Last weekend, I did something I should have done sooner: I left Taipei. My friend Jered said that he would be going to Jiufen, a mountain town on the Northeast coast of Taiwan, with some friends on Saturday. He wasn't actually going to be there until 5pm, but I was going to meet a bunch of people at 9am to catch the bus there. Of those people, I had met one and only talked to another the night before. Most of this variegated crew was connected through Jared. It included a guy originally from Alabama (whom I'd briefly met), a Japanese guy with his Taiwanese wife, Lin (the Taiwanese guy I'd talked to) and his Japanese girlfriend, a Japanese guy, and a German couple. I think Lin met the German couple when they were neighbors studying in Amsterdam. Anyway...
The bus trip took a little over an hour and cost NT$90 (about US$3). At the time, it seemed as though we spent as much time getting out of the city as we did in the countryside. The mountain scenery on the way there was spectacular. As we neared Jiufen, the road wound back and forth up the mountain. I thought all the structures built on the sides of the hills/mountains looked pretty cool, especially the temples. I regret not taking a picture of this temple when I had a good view from the bus, going up the hill.
According to Wikipedia, Jiufen was only an isolated village until 1983, when gold was discovered in the area. The resulting gold rush hastened the village's development into a town, and reached reached its peak during Japanese rule. Many present features of Jiufen reflect the era under Japanese colonization, with many Japanese inns surviving to this day.
Jiufen is a very 'touristy' town, and going on a Saturday meant that the streets would be invariably crowded. As Jiufen is on the side of the mountain, there weren't too many roads to walk on that weren't sloped. After stopping at the hotel so those who were staying could check in and drop off their stuff, we first took a bus to the nearby town of Jinguashi. While there we went to the Gold Ecological Park. Here, we took tours of the living quarters of the some of the Japanese soldiers and officials. The Park also had several museums, including one about mining and one about gold. In one section of the gold museum, the had gold coins from several eras and several parts of the world, and to top it off, at the end they had a 220kg gold brick, wow! Sorry, they wouldn't allow pictures to be taken. In the park, they also have a few trails leading up the mountain, so we all took advantage.
A little weary from all the walking, we took the bus back to Jiufen to meet up with Jared and grab some street food, which, like many places around here, is ubiquitous. Among other things we ate, we stopped at a shop that makes one of Jiufen's specialty foods. I'm not sure what it's called, but it consistedd of pork and bamboo shoots inside a 'bun' of transparent rice gluten (i think) served in a red sauce of some sort and topped with cilantro. It was not bad. I didn't take to many pictures in Jiufen, I'm sure I'll be going back and will at that time. The streets are just like sloping alleys surrounded by ~4 story buildings winding around in a bush-maze-like manner. All of them are lined with various restaurants and shops that sell food of all kinds, trinkets, toys, massage items, guitars, ocarinas, shoes, clothes, incense, etc.
That night, we went to a very nice tea shop, one of the best in Jiufen. Jared got a reservation hear through his Taipei teahouse friend, Jackie. Altogether we had 13 people at the table. Jered brought the Pu'er (3 different kinds), and Jackie had the tea house give us some bai hao tea, what a nice guy. Part of the teahouse had water running down over rocks from the first level down to the lower level, leading to a little pond with koi (Japanese carp) swimming around. The tables there were pretty awesome. They were made of wood. In the center of the tables was an area cut out, and partly filled with ash, or sand or something, upon which they set coals and stands for heating the water. Definitely old school. Unfortunately, a few other people and I had to leave after trying only two of the teas, since we had to catch the last bus back to Taipei. But it was a great time.
2 comments:
Heh Aaron, great pics and exceptionally interesting documentary. You should work for National Geographics as a reporter and photographer ! Dad
What a beautiful countryside. The restaurant looks very cool. I hope we can go there when (if) I come to visit.....miss you!
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