Geoparks, Waterfalls, Lanterns and Shaved Ice
- Jan 3, 2019
- 8 min read
Just another day in Taiwan.!!
I am sitting watching another cheesy Taiwanese historical drama, relaxing after another long day and wondering why Taiwan is not on everyone’s radar as it is a beautiful country filled with friendly people and I already know I would like to explore more of what Taiwan has to offer.
Today we ventured out of Taipei, to three of the most well known tourist hot-spots in Northern Taiwan and joined the throng of other tourists who were heading in the same direction but it didn’t cause too many issue as the tour we chose to take through KKDay ran smoothly and managed to get us to the places we wanted to go with no problems at all. (Our tour was Jiufen, Yehliu and Shifen Day Tour and I would highly recommend this tour and the company if you are short on time as we were and wanting to see as much as we could in one day. The trip only cost $32 Aus for the day, which I think is amazingly cheap for a full day tour anywhere. To be honest I don't know if we would have been able to do it any cheaper via public transport or Uber and as it was our first time in Taiwan I was happy enough to leave everything in the hands of a tour group.)
Connecting with the tour was also trouble free, we had to be at Taipei main station (East Gate 1) by 8.45am for a 9.20 departure. As we knew the station was huge (from our walk through it with our luggage yesterday) we decided to get there early just in case we got lost through the station, which we didn't, but it gave us plenty of time to have a leisurely breakfast with more banana milk (which is so good) and just enjoy some people watching and chatting with other tourists who were doing the tour with us.
We met an American couple who were on their honeymoon and having the trip of a lifetime, six countries in nineteen days (and I thought I was packing a lot into our trip) and two Australian teachers who were finishing up their school holidays in Taiwan after been in Indonesia for the first part of it and both couples expressed the same thing that we had, 'why don't more people from non-Asian countries come to Taiwan?'
As we made our way through the mountains to our first stop
I was again amazed at the beauty of Taiwan (the advantages of all the rain we have been experiencing) as it is so lush and green and each turn around the windy mountainous roads brings another spectacular view and as we got closer to the coast the views got better.
First stop was Yehilu Geopark (also first picture on this page) which has been created by the East China Sea eroding the cliffs and creating some amazing geographical structures, and many of them have been named which became a challenge for us as we tried to put pictures to names, some were fairly obvious like the Queen’s Head but some of the others were a bit harder to find and if we had an extra hour we may have found more.
These pieces of art are in the hands of Mother Nature and who knows what they will be like for the next people to visit as waves, wind and rain sculpt more pieces in the next few years (they say that the Queen may be decapitated within the next twenty years so a model has been made and placed in the park that you walk through on the way to the geopark)
The queues to have a photo with the Queen were huge,
and I am not quite sure why because we got some good photos of it without the need for a 'selfie' in front. The geopark was spectacular and I really enjoyed the sea breeze and wished that I could take a dip in the waters as it is hotter and stickier than I expected considering it is winter in Taiwan and I already know that if
Taiwan comes back on a destination list it will NOT be in summer. Thankfully freshly squeezed juice from the marketplace just outside of the park gates rejuvenated us and the air-con in the bus cooled us off as we headed to our next destination.
From Yehilu we made our way along a very picturesque coastline and into the mountains once again to Shifen Waterfall which is the largest(at 20m high and 40m wide) in Taiwan and very pretty,
especially if you are able to catch the rainbow created by the water spray as it hits the lake below. From the bus/car park to the falls it is about 20 minutes and you cross
two suspension bridges and walk past a small temple and some food stalls (which set your tastebuds watering to get to the waterfall. The tour guide suggested waiting until the next stop for food, unless we were completely starving, and we heeded her advice which I am glad we did as we didn't have long enough to enjoy the area as much as I would have liked and if we had stopped for food there would have been even less time. The falls are nicknamed 'little Niagara' because of the horseshoe shape but are not nearly as grand but well worth a visit.
(Heads up if you are doing the tour on a weekend you will NOT stop at the waterfall, probably because the other stops are so busy that there would not be enough time to do it)
Next stop was Shifen Old Streets which are streets, alleys and a market located around the railway which are about a five to ten minute drive from the falls.
Our reason for coming here was to paint and fly lighted lanterns sending our wishes to the heavens and I think all of us have to say it was the highlight of our day. There are concerns about the environment but we were told that the government pays a small amount of $8 or $10 to find and recyle those lanterns, The cost of the lanterns depends on how many colours you want (NT$150/$7.50Aus for one colour and Nt$300/$15 for eight colours and they represent different things, love, family, money etc) and once you have written your wishes on the lantern one of the people in the store will help you send your wishes into the heavens after making you taking 'cute' photos with your lantern (yes I did those obligatory photos and confess to actually enjoying myself doing it...) We didn't have to dodge a train as we were flying our
lanterns but a few minutes after we had got off the train tracks a train came through and it was very surreal watching people move off and on the track before and after it (as it is something I had watched on videos and wondered if I would ever get to experience and I was so happy that we did.)
We had a little retail therapy, buying
some souvenirs and when we got back to the hotel tonight there was something else we all agreed upon that we didn't buy enough of the small lanterns. all four of us picked up 6 for less than $20Aus and all of us wish we had bought twice as many) It was also time to snack, and drink refreshing lemonade and although our snack of choice had a weird texture and didn't look that great it tasted delicious and by eating an oyster omelette we knocked another thing off the to-eat list.
Our last stop on our tour ,Jiufen Old Town which was established by the Qing dynasty on the late 1700s and then became a booming gold mining town. Today it's main industry is tourism as the beautiful buildings and narrow alleys are relatively unchanged apart from bringing things into the 21st Century. It is especially for anime/manga lovers as it is similar to the town in "Spirited Away" and the author was supposedly inspired by this town) There are two choices to getting up to the main street, stairs and lots and lots of stairs, or a bus which takes you to the other end of the road and we split into two groups. The oldies, Linda and I who chose to take the bus and just do the one way down the lanes and down the stairs, or the youngsters, Sarah and Jenna who chose to climb the stairs (and then they got a little lost and climbed even more before getting back on track and wandering the main street of Jiufen).
The bus took Linda and I to a great viewing spot where we took lots of photos
with sea, mountains and temples as a back drop.We took some time just to look and appreciate before plunging into the alleys, and being bombarded with the sights, sounds and smells of Jiufen, and it was time to do what all the guide books and vlogs talked about; EAT!!!!
The choices, oh my, some amazing foods from ice-cream burritos (burrito type wraps with shaved peanut nougat, ice-cream and cilantro which was seriously yummy which were on the to-eat list) to fish-cakes, spicy sausages on sticks, dumplings and red-bean and custard filled pastries, and glutinous rice cakes which are 'interesting.'
Thankfully we met up with Jenna and Sarah in the middle of the market (just after I had seen a sign for shaved ice and we sat down with another great view and ate to the most decadent fruity desert that you could imagine which knocked yet another thing off that to-eat list)
For those of you that don't know what it is let me explain, shaved ice, condensed milk, lots and lots of fruit and a little ice-cream and which cost NT$320/$16Aus ($4 each)and we couldn't finish even finish it. I don't think you can even get a choc-top at the movies for that little these days!!
I would like to have had tea in one of the famous tea-houses that are probably aeen in every picture taken and posted of Jiufen, but the queues were too long and we had a bus back to Taipei to catch which I suppose gives me a good reason to come back and this time do an overnight stay so I could have tea before all the tourist buses arrive.
We arrived back in town just before 6pm and it was already dark and unfortunately our guide did not give us any information about where we were as the area looked really interesting and there were guards in front of them so they must be something worth seeing, so a Google search will be in order after I finish this.
We all felt quite refreshed after having a short nap in the bus, so before heading back to the hotel we took in Longshan Temple
(which is only one stop away on the metro from Ximending and then onto Huaxhi street market (the famous snake alley market)
Longshan Temple was originally built in the early 1700s, but has been destroyed more than once by earthquakes, fires and bombing in World War II but each time it has been rebuilt and is probably the most well-known temple in Taipei. It is another beautiful
temple, that even bustling with night worshippers seems incredibly tranquil and I had time for some quiet reflection before heading toward Huaxhi night market which wasn't as busy as I had expected. One thing I have noticed about the markets here are the fact that amidst all the food, souvenir and clothes stalls there are the random sex-toys and 'dress-up' shops (one named after me) and that surprises me as there seems to be such contradiction
about the way sex and relationships and displays of affection are seen in the streets and dramas are portrayed and then you see sex toys on a market stall that kids could easily see and it seems quite brazen but funny too, that you'll have some little old lady with her didlos chatting away to the young woman selling fishcakes at the food cart next to her,
I have to say I was happy that I hadn't added snake soup to the list because the snake restaurants didn't look very appealing and were completely empty, which I always look at in a restaurant. If there's nobody eating inside there must be a reason for it, so we chose to look for other eating options, which after the afternoon of eating in Jiufen we realised that we weren't extremely hungry and chose to eat pepper buns and pork buns which was a perfect way to end the day.
So now we are tucked up in our beds, watching TV and catching up on social media, and I am thinking that it's a shame that my bank account balance wasn't bigger so I could have extended our stay in Taiwan but there's still tomorrow to get through and lots more of Taipei to see.
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