Another must go place. It’s definitely on the touristy side but still worth a visit to get an old town feel. And for fans of “Spirited Away” like myself it was nice to finally visit the location that gave the artist, Hayao Miyazaki, inspiration. The name Jiufen or Nine Portions was derived from the nine families that settled here during the Qing Dynasty. The would go down to the town to order nine portions of whatever they needed and that nickname stuck till today.

The place that everyone visits in Jiufen is the Old Street where all the shopping and food is located. It’s a narrow street with endless choices and lots of people!

We walked till the end of the street for the hilltop view before slowly exploring the dozens of tiny shops. As usual the shops that got my attention most were the food stalls! Choices and more choices!

One of the most famous stalls is Grandma Lai’s Taro Balls. They actually have balls of different flavors like taro, sweet potato, green tea and so on but I liked the taro ones best.

Handmade mochi, tarts and sweets were at every corner and you can get free sampling before you decide to buy some. I bought quite a number of foodstuffs back as well.

Their form of carrot cake… I found it to be rather bland.

Braised meat rice “Lu Rou Fun” with home made fish balls was yummy! The fish-balls were huge yet very bouncy and has a lovely texture.

They even had these meatballs with fish paste fillings! It’s an interesting concept to have meat balls over fish-balls and the taste doesn’t clash either!

Home made noodles. Looks a little like lao shu fen but it’s much thinner and taste slightly different.

Century egg toufu. A cold dish. Taiwan is supposed to be know for their yummy century egg. I’m not a big fan of century eggs as a cold dish… I like them hot in my congee.

My sister’s bunny… not for consumption… =)

Grilled garlic butter cheese escargot and cuttlefish!

My sister with her ice-cream popiah.

Greedy face dad with the mini guava juice! It’s good for digestion but on the sour side though.

For those who don’t know what betel nut is. Here’s a photo of it in my dad’s hand.

It’s actually areca nut wrapped in betel leaves. Chewing of betel nut is common in many Asian and South East Asian communities. But it is extremely predominant in Taiwan. Although betel nut is losing it’s popularity to the younger generation it’s still tightly integrated in the Taiwan culture. They actually use betel nut as one of the offerings and bridal gifts during their marriage ceremony.

Here in my hand, you’ll see the betel nut without the leave wrapping and some sour plum. This is another common way for Taiwanese to have their betel nut and is preferred by those who is not completely used to the betel nut taste. Betel nuts are popular with many taxi drivers, farmers or truckers because it is a stimulant and would give an heighten sense of awareness which is very useful for these workers. In other words, it works like the Asian version of a caffeine boost.

Also unique to the betel nut trade in Taiwan is these betel nut beauties or binlang meis. In Taiwan they also refer then as binlang xishi as a reference to Xi Shi, a the legendary beauty of imperial China’s Spring and Autumn Period. I’m only posting up these 2 pictures of the betel nut girl that sold the betel nuts to us because the rest of the photos are just overtly distracting and NSFW.

We were along a highway when we stopped by these 2 X3 m glass houses where the betel nut girl would run down to the car to sell the betel nut. There were many girls but this one gamely posed to allowed me to take shots of her even though she knew I’ll be sharing the photographs. I can see why betel nut girls are such a hit with the men!

Yehliu is one of those must visit place for all nature lovers that holiday in Taipei. It’s is actually a cape on the north of Taiwan between Taipei and Keelung. As you can imagine there were tons of tourists even though it was raining that day. See all the colorful umbrellas out at play!

The lovely hoodoo rocks you see were all a result of mother nature which is the beauty of it all. I absolutely loved how the red rocks with their unusual formations and the red cliffs contrasted with the blues and greens of the sea.  Spectacular don’t you think?

This cape was formed as the geothermal pressures try to push Datun Mountain (a volcano) out of the sea. Keelung is a volcanic area so there are many lovely natural formations and Yehliu is the most famous of them all.

A life buoy for tourist that insists on going pass the safety borders and risk getting swept away by the strong winds and mighty sea. The safety borders are denoted with red tape on the floor near to the edge of the cliffs but most tourists seem to just ignore it.

There are actually more photos especially of the famous “Queen’s Head” rock which is the main symbol of this area and is constantly being eroded by nature. It is said that in another 15 years, there won’t be that rock anymore. Unfortunately, those pictures were taken with my dad’s camera and I never got them uploaded on my computer so these are all the photos I have.

In Danshui there are a couple of attractions to view.  The Hongmao Castle (Fort San Domingo), Tamsui Fisherman’s Wharf and the lover’s bridge. You can also take the ferry to Ba Li. But in this post I’m only gonna focus on Danshui Old Street. The main draw for me is multitude of local specialties.

The street stretches from near the Danshui MRT station all the way to the ferry docks. Some of the local foods include iron egg which is stewed in spices then air dried so you get a chewy tiny egg at the end of the process. The famous stall is Grandma’s Tiedan 阿婆鐵蛋.

Another local specialty is A-Gei 阿給 which are deep fried tofu that have been stuff with flavoured crystal noodles (tang hoon) and sealed with fish paste and some sauce over. Apparently Danshui is the place of origin for this dish.

You can also try the Danshui fish balls 淡水魚丸 and  fried fish snacks 魚酥. Among these I also tried the fried cheese which is great for cheese lovers but might be overpowering for those who are not used to the strong taste of pure cheese.

Not forgetting the famous Da Chang Bao Xiao Chang. It looks like a hotdog but like the name suggests, instead of using bread to wrap over the sausage, they use an even bigger sausage to wrap over the smaller sausage and stuff it with pickles and lettuce and sauce. The content of the larger sausage is filled with a mixture of meat and glutinous rice.

My personal favorite is the muah chee!

Freshly made with a spoonful of peanut inside every muah chee ball before getting coated with more peanut. It’s so very soft and chewy! I came back for seconds!

I’m now gonna leave you with a video of the hot spring session we had at Beitou and shots of Danshui old street. Hope you enjoy! You have to be on www.renzze.com to view the videos though.

One of the nicest things about Taipei is that you are simply a train ride away to many world class hot spring resorts. There are several choices from Yang Ming Shan (Jin Shan), Xin Beitou or Wu Lai. We decided to head to the Xin Beitou area.

From the Beitou metro station we had to change to this colorful train for another stop to get to Xin Beitou, where all the hot spring hotels and resorts are gathered.

As you walk uphill towards the area with a huge concentration of hot springs, you’ll see many pools with lots of steam rising. The smell of sulphur envelopes the air. You may want to stop by the hot springs museum which is free and explains how this area was mined for sulphur during the Qing dynasty and later developed into a hot springs area during the reign of the Japanese Imperial.

For a mere NT$40 you can try out their outdoor public hot springs. The public outdoor has several pools with different temperatures. The hottest ones are located higher up. This area was featured in the Chinese movie “Turn Right, Turn Left” starring Takeshi Kaneshiro and Gigi Leung.

As you can tell from the photos, the choices of hotels and resorts are endless! I was told that I-Tsun Hotel and The Whispering Pine Inn offers a rather old school feel. We decided to go to Spring City Resort as it was newly opened 5 star resort and offered choices of both indoor or outdoor pools.

Spring City is located almost at the summit of the hill! So it was quite a walk up! When we got there, mum felt that she would be more comfortable in an indoor pool so we booked a huge Japanese themed tatami family room.

They had a nice little family bathtub that you could fill up with the spring waters and soak in privacy. Here’s the address of Spring City Resort.

18 You Ya Road, Beitou.

Tel: 2897-5555

After soaking in nice warm hot spring waters, we pulled out some of the nice mattress to rest and just relax. It was so comfortable we felt too lazy to make our way back to our hotel. I should have arranged one night stay over at the hot springs instead.

After a nice bath and a change of clothes we were ready for some dinner and then back to our hotel to rest for the day! Here we are signing out at the hotel lobby!

And the journey downhill to the Xin Beitou station with the crisp smell of rain.