August 25, 2013 --- Shin Kong Chao Feng Leisure Farm is my favorite farm of all on Taiwan's east coast! Nathan and I took a taxi from the Sugar Factory to the farm and it cost about NT$ 500. The entrance ticket for an adult is NT$ 350 or about US$ 12, which is kind of expensive for Taiwan. Inside you can rent a bike for NT$ 100-150 (2 hours) biking around the farm or rent a mini golf cart for 2 hours for NT$ 500.
Nathan and I rented bicycles and biked through the farm. Chao Feng Farm is a huge place, but with a bike, it is a lot easier to enjoy the scenery of the entire farm. I particularly liked the "petting zoo" because I got to touch and feed the animals. The zoo had a variety of animals, ranging from very basic pets like rabbits to rare animals like camels and zebras. One of the odd things they had was raccoons, and they had a ton of them! I don't think people from the West like America will be fascinated by raccoons and put them in a zoo. However, raccoons are not native to Taiwan, and I saw a lot of Taiwanese were excited to see and feed the raccoons, and nobody looked at the monkeys! Well, monkeys are everywhere in Asia, so what's so special about them?
After the petting zoo, we biked through the open area of the farm. We didn't see a lot of farming, but it might have been in the wrong season or outside of the tourist area. We did see a lot of grassland to feed cows and water buffaloes.
My second favorite part of the farm was the dairy farm. There were a lot of milk cows and little calves standing in a row eating fresh and dried grass. You can touch and feed the little calves too! If you ever decide to come here, don't miss the fresh milk pudding!
At the end of our 2 hours of bike ride, the farm had a service to take us back to the bus stop. We had no idea that the farm area was far away from the bus and train station. As we were sitting on the golf cart to go to the main road, we passed their resort area and it looked very nice. Wish we could stay there a couple of nights.
