[Hsinchu, Taiwan] Bigcity shopping mall

 

Chinese version is here : http://jeffreyxuan.blogspot.com/2012/05/blog-post.html

While my clients, most of them are technicians and sales, came to Hsinchu from all over the world, I was always embarrassed when they asked “What’s fun in Hsinchu?”. The new shopping mall “BigCity”  could be the answer for boring engineers in Hsinchu. It is the second largest shopping mall in Taiwan, follow the largest one “Dream mall” in Kaohsiung in south Taiwan. The “BigCity” contains super large indoor sport center, supermarkets, restaurants, and department stores. It is just beside the Hsinchu train station.  
 

Take a look at the characteristic landmark in BigCity: The man-made landscape “San Francisco” located at 7F of BigCity. I’ll show you the comparison between real San Francisco and BigCity with the photos I took several years ago:
 

And the famous “Fisherman's Wharf” at Pier 39 in San Francisco:

Of course we also need the cable cars running through the streets in San Francisco: 

This gigantic facility was called “Wind Dance shopping mall”, which was closed 4 years ago due to improper management. The new BigCity did a lot of improvements from the lesson learn of its sadly history. We can see the stores inside are much more targeting to the demand of Hsinchu’s citizens, and more restaurants with full-course meal to keep people spend more time inside.

Take “meet citizens’ demand” as an example, 4 years ago there was a Godiva chocolate store located at the front gate, with some expensive clothing in local brands which most people never heard before. In present time Bigcity invited more global brand masstige stores of consumer electronics, cosmetic, and clothing. People in Hsinchu will be more easy to pull money out of their pocket in these stores.

Bigcity is still planning to invite higher-priced French bakery “Paul”, let’s hope people will enjoy bread more than chocolate. The Bigcity is using new illumination and energy technology to decorating inside, such as LED and wind power generator. All these fancy stuff is creating an image for Bigcity, this is a shopping-mall of 21th century, it will not be an in-door night market any more.

Kids are the key members of a family, parents always chose their shopping locations according to their kids like it or not. The BigCity deployed amusement facilities and  stores for kids in almost every level : TomsWorld at 7F, Eslite at 5F, Kids’ ball pool at 3F, and plus the clothing for children at 5F. Children will chanting around their parents for taking them to these places.
The gundom and dinosaur hobby model at 5F, little boys’ Never Land:  

 

The ball pool at 3F, be aware of the mosquitoes here, my little daughter got several bites at here.
 

Mini bowling at 7F in scale of 1:1.5, including gutter ball preventing function. Funny bowling for every kid. 

The different between boys and men is the size of their toys. The real luxury bowling alley is located at Taruko Sports Plaza at 7F, and also the baseball/golf swing fields. All these facilities are combined with bear bars and snack restaurants. Friends can enjoy their party here while everybody playing in turns and others sitting at the bar watching ESPN with 55 inches TV.


 

Peak time is holidays. You will also be surprised at everyday afternoon between 12:00~16:00 is also peak time. The photos below are taken at some Monday afternoon.
Lining in front of movie theater. In case of someone happened to play hooky caught in this photo, I did some mosaic on faces.

The cover of food court is huge, but still crowded even at 15:00 pm: 

The parking lot in the basement is a maze. Every post looks like the same. Welcome to the biggest dodgem field in Taiwan while you bump into both people try to get in and out. I recommend to park your car at the parking tower instead, the entrance is just behind the basement entrance. The traffic flow in the parking tower is much better, and you will also save time for taking elevator after parking.

BigCity open from 11:00am~22:00pm. Location information as below. You can take a free shuttle bus at the SOGO department store in front of Hsinchu train station. The bus interval is 15~20 minutes, I thinking it will be a long lining game. The optimized path for driving from high way to Bigcity is through Dong Guang Rd.. This will bypass the traffic jam near the train station.

GPS coordinate：
X:120.947962 Y:24.809487
longitude 120 degrees 58m 31.7s
latitude 24degrees 48m 34.2s

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