Spitited Away in Jiufen

Hey there,

so today we went to Jiufen, where the inspiration for the Ghibli Movie Spirited Away is said to have come from.

After paying for and collecting our previously reserved train tickets for our future journeys (from Taipei to Hualien, from Hualien to Kaohsiung and the Forest Railway tickets back from Alishan) at Wanhua station we took the local train to Ruifang. From there you take a bus to Jiufen. All the tickets can be paid with an EasyCard or IPass. The bus station in Ruifang is not directly located at the train station, but there are signs that show you where to go and the locals will tell you right away where you have to go (they all just assume you want to go to Jiufen :D).

The journey costs 63 Taiwanese dollars (less than 2 Euros) and takes about 1 hour 15 to 1 hour 45 depending on which local train you take (there are slightly slower and faster ones).

Jiufen, you will notice right away, is very popular among tourists. When in some Taipei areas we played our new game "spot the western tourist", in Jiufen we could have tried "Spot the local"... It's quite crowded.
Nonetheless we had a wonderful time. We spend quite some money on small souvenirs (e.g. fridge magnets) and of course, food and drinks.
We tried some kind of bubble tea with flambéed brown sugar.

 

If you go a bit further away from Jiufen Old Street (where all the shops and restaurants are located) you hardly find any tourists and can enjoy the beautiful views towards the sea.

 

Old mining tunnel

As the day was turning out to be quite nice and we saw a hiking trail up Keelung Mountain, we decided to get something small to eat and go up the mountain.
We tried some kind of fried balls (no idea what they were, but they were delicious), a fatty sausage and some sweet ginger soup with taro balls and tofu topped with shaved ice.

excuse my weird face... I look weird on all the photos with the sausage...

 

 
However, after our snacks, the clouds were getting thicker and so we went up all the way to see... nothing...

I am sure the view would have been stunning, for us it was just a great workout, since the steps sometimes were pretty steep.

However, as a reward we got some kind of sweet and salty dried plum from a Taiwanese woman that she made herself :)
And there were quite some interesting insects and animals around the trail.

After hiking down again, we waited for our bus back to Ruifang to catch the next train back to Taipei. There are also buses all the way back to Taipei, as I easily get sick during bus rides in the mountains we decided to take the train back.

salty sweet dried meat (delicious!)

Back in Taipei we first went back to the hotel to rest a bit and write the blog entries. I also tried a new Kit Kat flavor (rose and berry flavor). It smells and tastes like rose soap ;) (not my favorite flavor). And JJ tried some kind of yogurt drink with probiotic bacteria inside which was very delicious.

For dinner we decided to go to the Night market just around the corner, Guangzhou Street Market. We ate some Chicken and Lamb skewers (no photos taken) and some kind of pancake with ham and egg (very delicious!) and drank another Papaya Milk.

While waiting in line for the skewers we happened to witness a small fight. Three men were following another man, one with a bar stool, one with a folding chair and one with a stick... Later the police arrested the man they were following. He was bleeding... o.O By the looks on the faces on the other people it wasn't a normal sight.
A few minutes later we saw two women with two (pretty fat) raccoons on leashes as pets...
We just wanted to get a quick bite and go back to the hotel... Well, you never know what you're going to see.

Now that we are safely back, we will go to sleep soon :)
Until tomorrow,
Pia