Warning! 61 pictures ahead!
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During the 3rd day of our trip, we decided to visit Jioufen; it was a gold mining town then later became a very popular tourist destination after "A City of Sadness" (a movie produced by Taiwanese director and filmed in Jioufen) had received numerous movie awards. Other than this movie, an anime movie called "Spirited Away" (I love this anime!) was also inspired by the staircases and shop houses in Jiuofen thus you can see resemblances scenes in the anime.
We decided to visit Jioufen in the morning so that we could have time to visit Danshui then Shihlin at night but sadly we didn't manage to visit Danshui (story telling later :P).
We woke up by 6.30am and got ourselves ready to try out the hotel restaurant complimentary breakfast for the first time. And we were very disappointed by their poor selection of breakfast. Thus, we left the place after having a cup of coffee.
We walked to the Taipei Railway Station (which can be accessed through entrance Z8 located beside our hotel) and asked the staff where was the ticketing counter. Then she pointed to us the ticketing machine and asked us to use it to buy our train tickets. We felt so clueless facing the machine but after some time of exploring the machine, we finally learned how to use it and bought our tickets. We bought 3 return tickets and it cost total of NT$426. After buying the tickets, we rushed to the platform as our train was coming in 5mins time. And little did we know the tickets that we bought were actually 2nd class ticket, meaning no reserved seats for us.
At first when we boarded on the train, we randomly choosed seats to sit and the next moment other passengers claimed that those were their seats so we got up and looked around for empty seats but it was fully occupied already. Thus, we ended up standing for the whole 30mins trip to Ruei Fang Station.
Fyi, in order to go to Jiuofen from Taipei, you would have to take train from Taipei Station to Ruei Fang Station. When you reach Ruei Fang Station, you can opt to take either bus or taxi to Jioufen.
Inside the railway station
The ticketing machine which took us some time to explore how to buy our tickets
Our train ticket. Notice the words "无座"? It means no reserved seats and we only realised it until we had boarded the train.
Many people waiting for their train to come
After half hour of standing inside the train cabin, we wanted to save trouble and choosed to take taxi to Jioufen instead of bus (which was our initial plan). The trip to Jioufen cost NT$180 and it's fixed price. It was about 10 minutes trip.
Details of our taxi driver =)
I was really amazed with what I saw; the sea view was really breathtaking and sky was really blue too! It just looked like those pictures printed on post cards!
Can you spot two little black dots? Those are actually birds flying in the clear blue sky!
I was astounded by how these houses were built on these slopes!
Bro busy taking pictures
Our breakfast! Salmon Onigiri; we bought it at the Taipei Main Station's 7-11 before buying our tickets
This is the entrance to Jioufen shopping street
A store selling magic related stuffs
Lots of shops selling wide varieties of goodies
There were many stalls selling the local food too!
A stall selling beverages
Wide selection of souvenirs were available in many stores
We spotted a stall selling Wild Boar Sausages and decided to buy it
Wild Boar Sausages; the meat was juicy and delicious!
Bro bought some bracelets at this stall
Grilled mushrooms!
It was easy to tell that this stall was popular as many Taiwanese celebrities such as Jacky Wu, Hu Gua and even Jolin had visited it before. The walls in the restaurant were full of the lady boss's pictures taken with the celebs. We didn't try out the fish ball soup (which was this stall's specialty) as we weren't in the mood for it.
After walking for some time, we eventually found another popular or let's say, a must visit stall in Jioufen which was "赖阿婆芋丸" (pronounced "Lai Ah-Po Yu Wan").
I wonder how many Taro balls do they produce each day O.o
Top-Bottom: Could the lady on the right be 赖阿婆? Or maybe it's the other lady :P; this is where you place your order and you could choose from different varieties such as red bean, yam and etc.
We then walked to this dining area which was just next door to enjoy our Taro balls
This is how it looks; we choosed to have mixed flavours. I must say the taro balls were really Q!
This poster showcases the top 100 Taiwanese snacks/food and "Lai Ah-Po Taro Balls" is No.2 on the billboard!
We didn't enter this store as I thought it was quite scary hehe
Directions
Most houses in Jioufen were built on the slopes
The lanes in most Jioufen shopping street were quite narrow but there were still resident driving car passing through this narrow path
A min-su (B&B) in Jioufen
This is how Taiwan mailbox looks like :P
Red lanterns are the trademark of Jioufen
Grilled snails
This uncle has got quite a cool looking hat
This stall sells Ice Cream Spring Roll, cool yeah?
Dogs lazying around during hot summer
As time almost reached 12 noon, weather became hotter and more tourists flocked it, making it even hotter
This stall which was located near the entrance to the shopping street was selling Deep Fried Prawn Balls and I highly recommend this!
It cost NT$50 for 3 and it was so yummy that we bought twice! The fillings was made of potato, leeks and prawn. Not to forget the sauce matched well with the prawn balls ^^
Yummy!
After we finished shopping, we felt hungry and tired and decided to have our lunch at this stall which was located near the entrance.
The signature dish of this stall was Beef Noodles thus without any second thought, we ordered a bowl and shared. It cost NT$90 per bowl and till now, I still couldn't forget the taste and fragrance of the beef noodles. The noodles was different from Brunei's typical 'yellow noodles'; it was very springy! The beef was soft and tender too plus the soup broth was thick and smelt really good! Overall, it's really worth trying!
After our lunch at the Beef Noodle stall, we left the Jioufen shopping street and spotted a store named "李仪饼店" (pronounced Li Yi Bing Dian). If you're planning to bring back some local cakes/biscuits this is the definitely right place. Li Yi cake house is popular with their 太阳饼 (sun cakes) and 凤梨酥 (pineapple tarts). If you missed out this store in Jiou Fen, fret not, they have a branch located at the underground mall of Taipei Main Station which is very near to entrance Z8. We brought back some to Brunei and love it so much!
We visited this temple and took some pics there. This temple has double stories.
Love this pic!
This is how it looks like inside the temple
After we visited the temple, we took taxi back to the Ruei Fang train station.
Inside the taxi; this taxi driver actually offered to drive us back to Taipei but we rejected
At the train station, we were clueless again as the train schedule was too complex for us to understand so I showed the staff behind the counter the tickets I bought earlier at Taipei Railway Station and asked for some guide. He told me that the return tickets we had bought were open-tickets, meaning we could take any train back to Taipei but only valid for a day. He also told us what time the next train would be coming and so we ended up waiting about 1 hr at the railway station.
Choo Choo Trainnnnn!
Locals & some tourists waiting for their train to come
I must say we were lucky enough that this train had got quite plentiful of empty seats. Otherwise, we would need to stand for another 30mins.
When we reached Taipei, we decided to explore the Taipei Underground Mall as we found there were quite a number shops which we hadn't visited. After we had bought enough from the stores, we had some sushi to fill our tummies in the food court.
Starbucks! Vanilla Latte (if not mistaken)
Sushi
Sushi
And more sushi~
This is how the food court looks like. It was really crowded and we were considered lucky to have found seats.
Another Starbucks outlet located quite near to the food court. There were quite a lot of Starbucks outlets in Taiwan.
Arcade. We passed by it daily =)
This is how convenient the location of my hotel is; bus stop, MRT & train stations and taxi are reachable easily.
Hunnie Signing Off~
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