Xinshe Sea of Flowers and the Taichung Flower Carpet Festival: Sanrio in the flower fields

What you need to know, in short: The Xinshe Sea of Flowers and Taichung International Flower Carpet Festival, organised by the Ministry of Agriculture's Seed Improvement and Propagation Station with the Taichung City Government, fills Nursery No. 2 of the propagation station in Xinshe District from Saturday 31 October to Sunday 22 November 2026, open daily from 08:30 to 16:30. The Flower Carpet Festival reaches its 15th edition this year and takes a Sanrio theme, Dessert Kingdom, with seven themed gardens built around seven Sanrio characters and a main flower carpet in the shape of a dessert castle, 19 metres tall. Entry is free, and the run spans four weekends.

Two festivals sharing one plateau

Xinshe is Taichung's mountain garden district, a plateau of flower farms and mushroom sheds above the city, and every late autumn it stages the largest flower event in Taiwan. Two festivals share the same ground. The Sea of Flowers is the wide shot: field after field of cosmos, sunflowers and seasonal blooms planted across the propagation station's land, the working farmland of the Ministry of Agriculture's seed station turned into a walkable landscape for three weeks. The Flower Carpet Festival is the close-up: large pictorial carpets designed and planted flower by flower, the set piece the crowds come to photograph. Around both sit the rest of a country fair, with markets and exhibitions of Xinshe agricultural produce, family activity zones and stage performances. The flower sea is the older draw; the carpet is the headline act, and in 2026 the carpet turns fifteen.

The Dessert Kingdom: seven Sanrio gardens

For the 15th edition the Flower Carpet Festival has licensed Sanrio, and the whole ground is themed as a Dessert Kingdom, a nod to Taichung's own dessert culture as much as to the characters. Seven themed gardens are built around seven Sanrio stars: Hello Kitty, My Melody, Kuromi, Cinnamoroll, Pompompurin, Piano and Hangyodon, each in a garden dressed to its character, with Kuromi in purple among the doughnuts and Cinnamoroll up in the clouds and marshmallows. At the centre stands the main flower carpet, Honey Adventure, a dessert castle stacked from flowers, cake and candy, 19 metres tall and 60 metres across, the largest single build of the festival. It is, deliberately, the most family-facing edition the festival has staged: the characters are the hook for children, and the flower craft underneath them is the same serious planting the carpet festival is known for.

When to go: four weekends and the bloom curve

The festival keeps daytime hours, 08:30 to 16:30 daily, which makes it a different planning shape from the winter light festivals: this is a morning trip, not an evening one, and the gates close well before dark. The run covers four weekends, Saturday 31 October to Sunday 1 November, then 7 to 8, 14 to 15 and 21 to 22 November, and weekends are when the plateau fills. Two timing judgements follow. First, the flowers are at their best once the fields have fully come in, so the middle weekends, 7 to 8 and 14 to 15 November, are the safe pick for peak bloom; opening weekend has the freshest carpets and the Sanrio launch crowds, and the final weekend is the last chance rather than the fullest show. Second, a weekday morning is the quiet version of the same festival, with the gardens walkable and the castle photographable without a queue. The festival also pairs naturally with the city below it: the Taichung Shopping Festival runs in Taichung from 24 October to 25 December 2026, so a flower morning in Xinshe and an afternoon in the city is one coherent day.

Getting there, and where to stay

Xinshe has no station of its own, and the festival expects you to arrive the way the organisers set out: by Taiwan Railways train to Fengyuan Station or Taichung Station, then a bus or one of the event shuttle buses up to the exhibition area. By car, come off National Highway 1 or 3 onto Taichung's roads and follow the event signs, but know that roads around the venue are controlled during the exhibition and drivers are directed to car parks and onto shuttle buses for the last stretch; the shuttle is part of the plan, not a failure of it. Because the gates open at 08:30 and close at 16:30, where you sleep decides how easy the morning is: stay in Taichung city or in Fengyuan the night before rather than travelling in from Taipei on the day, and treat the Taichung stays page as the starting point for that night. Entry to the grounds is free everywhere, so the only costs of the day are the train, the bus and lunch from the market stalls. The event listing keeps the dates, hours and venue in one place.

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