Thursday morning, day 2, and up again at our usual time. After cooking a healthy breakfast (salmon omelette) We set off for Jiufen a decommissioned gold mining town built by the Japanese and now a labyrinth of laneways and alleys saturated with stores, markets and food vendors.
Getting to Jiufen (www.guidetotaipei.com/visit/jiufen) was not as easy as it should have been thanks to some scant directions from locals who should know better. The website directions were not sufficiently detailed and once we got to Songshan MRT (rail) Station we were lost. We asked a guard at the next station where we were to swap to a bus and he had no idea wanting to send us back towards the city. We knew he was wrong so we asked a worker in a coffee shop and his reply wasn’t much better. We eventually found what we reckoned was the correct bus stop only to have a local say “No. Follow me, I’ll show you”. That helper is the guy in the blue shirt in the pics. After a 800 meter 4 block walk he admitted he was lost too. (OMG, he even asked a few other locals who had no idea.) We decided to backtrack to the one we thought was correct before this well meaning chap got us further lost. At that bus stop two young women asked if they could help and as it turned out they too were going to Jiufen so I decided to stalk (sorry, follow) them. They were happy to help. This was more than lucky because at the Jiufen end we almost missed getting off except that the two girls gave us the nudge.
In any case the trip was well and truly worth the search. Once away from the city the scenery alters to what is typically Taiwanese mountainous vistas. We drove through several towns and villages that in themselves would have been worthy of a day’s investigation. As we zoomed in and out of narrow roads there were glorious Chinese temples decorated in magnificent art and colour. The route took us along winding rivers before ascending a winding road that at times was terrifying. As we got higher we were able to see that we were not far from the coast as Shen-ao Harbour and the Pacific Ocean came into view. As you can see by the pictures (and we took hundreds) the panorama was spectacular. You may notice the traffic jam of buses and cars underneath us in the 6th picture and this was a weekday.
We eventually made it to Jiufen and then the ‘work’ started. Being on the side of a mountain the village is as described, a maze of laneways and alleys with winding roads and steep stairways and a plethora of market stalls covering the entire mountainside. Everywhere we went there were flaming steps. And Shane and I both have crook knees. Ah well just another workout. We even managed to find our way through an old tunnel coming out into someone’s backyard almost. (the two guys following us in the pics were terrified and I had to coax them through.)
While investigating (crawling through) these markets we picked at some local fare with our favourite being the “peanut ice cream”, a dish where peanut brittle is shaved onto a disc shaped pastry (similar to that used to make Chinese dumplings). Two scoops of ice cream are placed on top then the whole thing is rolled into something like a ‘wrap’. We had coffee at one of the hundreds of hillside cafe’s which overlooked the entire vista towards the sea then proceeded to wind our way to the bus stop to go to Keelung and the Miaokou night markets (www.guidetotaipei.com/visit/keelung). By this time the walk to the bus stop was a strategic march. Our poor legs were so sore from the hillside terrain that we vowed we were only going downwards, never up. Being such a zig-zag windy road this meant searching for stairways and lanes and descending until we found a bus stop below us to grab the next Keelung bus. Success was sweet. We came out at another magnificent temple.
We got off the bus at Keelung harbour town and straight away noticed a large cruise ship that we had seen earlier from the lofty heights of Jiufen berthed alongside. My eyes were drawn to the familiar grey of warships and the shape of missile launchers. After a quick look at Keelung Harbour we trotted off to nearby Miaokou Night markets for a look and a feed. These markets are big and I have to tell you if it moves in Taiwan, they eat it! I hope you can get a good look at the food stands. There’s chicken and pork of course and the regulation seafood but also offal and toads (still live awaiting your order). There’s octopus tentacles on a stick alongside squid on a stick. At one table as you sit to eat you have to be careful not to put your feet into the live prawn tank under the table. The ‘slow cooker’ like pot is full of tiny seashells (whelks or tritons I think). Turtles, barnacles and tofu were all there too cooked in a myriad of ways. We picked our way and our meal while sauntering through the market to the end of the street. We then got the first of two surprises. The market went around the corner and up two more blocks at least and people were everywhere. The second surprise was finding yet another highly decorated temple. While at this temple we couldn’t help but giggle to ourselves. The chap you see with the pram actually has his two babies in the pram. Both are Terrier dogs!
Absolutely beat we made our way back to Keelung station to get the train home. One final shock was the sign on the train carriage door. A Koala warning you not to get your hands stuck in the door.
Enough for this post. Tomorrow we head to Beitou thermal springs and spas and following that more adventures.