人生 . 之旅

同样的城市

腻了

枯燥的生活

厌了  

                        

繁忙的工作

累了

短暂的时间

溜了

人生的脚步

该放慢了

旅行

我去了

旅游

我爱上了

旅途

我找回自己了

旅程

我更爱上自己了. 欣

爱上 · 单数

叮当的‘一半’ 我听了

可是也只能接受一半

有伴的人总觉得无伴的人 孤单

其实 并不是

无伴的人只是喜欢单数

他们享受单数的自由及不约束

他们只是想独吞所有的快乐和富有 不想分享

他们盛致觉得有半人必须考虑到对方而厌烦

他们也看到无数有半人的分离而觉得无奈

分享无半人的思想. 欣

Jiufen, Taipei

Jiufen (九份) is a charming small town located on mountainous area in North Taipei. The name literally means 'nine-portions'. Historically, it was a village housed by 9 families and they will request for 9 portions every time shipments arrived from town. It was then developed into a town when gold was discovered. Jiufen become more notable when its downtown was used as a model for famous Hayao Miyazaki's anime movie of Spirited Away (千以千寻). It is now a renowned tourist spot in Taipei selling various types of special snacks such as Taro balls, glutinous rice cake, tea house and traditional fish balls which you must try if u ever been here.

Those are tombs lined-up the hills.

Entrance to Jiufen Old Street (九份老街) modeled by our dear team lead.

Rows of period-designed shop-houses lined-up the winding-narrow streets vending special snacks, local dishes and crafts.

View of another street of Jiufen Old Street. Every street is packed with tourists and locals. If I'm not mistaken, we were there on weekends.

Snacks we tried at Jiufen. From upper left - bottom right: Ah Lan's Hakka Glutinous Rice Cake (阿蘭宇粿/草仔粿), cheese sticks, ice-cream-peanuts spring rolls, mixed fish balls soup (阿婆鱼蛋) and red wine meat ball covered with glutinous rice skin (紅糟肉圓). Among the most famous one is the swamp-green Ah Lan's glutinous rice cake. It is stuffed with either pickled white carrot, red bean or dried shrimps. U have to queue for an average of 30 mins to buy but I personally don't like it much. Another must try said by our driver is the glutinous rice meat ball. The reddish-tint on the glutinous skin came from the meat cooked with red rice wine. It is even comes with vegetarian-meat version. But we don't dare to try as they looked so unappetizing for us.

A unique dessert recommended by many bloggers and books is this Ah Gan Yi Taro Balls (阿柑姨芋圆). The yam balls are flavored with variety of taste and they are eaten with either hot or chilled mild-sweet syrup. The taro balls are very texture and chewy and this dessert has now becomes very popular in Malaysia.

Cute kitties and doggies are also part of the residents over here so there are pet shops open for their conveniences purpose.

A fat Puder spotted jumped down from stairs. 

This dog looks like Taiwn-Hachiko. Taiwanese love dogs so much. We can see a lots of them bring their lovely dogs out for shopping or jogging. They even putting them into a pet-trolley and were pampered like a new born baby. ;)

Our driver also brought us to one of his friend's shop displaying various kind of stage properties, oldies pictures and toys. Entrance fees are needed for tourist but as a friend of Jacky, no charges are required for all of us.

We played to the fullest in the shop since it is FOC!!! 1, 2, 3...katcha: 'Farmers' Cosplay'.

Our lazy dear mum was hiding herself in the chickens' basket because she refused to go to the farm.

While our dear Leng sis was cooking at the kitchen in an improper dress-code.

A Taiwan patriot clown, wahahaha!! =P.

Jiufen's mountain and seacoast view from tips of Jiufen Old Street is really breathtaking.

Beautiful Pacific Ocean view cum Yinyang Sea (阴阳海).  The sea gets its name due to the intense contrast between the yellowish-brown water in the bay and the azure blue water toward the open sea. Hearsay: This area was previously famous with gold mining activities. Thus, it is believed that a special chemicals has been leaked out  from gold to stains the bay's water and create such phenomenon.

YeLiu Geopark, Taipei

Some of the tourist spots in Taipei are hardly accessible by public transports as they are situated far away from main town, e.g. Yeliu (野柳) which located near to sea side and Jiufen (九份) which located on hill's top. So, we decided to hire Jacky as our driver again for 1 day in Taipei in order to save time. Yeliu is a cape of about 1,700m long formed by Datun Mountain (大吨) reaching into the sea. Geological forces such as sea erosion, weathering, and earth movements on the Yeliu's seashore had created distinctive features and shapes on the cape.

The Taipei City's view on our way to Yeliu. Taipei 101 looks so tiny from far.

Our breakfast at Ximending before started our journey to Yeliu. This thick gravy soup is very popular in Taiwan like what we had at Justice Small Buns Shop in Hualian. But this time we ate together with noodles and add-on some sea foods and fish cakes.

The entrance fee is reasonable of NTD 50 for an adult.

It is advisable to visit in the morning if u go there during summer because the weather is too hot in the afternoon.

Small thin cape carved by sea erosion into a short wall.

Nice sea view and many pots formed on ground.

These stones they called them hoodoo stones and I don't know why?!

The above picture shows mixture of mushroom rocks and camel rocks.

Beautiful scene formed by nature forces, not man made.

The most well-known feature here is 'The Queen's Head' (女皇头), an iconic image of Taiwan. However, it is slowly eroded due to weathering and wind flow. So for those who want to see The Queen's Head, u would better take action now before it disappeared! They are also many other shapes formed on the seashore, e.g. 'The Fairy Shoe', 'The Bee Hive', 'The Ginger Rocks', 'The Sea Candles' & etc but I was not manage to see them all due to suffering stomachache and dehydration.

Ximending, Taipei

We stayed at Ximending (西门町) in Taipei. It is a source of Taiwan's fashion, subculture and Japanese culture. Thus, it has been called as the 'Harajuku of Taipei'. Ximending was once a well-known theater street in old era but it is now a more popular area for small concerts, album launches, street performances or shopping district for youngsters.

Above is where we stayed in Taipei and recommended by our driver. It is not a hotel or hostel nor a guest house, but is more like a luxury condominium. We rented a unit and it was about ~RM250.00 per nite. The security was 1st class and it is just 5 minutes walk to Ximending Pedestrian Area. 

After throwing our baggages, we rushed to the Ximending streets to hunt for foods. Here is the entrance to its pedestrian area.

They are many street performances in Ximending where u can enjoy them for free! Sometimes, u may experience flash mobs over here if u are lucky!

Not forget our group photo again ;)

People are getting more and more crowded as the night progresses.

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There are many other things u can do over here besides shopping, e.g. hairdo, cinemas, KTV lounges and even go for a gym class!

Not to miss out the very famous Ah Zhong's noodles (阿宗面线) or literally called Ah Zhong's line noodles. The store is easily identified as u can see many tourists or locals huddle outside holding hot steaming small bowls.

The recipe is unknown but it is cooked with pig intestines, slice of bamboo shoots, parsley-basil and Ah Zhong's specially made chili. P/S: Not to put too much the chili because it is really HOT. I was suffered bad diarrhea and fever after all as a result of 'chili-greedy'.

Another famous bubble tea drinks in Taiwan is Qing Wa Xia Dan (青蛙下蛋) besides 50岚 but it does not impress me though. Note: I'm not a fan of bubble tea!

The only 2 foods in Ximending that I strongly recommend here are cuttlefish skewer and bean curd's skin skewer. The taste of the marinating sauce is perfect and the texture of the cuttlefish is simply mild-firm and chewy. I will rate it 10 out of 10, A-MUST-TRY-SNACK in Ximending. It was sold by an elderly woman on a mobile stall.

Random Parts in Hualian

Besides famous for watching whales and dolphins, Hualian has quite a few other sightseeing places. We also tasted alotsa foods along our journey from Hualian to Tapei. Will show them to you afterwards. We did pass by YinLan (宜兰) but not staying long due to time constraint. I felt grateful to have Jacky as our driver because he brought us to many places in a county which sometimes u'll never expected!

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Located near ChihSinTan Beach (七星海滩), ChihSinTan Katsuo Museum or called ChihSin Dry Bonito Fish Museum (七星柴鱼博物馆) is built to show people how Katsuo (Dry Bonito Fish) is made.

There are few floors in the building. Each floor has its own attractions and activities going on.

There is also a part fully filled-up with aquarium tanks keeping few kinda sea creatures. This is the one which attracted me the most. They names it 'Pen Knife Fish' or 刀片鱼 in Mandarin. They swim vertically in the water!

The board showing how Katsuo is made. The process was actually learned from Japan.

The main material to produce Katsuo is Mackerel. The process can be tedious and time consuming. The fish must be carefully selected and fish which is not fresh and contains too much fat will produce unbearable odor during the process.

Katsuo is usually used as topping for many Japanese foods. One of them is Tako. Managed to try the freshly hot produced Katsuo from here topped on Tako and I can tell u that the taste is superb!

Jakcy drove us to Justice Street (公正街) for lunch before proceed our long journey to Taipei (台北).

Foods that u must NOT miss out here are all selling in this Justice Small Buns Shop (公正包子店). It is well known in Internet, TV programs and like a celebrity of Hualian. Look at the queue and u'll know how famous it is.

The nice one is Justice Small Buns (公正包). The skin is very thin and soft and it is stuffed with chopped pork soaked in light soup. They are also selling various Taiwan small snacks included dumplings and the thick gravy soups.

We have to drive though Suhua Highway (蘇花公路) again in order to go to Taipei (台北). Before this, we passed by Chingshui Cliff (清水断崖) that connects counties of  Hualian (花莲) and Yilan (宜兰). It is the highest coastal cliff in Taiwan and a very scenic area.

Chingshui Cliff gave us a very breathtaking view of Pacific Ocean (太平洋). It is about 21km in length with averaging 800m above sea level in height. I'll show u as many pictures as I can for the views.

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They are actually 2 spots for u to look at the cliffs from different angles on the highway. The 2nd one is located just about few km from the 1st spot.

The pix above shows the opposite angle of the cliff. How I wish I can build a house and stay here forever. ;)

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I was really impressed by the blue colour toning of the ocean and sky. 

Snapped a pix of our lovely driver and his 'Yellow Fly Wish' under the Sun shines.

The snowflake desserts which we finally can taste after long waited for 3 hours journey. The shop named JianHuaBingDian or 建华冰店. It is visited by many tourists who on their way to Taipei and well recommend by our driver, Jacky.

The famous series actor, Ming Dao was also here before.

They are like those Ice-Kacang in Malaysia but they are with Green Kacang as well as ice-cream toppings. The special one is the passion fruit ice with raw egg which taste weird but not really bad though.

Chilled.

Not forget for group photo again. :)

Another awesome scenes near the shop before we further moved on.

Next stop is Yilan county. Due to rushing of time, we were not long there. Just dropped by the famous bakery shop called Yilan Bing (宜兰饼) to buy some local bakery products as souvenirs.

Tadaa....the must but product is bull's tongue cookie. It really looks like a bull's tongue and taste good.

They even make packed them in a smaller way to make us easier to take away.

We bought a lot as they are cheap and good as souvenirs.

This huge bakery mold built is their effort for customers or visitors to remember their shops.