This post is long overdue. I have been super lazy with updating this blog so here goes another attempt to just put out a post! The pandemic has also had me itching to travel, so for now, I’ll make do with going down memory lane. I’m sorry if I’m no longer able to recall the details of this day, but let me tell the story via the photos I have of this fun day!

In case you want to start from Day 1 – click here!

On our second day, we decided to go out of Taipei and visit two of the most famous places people go to when in Taiwan. Jiufen and Shifen!

Ruifang

To get to Jiufen, which is our first stop, you need to take the train from Taipei to Ruifang. From Ruifang, you need to take a bus to Jiufen. Take note – the bus station is not the one directly outside the station. From the station you need to cross the street and turn left, until you see the first bus stop (most likely, there are a lot of tourists lined up there since almost everyone who stops here is on the way to Jiufen).

Once you get on the bus, it’s a few minutes to Juifen (I can’t remember exactly how many). The bus is usually packed so we were actually standing the entire time!

Jiufen

And then we arrived in Jiufen! As this place is on top of a mountain, it’s quite cool and refreshing. From the bus stop, it’s a short walk to the main Jiufen market area. If I were to describe the place in one word – it’s CROWDED. There were a lot of things to see, buy, eat, drink – but because there was too much people, it was difficult to fully enjoy things. Our group got separated as well because of the crowd.

There were some cute doggies that I had to take photos of because – too cute!

We finally reached the end of that narrow alley, and enjoyed this overlooking view of the mountains and the sea.

Now, this wasn’t the image of Jiufen I had in mind. I know that this place was rumored to be the inspiration for A Spirited Away (although that has been disputed already). Still, I wanted to see its more quiet and charming side. Good thing my friends were willing to walk around after going back to the bus stop. We then stumbled upon my favorite part of Jiufen.

Lunch time!

At this point we were already hungry so we headed to the first restaurant we saw. I forgot the name of the place but the interiors were quite mysterious and mystical, if I may say.

We had a hearty lunch, a lot of laughs. However, this was followed by an unfortunate incident, which was on hind sight, quite scary – but good thing our friend was able to recover with just minor bruises (so, basically, she fell down the stairs because the place was so dark inside – mysterious and mystical as I said). Who fell? Read until the end to find out! HAHA.

At this point it started raining so we had to hurry back to catch the bus back to Ruifang, and head to our next stop!

This is getting long so the second half will be in the next post!