How to get here: From Kenting, all public buses pass by Hengchun township. This site can come in handy if you want to visit some specific attractions.
Review:
On the fourth day of our Taiwan trip, we shift to Holland Hotel in Che Cheng, just a few stops from the laid-back town of Hengchun, where the popular movie 海角七号 was shot. Our main objective today is to attend the Spring Wave 春浪 concert, which would be held at Hengchun Airport. As we have unwittingly choosen to come here during the 清明 or tomb-sweeping long weekend holiday in Taiwan, we can't find any other that Holland hotel, which is too awful to be worth reviewing here. Just remenber NOT to stay there if you visit Hengchun/Kenting in future.
We have some time before the concert so we walk around aimlessly around Hengchun town to find some food to fill our empty stomachs. Not long before we chance upon the following:
what looks like could be tasty but was really just very average chua 冰/shaven ice
Chicken rice yums
really very tasty 冰鸡肉饭 or frozen chicken rice. Comes in small or large portions. I'm not usually a fan of chicken rice (not even in Singapore, with boon tong kee or those famous hainanese chicken rice) but the sauce for this was really tasty and the chicken quite Q and tender. The secret to this, according to the posters put up all around the store, is that the chicken is frozen and then directly cooked (????). Directly opposite this store there is a shop selling 火肌肉饭. We couldn't stomach anything else but I'd been keen to try both next time to have a taste comparison.
We continue walking around, in the direction of the old Hengchun street and find a store that is packed with a crazily long queue. I'm sure whatever they're selling (looks like tao suan) is delicious but we couldn't be bothered to queue so we walk by.
Near a temple and park with a lookout deep into the street we find a small alley, with one of the shop/housefront's shutters painted with a unique bench painting. It's really cute because if you bend your knees a little it gives the illusion that you're sitting on the bench waiting. At my suggestion, my friend gamely poses for a photo.
We take a left turn from the temple and walk down further for just a little and see a small crowd in front of what seems like just normal people's houses. Figuring it might be something significant we head towards it and find 阿嘉's house here. This is the house of the main protagonist of the movie 海角七号，and also where many scenes of the movie were shot at. Not having watched the movie myself, i wasn't really interested in staying here long, thus we made our way back to the hotel to freshen up and prepare for the concert.
Spring Wave Concert Day 1 review: The concert cost us about S$50, and lasted about 6 hours, ending about 11pm. The line-up included (in order of appearance): Joanna Wang, Olivia Ong, Zhang zhen Yue, Cheer Chen and Soda Green. Some local bands took the stage earlier in the afternoon but we hadn't heard of them before and thus weren't keen to attend.
Concert Venue was Hengchun airport, which was slightly disappointing as we hoped it would be held nearer to the beach like 春呐, spring scream, which was held at Erluanbi Park. Logistically they seemed to have prepared for it well, having free shuttle services for ticket holders from kenting main street to the concert grounds. We didn't need to make use of it as we came from the opposite direction from Checheng into Hengchun.
Grounds were quite wide, quality of sound from the speakers were quite alright. Food was available (many stalls) but was pricer and there wasn't much choice for concert-goers as outside food wasn't allowed.
Some pictures of the artistes who performed:
the quirky Joanna Wang
Lovely Olivia Ong
Bad-boy rocker Zhang zhen yue
Didn't take any photos of the last 2 artistes as by the time they came and performed I was so bummed out it took all of my effort just to stand and listen to them perform. The performance standard was of high quality but the fact that it was punctuated with so much waiting in between (waited for 30+ minutes for Cheer Chen) made me feel disappointed with the poor management/planning of the concert organisers.
biggest excitement: waiting?
The concept of having a group of mega stars who all can perform live get together on the same stage and do 1 hour segments each is a great idea, but to keep the fans waiting in between and to piss off some of the artistes such that they would leave early (Zhang seemed to have been pushed ahead of his original assigned performance timing, and seemed miffed and ended early, performing only a 45 minute set) was not impressive at all. Still overall, I would say the concert is worth attending and definitely worth the price tag.
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