Exploring Jiufen

Today, we took the bus from Taipei to explore the city of Jiufen. Jiufen is the city that inspired the anime “Spirited Away” and is a beautiful town built up a mountainside with views of rolling mountains and the ocean. The city is decked out from top to bottom with lanterns, and is picturesque beyond belief!

We started the day with a Starbucks coffee as it was the only coffee shop open by our hotel, and then walked to the bus station for the ride to Jiufen. The ride was beautiful, as the entire area is filled with pointy green mountains suddenly rising up, and everything is quite green. The roads were super windy and tight, so we were thankful for our talented bus driver.

Once we arrived in Jiufen we walked through the Main Street which is a windy path down the mountain through the town that is lined with vendors, selling food and other wares. The area was slammed with tourists and locals alike, and felt very vibrant and alive.

We opted for traditional Taiwanese food in the center of town, and had beef noodle soup, braised peanuts and edamame, a radish pancake, asparagus, and dumplings.

Following lunch we decided to do a hike up the nearby mountain despite the weather looking ominous. It was a gamble we lost on, and the hike was through dense fog the entire time- so no views at the end! That said, it was a great workout.

Once we wrapped the hike the weather took another turn for the worse, and it started pouring rain. At this point we decided to call it, and catch the bus back to Taipei. We got stuck standing in line for the bus with no umbrella, so it was quite the experience and we were soaked!

Once back in Taipei we explored the Ningxia night market near our lodging, and had sweet potato balls which were quite yummy. We headed for another traditional Taiwanese dinner next, and had braised eggplant and kung pao chicken. We were in a mood to eat after all the hiking and walking, so capped all of this off with an incredible dessert! The dessert location was just next to our restaurant, and the dessert we ordered was allegedly healthy- we got shaved ice with black beans, rice balls, taro, and pinto beans over the top. It looked… well, you’ll have to see the pictures. It was very interesting and yummy, and we accompanied it with peanut covered mochi which was one of Chris’ favorites!Read more