Most “workshops” pitched at tourists are twenty minutes of shaping dough while a video plays in the corner. Taichung has real hands-on options too, and knowing which is which is most of the value here. Chun Shui Tang: the real thing, worth the fifty minutes Chun Shui Tang’s Dadun store isn’t a themed replica bubble tea experience, it’s the actual house credited with inventing shaken pearl milk tea in the 1980s.

If an itinerary has you driving from Guguan through the mountains to Lishan and out toward Taroko Gorge, close the tab. That road hasn’t worked for tourists in years. The Highway 8 dead end Provincial Highway 8, the old Central Cross-Island Highway, used to connect Taichung’s Guguan hot springs across the Central Mountain Range to Lishan and on toward Hualien. The section between Guguan and Lishan is permanently closed to general tourist traffic after repeated earthquake and typhoon damage; only authorized residents and a public minibus use it now.

Every guide to Taiwan’s mid-size cities says the same thing: no hop-on-hop-off bus exists, use the tourist shuttle instead. Taichung broke that pattern in 2025, and a lot of write-ups haven’t caught up. What actually launched in 2025 Taichung’s double-decker sightseeing bus is real. It launched on April 1, 2025, run by Hwafu Tourism Group in partnership with the city’s Tourism and Travel Bureau, following trial runs through late 2024. The open-air top deck seats 40 under a retractable canopy for when the subtropical rain shows up uninvited.