Taiwan trip- Day 6

Today we travelled up north Taiwan. We’ve heard that there are a few places worth visiting in north Taiwan and so, we ventured up to Jiufen- a hill town famous for delicious food, similar to our local Cameron Highlands and Jinguashi – an old gold mining town and hiking trails up to Mount Keelung to view east coast.

Look at the crowd and plenty of food stalls!~

With our pre- planned itinerary, we know how to get there but don't know which place is worth a visit and which place to visit first. In the end, we asked the Tourist centre in Taipei Railway station for the nice place to visit. They are very helpful and told us that we couldn't possibly visit all the places in a day (kiasu us #^.^#) They suggested we visit Yeliou, Jiufen & Jinguashi… Also recommended the bus to take us there and where to wait for the bus…

Try our tastebud on a slice of the 85C Bakery Café cake *yummy*

They are famous for their Sea Salt Coffee but we didn’t manage to try as we were too busy catching up with our delayed bus~

Japanese colonial houses.

We were listening attentively to the speech by the tour guide who brought us to tour around the Japanese-style homes…

The old village, rich in traditional decorative old teahouses... The result is a small culture park that reflects almost completely the old ...

Looking at the condition of their old colonial homes, I feel blissful that we are living in a much better state...

Some of the paintings and artwork we saw in the museum ^^

Had a bowl of ‘taufufa’ before heading our way to Jinguashi mining town~

Gold mining museum park entrance.

We were required to pay 100NT entry fees and wear a safety helmet before letting us into the Museum of Gold (featuring the world's largest gold nugget).

We were also given the opportunity to explore a former mine, which is similar to wax museum where they featured models of miners hard at work or eating lunch, complete with hilarious voice tracks.

We also saw haunting photos of Japanese mine inspections during the occupation *spookyyyy*

After the historical visit, we walked to nearby Japanese Shinto Shrine *holy look*

On our way up to the temple~

Finally, reach the peak after almost half an hour climb *sweats*

Of course the best part was lunch time!! Jiufen old street~

There is a lot of snacking, looking, shopping, and exploring to be done here. The old street is fairly long and narrow, with unique shops and art to be seen everywhere. A casual stroll along the street~

Jiufen springy glass noodle & dough balls（*^＠^*）

My favourite vanilla ice- cream doriyaki *yummmy*

The spectacular Jiufen hillside atmosphere O.o

As usual, some cam whore poses up on the hillside~

After strolling along the street, we were led to an open- air coffee shop on a hill, with a ramshackle wooden kitchen. The place seems to be the most popular in town due to its location.

Camwhore again  (❁´◡`❁)*✲ﾟ*

View at the top, overlooking Mount Keelung.

                                         

There are also plenty of cafes strategically positioned to take advantage of the stunning scenery.

Some retro-Chinese style cafés, tea houses, restaurants etc.

Anyway, Taiwan is absolutely beautiful with picturesque scenery and Taiwanese are generally very friendly people. If the next time I ever go back to Taiwan, I’m definitely going to the outskirts!!

XOXO

sassycat