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.