On our fourth day in Taiwan, we went to 九份 and 十分 because we could get to both places from 瑞芳 station.
Bought some nice and very cheap sandwiches near the hotel :)
Bought tickets to Ruifang at the Taipei Train Station. It would be good if you could check the train timings the night before you go, or just buy the train tickets in advance...Otherwise you might waste even more time waiting for the next train (which might be a few hours away) to come.
Arrived at Ruifang station!
At the exit there is a sign which points to the direction you should go if you want to go to Jiufen (sorry the photo is a little blur)
This is what you will see when you walk out of the train station from the correct exit, and the bus stop to get to Jiufen is just at where the yellow and silver cars are (you will have to cross the road; it is not at the bus stop which is located on the same side of the road as the train station)
Scenery at the top after reaching Jiufen by bus
Wanted to try the ice cream wrapped in popiah skin because I had seen many people in travel shows trying it out. It was quite nice actually! (Maybe because I did not try the version with the parsley sprinkled on top)
The stall owner was very kind; she did not wrap the popiah up immediately after she placed the ice cream on top so that I would have time to take a photo!
Continued walking along the old streets of Jiufen, and stopped to try the chewy sweet potato/yam balls
Cute rabbits made out of socks hanging outside a shop
Corgi? haha
Goodbye Ruifang!
A train transporting stones/rocks...
Train to Shifen!
Took this while we were on the train, because the train passed through the street with shops lining both sides, and everyone on the train was excited to see the shops while everyone on the streets were excited to see the train. lol
Crossing the tracks!
What I imagined I would be able to see if I stayed until it was really dark. Sadly I didnt get to see such a magnificent sight because this only takes place during the Sky Lantern festival. On random normal days, you will probably only see 1 or 2 of the lanterns floating up into the sky because everyone is releasing it at a different timing.
Writing our wishes on the lanterns in native languages regardless of where we came from
Coincidentally, we decided to have lunch at the shop which I took a photo of haha. It was a very affordable place with cheap and tasty food.
Simple but nice
People were already releasing lanterns in the day...I wanted to wait until it was dark so it would look nicer
Before releasing our sky lantern, we walked to the Shifen waterfall (follow the signs/map)
To go very near to the waterfall, you can enter the "theme park" where other than the water fall, you get to interact with many small animals such as goats, rabbits and chickens.
I guess you can release sky lanterns here as well
Very proud rooster!
Goat waiting for some food
Really reminded me of my black rabbit
Beautiful mountains
On the way back to the train station, we encountered a very cute puppy which decided to follow my father as if he was its new owner!
Very happily playing and circling him. For the whole time I was just laughing and exclaiming how cute it was.
I guess it wanted to play with me because I looked so happy..so it ran towards me as you can see in this photo. And then it started to circle and pounce on me! I was so scared by its pouncing so I ran away screaming hahahaha. Sorry little puppy...
Sky lantern decorations on the school. According to the man selling the sky lanterns, this school has less than 40 pupils studying there at the moment, because most of the people have moved to the city area where there are better prospects.
We were waiting for the sky to turn dark, so we sat around this area for very long.
According to my father, this man in the middle is a Hong Kong actor but I do not really know him..
Off went my sky lantern...It would be great if I could come back during the Sky Lantern festival and see the magnificent sight of so many sky lanterns being released at once!
By the time we finished, the next train was around 7+. We reached Taipei Station rather late because the train we took was delayed. At Ruifang there were 2 Japanese women who were waiting for the same train as us, and they were wondering why the train was taking so long to arrive. Everytime a random train arrived at the platform they would be disappointed, and so I decided to pluck up my courage to use my very rusty Japanese to tell them that the train would be 20+ minutes late. For this I have to thank my 3rd language teachers for "forcing" us to learn how to say "Sorry I am late" in Japanese. So I somehow knew how to say late..and I combined it with 20+ minutes and the Japanese word for train and managed to convey my message. After we reached Taipei, one of the Japanese women still tapped on my shoulder and said thank you again for letting them know. I was happy to have helped them though it was not exactly helping...
At such a late timing, so few eateries were open and we passed by N.Y. Bagels Cafe. I had read about this place on another blog and had wanted to come here for breakfast! but since it was open 24 hours, we just came here for dinner instead
Eggs Benedict!
Very Garlicky fries..Yummy but too much for me to finish.
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