Taipei Day Two - Jiufen

 First, I've now amended the link to my main set of Taipei photos so that people other than me can actually see them! 

Well, it was bucketing down today so I decided I didn't really want to go up to the north of Taipei, and that I'd go to Jiufen instead.   Now, there are two ways that I could find of getting to Jiufen.  One is to get the train to Riufen and then a bus, but it takes quite a long time.  The other way is to get a bus all the way there.

From what I could find on the web, I knew that there was a bus (number 1062) that left outside Sogo Department Store in Taipei.  Much messing around and asking later, I found it.  So, in case anyone finds this useful, this is exactly how to get to Juifen by bus from Taipei.  Go to Zhongxiao Fuxing on the Bannan line.  Come out of Exit 1, and walk straight ahead for a few metres.  The bus stop is right there, it's the third one.  Buses leave every 10 minutes or so and take about 1 hour 15 minutes to Juifen (九扮）.  Returning from Jiufen is simple too, cross the road from 7-11 and wait for the bus outside a shop selling tea.  You can use EasyCard on the bus - touch in, and again when you leave the bus - just over 100NTD each way.  After about 45 minutes, a little Japanese girl kept saying 'Mama, mou sugu? (are we nearly there yet?)'!  Sounded like me when I was that age!

As the bus climbed the mountain to Jiufen, I knew that I was not going to see any view today - it was completely shrouded in cloud, which mean that you could only see a few metres ahead of you.  Rather atmospheric though, and I glad I saw it like this.  However, I might go back again tomorrow when I think the weather might be fine.  I'd love to see the view which I knew was there somewhere!

The street in Jiufen was exactly like it seemed in Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi), a great Hayao Miyazaki animation which you have to see, if you haven't already.  So much going on, and a wonderful selection of food.

Back to the Taipei 101 Tower in the evening, which was surprisingly difficult to find in the dark given the cloud was so low!

Taipei Day One

Today was the first full day in Taipei, and  a lot of walking!

In the morning I headed up to the Baoan and Confuscius Temples in the north-west, very colourful.


After a cup of coffee and looking at a map, I decided to go to a place called Maokong in the south-east, which is a tea-growing area in the mountains.  To get there you can get a cable car (called a gondola here) near Taipei Zoo MRT station.  Great view from the cable car, even though it was lightly drizzling all day today.

Once there, I again went to various temples and a teahouse, and also down to the potholes in the stream where the water has eroded the rock at different rates.  (Maokong means 'cat holes', and looked a little like the paw prints of a cat, if you use your imagination...!) 

 Then on to Taipei 101 Tower and a little look at the shops.


 I've started to add my photos to my link on Holidays and Days Out, not culled yet though...  I rather like Taipei!  It's very easy to get around using the MRT metro system, and there's enough English everywhere to make it fairly straightforward to get to and enjoy places.  In the information centres, and some of the stations too, there are good maps and brochures in English.  I hadn't bought a Taipei guide book and it's not a problem - I've picked up plenty of information from pamphlets.

In the evening I went out to Shilin Night Market at Jiantan MRT, the largest in Taipei, and seemingly where half of Taipei gather after it gets dark!  Very busy and a nice atmosphere, although I liked the food selection better at Ning Xia Market at Shuanglian MRT last night.  But Shilin Tourist Night Market was much much bigger with lots of fairground type stalls  (resisted the temptation to try to win a large soft Doraemon), clothing and accessory shops, and food stalls.  For dinner tonight I had some kind of fried mashed potato with sweetcorn, pineapple, boiled egg and salsa in a very orange cheese sauce (60NTD) and a fruit salad (35NTD).  Didn't really fancy the frogs eggs...

Think I'm going to go to the north of Taipei tomorrow...

Taipei Arrival Evening

I'll probably update these posts at some later point, but at the moment I just want to get my thoughts down.  I booked this trip as a Rakuten tour last month. It cost 43,000yen for return flights with EVA Air, return airport/hotel transfer in Taipei, and 4 nights hotel and breakfast at a decent hotel with in-room wifi.  And importantly, it was a free tour so time was completely my own in Taipei.  A great price, although the booking was a little complicated - lots of Japanese, and the e-ticket is only available about 5 days before the flight.

EVA Air seems to be sponsored by Hello Kitty, so everything was cute...　；） The welcome music as you got on the plane was a bizarrely funky remix of Oh Come All Ye Faithful...  Everything but everything was Kitty-chan themed right down to the food and toilet paper.  Even the cabin crew had Hello Kitty aprons.  The flight was comfortable,  there was a meal, seat-back TV, and even a USB port for recharging your mobile phone.  Would definitely recommend them.


Got to Taoyuan airport, ignored the Rakuten group as I came through because I first wanted to pick up a Taiwan Mobile data sim for my mobile phone.  5 days unlimited data for 350NTD (about 1000yen), can't be bad and added 150NTD of voice, just in case.  Very simple, provided you have two forms of ID - for me, I used my passport and Japanese alien registration card.  It took about 5 minutes and all in English.

Then went back to join the Rakuten group.  It was probably about an hour and a bit from landing and getting the transfer bus, which was also probably about an hour and a bit getting to the hotel.  I reckon I understood about 50% of the Japanese spiel, but it was interesting and fairly useful.  Without it, I probably would never have found out that it's a national holiday for the next two days, and would have gone to Juifen (Japanese Kyuufun) at its busiest.

Checked into the hotel, still in Japanese mode which was a little embarrassing, and then went out to get something to eat.  I went into a pretty busy Chinese restaurant with an English menu and ordered one of their recommended dishes - peas and shredded chicken with rice, which it certainly was.  It was also far more expensive than I'm going to spend in Taipei for the rest of the trip.  After that I had some energy so found a MRT station (bought myself an EasyCard - stored value plastic card like SUICA or Oyster - 500NTD, 100 of which is a refundable deposit) and went to the nearest night market.  Night markets are probably where I'm going to be eating dinner for the rest of the trip - great selection of food,  good atmosphere, and very cheap.  Many of the street stalls have a brief English sign which gives an indication of what they sell, but I think I'm going to find it useful to know a bit of kanji.  Although the Chinese pronunciation is completely different, I at least know what some of them mean, so can be slightly more adventurous with the menu! 

More photos at a later stage, but this will do for today!   Tomorrow is going to be sightseeing in Taipei itself.