Taiwan’s quarantine rules have made travel to Japan a less convenient way to pass the holidays. Luckily, for people who can’t make it abroad, Changhua County has a place that makes visitors feel closer to Tokyo than Taipei.
Neatly manicured lawns, a hundred-year-old black pine tree… Yongjing Cultural Park has the look of an archetypal Japanese landscape. Except it’s not in Japan, but in Taiwan’s Changhua County.
The park is home to cypress trees with beautiful autumn hues lining both sides of a walking path. The whole area is covered with all kinds of shrubs and trees, including a 500-year-old rosewood tree that you would see in a genuine Japanese garden. The landscape covers an area of ten hectares.
Visitors can also rent Japanese outfits or yukatas to take selfies in them with the beautiful garden as background. One woman says she hasn’t been out of the country in two years and really misses going to Japan. She says she is so glad she found the cultural park online, and she is delighted that she can rent Japanese outfits to complete the experience.
With the long weekend for Children’s Day and Tombsweeping Day coming up, people in Taiwan won’t have to fly overseas to find a place that looks just like Japan.