Shifenliao

Met my new friend, Chloe from the tea shop, at 9am to head to Shifen via bus and train... once at the station, she convinced me that I should go to the end of the line - Jingtong - and work my way back... so of course, the peer pressure worked and that's what I did!
Jingtong was lovely, very small old coal mining village, not a lit to see tbf, but very pretty... we were done in about half an hour but the train was hourly so had to wait!
I said goodbye to Chloe and her mum as I stopped in Wanggu to go on a walk to see a waterfall... as I knew the trains were hourly I gave myself the hour to do it... It wasn't very challenging! I also didn't see anyone else on the path until I got to the waterfall where there was a photography group who saw me attempting a selfie and insisted they take my picture... with posing instructions and all... I think you can see my awkwardness and panic in my eyes 😬 so frikken cringe! 😅
But the waterfall was good!
Went to Shifen next, the original plan... omg it was so busy!!!! There were lots of lanterns being set off, which were beautiful to watch but so sooooo bad for the environment so I didn't participate... too much guilt already!
On a sad note, you could see remnants of the lanterns scattered over the hills 😪 and I watched some go down to the unknown as well as up...
Anyways, super busy, stopped for lunch and then headed back to Taipei... it was raining A LOT! But in one of the stations a local school orchestra was doing a performance... very nice!
I completely forgot to do the Shifen waterfall trail which was the reason I wanted to go to Shifen in the first place - d'oh!!!! Never mind, next time! 😅Read more