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.