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

Old Taipei, Hiking and Shilin Night Market

Hello again!

We started our day off by eating something small from Family Mart (one of the thousand 24 hour convenience stores here) for breakfast and heading to Dihua street using the MRT (metro).
Using the metro here is very easy. I would recommend buying an Easy Card or an IPass (as we did). These are plastic cards or tokens, that you can top up with money and then pay contactless at the metro, buses, local trains or even in some shops (e.g. 7 Eleven (another convenience store)). We bought our IPass right at the airport, together with a ticket for using the airport MRT line. Our Token is Stuart from the Minions :)

Dihua street is an old commercial street where medical herbs, tea, fabrics, incense materials and other stuff are sold. The smells are intense and delicious.
We bought a small sweet (Chelun Bing; wheel cake) from a street stand, filled with purple sweet potato which was delicious and not too sweet.

 

From Dihua Street we made our way through small alleyways to the Confucius temple. I really like the temple with its bright colors and I love that there are many information boards about Confucianism, so that you can learn a little bit about it when visiting.

 Those who read my previous blog on Taiwan might recognize these Confucius figures :)

On the day of our visit there were planes flying pretty low over the temple and the surrounding area.

 

Right around the corner of the street there is the Dalongdong Baoan Temple which is a Taiwanese folk religion temple which has very intricate wood carvings all over.

As a snack we opted for some dumplings filled with pork, cabbage or some green vegetable and some bubble tea. (no photos taken, sorry :))

Baoan Temple Garden

We then wanted to go on a small hike and I found Laodifang Lookout (Jiantanshan (Jiantan mountain)) to be quite near us, so we went there.
In order to get there you have to cross Keelung river which as a pedestrian is not that easy. But there is one bridge where you can also cross as a pedestrian, which is Chengde bridge. Not far from the bridge you will find the start of the Jiantanshan Trail. From there always follow the signs for the plane viewing spot, or long trail (or something like that), you won't find signs for Laodifang.
One thing about hiking trails in Taiwan you should know: they are always (or as far as I know) paved and consist of a lot of steps. So don't expect earthy trails as the ones in Europe and be prepared for many steps.


The walk was beautiful although at the beginning of the trail the mood was set by many small places where people were singing karaoke... :D
Further up you couldn't hear them anymore.

The views were stunning with Taipei 101 in the background and Songshan Airport.

After taking lots of photos we decided to go to the nearby Shilin Night Market for dinner and we absolutely loved it!
I was a bit worried that it would be difficult to order/communicate but they are quite used to seeing foreigners and speak a little English or have English menus so that you can order.
I can only recommend you trying Oyster Omelette, Taiwanese fried chicken and Stinky Tofu! Yes, stinky tofu. Although the smell of it is quite bad... When JJ first smelled it, and I said 'Oh,there is some stinky tofu being sold somewhere near' he replied 'I though someone had vomited'. ><
But if you can get over the smell it doesn't taste bad and I think you should try it at least one. It is not our favorite kind of food, and we will probably not eat it again, but it's an experience.
As a drink I can recommend you try Papaya Milk. It's so refreshing.

Oyster Omelette

 

The infamous stinky tofu

fried chicken

We topped off our perfect day by wining a small plushy using a claw crane (we ended up inserting 5 coins of 10 Taiwanese dollars, which roughly corresponds to 1.5 Euro).

During the evening we made reservations for some trains we want to take during our trip. One of the being the Alishan Forest Railway, which is not that easy to book and is booked out fast (that's why we only have tickets for our return journey from Alishan back down the mountain. The journey up was already booked out.). If you want more information on how to book the train write a comment and I will write a separate blog entry for booking trains. We also don't know if our journey back to Taipei at the end of our trip will go smoothly since the booking online always tells us that there are no tickets available but the people at the TRA train stations can't help us yet since they can only see the tickets 1.5 weeks in advance or something like that, so we have to go back the day after tomorrow... We hope we will be able to get some tickets. Apart from those two trains we had no problem making online reservations and checking the timetables for all the other trains.

We'll see how it goes ;)

Until tomorrow!
Pia

Taipei sights

Hello again,

on our second day we woke up very tired, although we went to bed early. Since our Hotel was a little noisy (the walls seem to be made out of paper...) and we were fighting our jet-lag we hadn't slept very well.

Nonetheless, we headed out around 11 am to get something small to eat.
In Taipei you will find small local restaurants everywhere.
Since I wanted a bao (Chinese filled bun) we headed into the first small restaurant were I saw bao's displayed. The older women working there did not speak English, but she had an English menu were the translation was written beside the Chinese names so we could point at what we wanted and she just read the Chinese. She also wanted to know if we wanted our milk tea and soy milk in bigger or smaller size (we knew what she wanted when she pointed to the different sized cups) and something else, but it didn't seem to matter much that we didn't understand what she meant.
The drinks were a bit too sweet, but delicious, and the bao was very good. Soy milk somehow tastes a bit different from the soy milk you get in Europe. It's a bit richer in flavor.

As we were walking towards the 228 peace memorial park I thought about how we were treated by the women of the restaurant. The only way I can describe it would be rude, but in a kind way. The Taiwanese are not as shy as the Japanese. They tend to be louder, more direct and don't fear interaction with non-Chinese speaking tourists like us. They sometimes seem rude, however always seem to want to help us the best they can. I really like that. I somehow feel more included by them than I did by the Japanese (although the Japanese always were super sweet and friendly).

Our first stop was the 228 peace memorial park. The 28th of February 1947 was the beginning of an anti-government uprising in Taiwan that was violently suppressed by the government, where thousand of civilians were killed.

Afterwards we walked to one of the most famous tourist spots in Taipei, the Chiang Kai-shek memorial hall (maybe a little ironic after visiting the 228 peace park...).

We accidentally just arrived in time for the changing of guards.

We also saw the first cherry blossoms.
Next stop was Daan park, full of weird looking birds and quite trustful squirrels.

For dinner we headed to a small restaurant near the NTU (National Taiwan University) in Gongguan, where I ate before in 2015.
I fell in love with the food and the bubble tea they sell rigth on the other side of the street in 2015 and looked for the place online (searching for about an hour or so on the internet). It is that good! :)
If you are in Taipei and want to try it: in google maps you can find it as "Lan Jia Traditional Taiwanese Snack" near Gongguan station. The bubble tea they sell right in front is also the best bubble tea I've tried so far.
You can either sit inside of the restaurant of just get the gua bao (what we ate). The queue at either places might be long, but don't be fooled, it doesn't take long until you get your food/bubble tea. Language is also not a problem if you order the gua bao at the small stand in front of the restaurant, because you can just indicate how many you want. :) The same goes for the bubble tea, where they then only want to know (in English) if you want ice or not.
The gua bao costs 60 (a little less than 2 Euros) Taiwanese dollar, the bubble tea 40 (around 1 Euro and a bit).

 

 Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the bubble tea :( ... It was just too delicious :)

Later we went to Longshan Temple before heading inside the Hotel again.

Bye, bye,
P

Jetlag and Taipei Street Art

Hi there,

I'm Pia and I will be taking over the blog for some time to write about our experiences in Taiwan.

What better way to start writing then by sitting in a Hotel room in Taipei, having a sheet mask on, sipping on some cold Oolong tea and occasionally snacking some Pocky.

I love Taiwan, that's why I'm back a second time. This time I brought Juan with me to show him why I always rave about Taiwan. The country is definitely underrated.

We arrived in Taipei yesterday after about 24 hours of travel. As you can imagine we were quite tired.
However we could not yet go to sleep, since it was only 3 pm and we had to get accustomed to the time zone.

Since we were pretty tired but we could not yet check into our Hotel, we just went for a walk through the neighborhood and drank some coffee.
Our Hotel is located right next to Longshan Temple and near Ximen district (which I love). The location is okay, it's near the city center and has the metro right around the corner and Longshan Temple is definitely worth a visit. However the neighborhood is a little shady... Let's just say there are some lightly clothed women around night time...
But that's okay. We will only be staying for five nights.

After checking in and taking a much needed shower we headed out towards Ximen, the young, hip, Shibuya-like district of Taipei full of shops, restaurants and young people.

We drank our first bubble tea (which in Taiwan is a must, since bubble tea originated here and it tastes amazing unlike some you get in Europe) and took in the atmosphere.
To those who don't know bubble tea: it's a tea based drink with tapioca balls (pearls) inside (there are sometimes other toppings, but tapioca pearls are most common and in my opinion the best topping). Tapioca is made out of the starch of the cassava plant, has no nutritional value except carbohydrates and not really any distinguishable taste itself. It's all about the consistency. If you like chewy stuff (like japanese mochi) you probably also will like tapioca pearls.
In Taiwan you find many Bubble tea shops with lots of different variations of bubble tea. With milk, without milk, black tea, green tea, tea with flavors, etc. Very often you can decide whether or not you want sugar in it or not.

After walking around for a bit we decided to eat Korean food for dinner. We had Korean barbecue (meat and vegetables you grill in frond of you) and Bibimbap (a rice dish topped with vegetables, meat and an egg) that comes in a steaming hot dish. You should mix your Bibimbap before you it, as I was kindly reminded by the women sitting next to us ;).

Whilst heading home we stumbled upon some amazing street art a bit north-west from Ximen near in the alleys around Taipei Cinema Park.

That's it for our first day here. Hope you enjoyed reading!

Bye, bye,
P