Jiufen

Drew and I went to Jiufen this afternoon which is about an hour from Taipei City. We had to take the MRT subway to the train station, then take a train to Ruefang. When we arrive at Ruefang, we then take a bus to Jiufen. We had to wait 1 hr to take the train to Ruefang so it took awhile but we got there around late afternoon. Jiufen is a city in the mountains and it was insane how the bus driver can manuever the bus when the street is so narrow! We encountered a lot of nice people who would come to us and help us get our tickets or show us which bus to take!

We ate lots of good food including fresh taro balls (picture above), mochi, and this sticky green tea flavored rice cake filled with sweet red bean. I had grilled mushroom, seawood covered crackers, fish ball soup, and this awesome wrap that consisted of two cold taro mochi balls with crunchy peanut and cilantro. As weird as it sounds, it was delicious!

Jiufen is known for their fresh taro balls, yuyuan 芋圓, and it's a great place to buy souvenirs. It is also near the northeast coast of Taiwan next to Jilong (Keelung). We went at a good time to take pictures of the sunset (picture above). Drew and I bought a train ticket back at 10pm in case we didn't think we had enough time but we left Jiufen at 7pm and we can get on the train whatever time we wanted but there weren't anymore seats. So we either could wait 3 hrs or just stand on the train and we decided to stand. It was about a 45 min train ride but it wasn't too bad. I'm pretty tired but the trip was well-worth it :)

-Chihchat