to eat… which I love doing haha :p

Our trip in Taiwan was in August, which, to be perfectly honest, is not a great time to go because of the sweltering heat, extremely high humidity, slightly unpredictable weather (sunny in the morning, rainy in the afternoon), rampant mosquitoes and the possibility of typhoons happening. In fact, when we arrived, Typhoon Saola just left Taiwan, so we were really lucky that our plan weren’t delayed because of the typhoon. However, there are still some things that we can only see in August, like the day lilies on Sixty Stone Mountain (which I’ll be blogging about in later posts)

For now, let’s head back to the farm!

Sunflowers standing tall after the “attack” from Typhoon Saola the previous day.

Sunflower is my favourite flower (so bright and cheerful!) and I’ve always wanted to visit a sunflower farm, so Sun & Green Leisure Farm was the first place that we head to upon reaching Taiwan (because it’s located pretty near to the airport). We took a cab from the airport (Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport) to the farm – it was a little hard to find, but there were plenty of signs indicating which way you should go when you’re nearing the farm. It was amazing, being greeted by a field of sunflowers!

At more than 59,000 square metres (more than 635,000 square foot; about 6 hectares), Sun & Green Farm is the largest sunflower farm in Northern Taiwan. Sunflowers commonly grow to heights between 1.5 metres to 3.5 metres (5 to 12 feet). However, the owner (I think only 28 years old or early 30s) of the farm has successfully breed sunflowers that reaches only to our waist (or shorter than that), making it easy for people to bring home the sunflowers.

The sunflowers are very pretty, but I wish to go to a farm in the future where the sunflowers are as tall as me!

Besides the sunflower fields, there are also some benches and tables on fields for family gatherings.

A pond for people to feed the ducks.

Happy ducks swimming around, waiting for people to feed them. They’re so happy-go-lucky and carefree looking!

There are also mini animal farms at the Sun & Green Leisure Farm where goats and rabbits were kept. Animal feed can be bought to feed them.

A speciality the farm sells is the Sunflower Tea (NT50). There’s a small shop just next to the sunflower fields.

Comes in cold or hot, you can customize the drink by choosing the amount of sweetness and ice (normal, 50% or none). We chose 50% sweetness and 50% ice – it was extremely thirst quenching but the taste didn’t wow us (tasted a little like chrysanthemum tea to me).

Mixing the drink!

There’s also a souvenir shop where we came out almost empty-handed, except for a tub of ice cream. There are 4 flavours available: sunflower (wonder how it’ll taste…), lavender, lotus and dragon fruit.

Chose the lavender one! (NT40)

The flavour is pretty subtle, not really my type of ice cream, but a great treat for such hot weather!

And here are the details of the farm!

Sun and Green Leisure Farm (向阳农场)

Address	No. 52, Lanpu Village, Guanyin Township, Taoyuan County(桃園縣觀音鄉藍埔村11鄰52號)
Contact number	03-4870629
Opening hours	9am – 6pm (closed on Mondays)They grow different types of sunflowers and other flowers during different seasons, so you can visit the farm all year round!
Admission	Free admission all year round
Recommended time	2 to 3 hours
Budget	~NT200 for snacks and drinks(Not sure about lunch and souvenirs)
Website:	Sun & Green Leisure Farm (in Chinese only)
How to get there (Chinese version)	1) Cab from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (~NT800) The ride is about 45 minutes to 1 hour. You can also get the driver’s phone number so that you can call him to pick you up later. The people at the farm are very nice, we managed to leave our luggage at the souvenir shop while we walk around the farm. 2) Cab from Taoyuan HSR (~NT550) Take a HSR (High Speed Rail) from Taipei to Taoyuan for NT155 per person (20 minutes train ride). Get a cab from Taoyuan HSR and cab down to the place. 3) Take the Taoyuan Bus from Zhongli Station (中壢車站) (NT47) The bus goes from (Jhongli – Sinpo – Guanyin). Alight at TECO Electric shop and take a cab to the farm (unless you want to walk 40 minutes to get there).