Taiwan Day 3 – Drizzling at Jiufen

During our entire trip at Taiwan, this is the only day that it rain non stop. Following KampungBoyCityGal’s advised, we stopped at Zhong Xiao Fu Xing MRT station and head to Exit 2 and catch the bus to Jiufen at NT$90.

And more than 1 and 1/2 hours later, we were greeted with this gloomy scenery of Jiufen.

It’s very foggy and gloomy the entire day, but it makes the visit more memorable.

Accommodation – ??????? Windsor B&B

After reading great reviews from KampungBoyCityGal, we have opted to stay at this great Bed & Breakfast, located hillside overlooking the sea.

Windsor Cafe, it’s a reception cum cafe. The owner Mr Hsu served us a cup of hot fruit tea which is very special indeed.

A banana courtesy of Mr Hsu.

The room that we chose cost NT$3,200 a night but it’s one of the nicest room that we have ever stayed.

The view from the room, overlooking the East China Sea.

The room is very spacious and can easily sleeps 4 people.

The wooden bathtub and the staircase down to the lower floor (pardon the big toe).

Both floors have a wide window, looking at the nice hilly scenery and towards the sea. If any of you read this, I would certainly recommend this place to stay and it worth every penny with all the lovely deco and the scenic view from the rooms.

Things to do – Jiufen Old Street

Being a rainy Friday afternoon, the place is packed with tourists from Hong Kong, Korea and Japan. The street itself is long and winded and I reckon span close to 1km.

There’s lot of small shops selling various kind of things like bags, clothing, souvenirs, etc so we did spent about an hour walking and browsing through these shops. The only set back is that it don’t stop raining during our entire time.

The famous staircase that run adjacent to the old street, residing the famous Ah Mei Tea Shop.

The view later in the evening. The shops close quite early and by 7-730PM, most of the streets are deserted.

Eat – Taro Balls, Fish Ball Noodles

We found there’s a lot of stalls selling Taro Balls, so we just head to one called Ah Lai Poh Taro Balls, which have got a sensible crowd and ordered a bowl.

Each bowl costs NT$40 and there will be a variation of taro (yam), sweet potato and green bean balls.

The soup tasted very red bean-ie, but there’s nothing to shout about. There’s a lot of red bean in the cup as well.

Seeing this stall that sells fish ball noodles, we head inside to try seeing that there’s lots of photographs of famous artists that also frequent the place.

We ordered the one that is the priciest on the list, Combination of 5 balls at NT$70.

Waiting for our bowl of hot fish ball soup.

As the noodle is called, it consist of 5 different types of balls each with different unique taste.

The Mah Lah Chilli paste which taste good but not that spicy.

Things to buy – Dark Sugar with Ginger

There are a number of things to get here like hand made soup and souvenirs, but not wanting to carry more stuffs, we just get some of this after recommended by Sherlin.

Various flavours of ginger rock and each cost about NT$200 per pack. There are shops that sell Pineapple tarts and beef jerkys as well but when the time we make our second round, most of the shops were already closed.

Dinner – Xi Mong Ren Shen (Life’s Like A Movie)

Aside from the small eateries, there’s not much restaurant around the place so we settle at this place just to fill our tummy.

The restaurant’s name already gave us a very nostalgic kind of feeling and the interior is being decorated with old movie posters.

May’s Pork Shabu Set at NT$280 The soup is clear and sweet as lot of vegetables are being used as the soup base. The slices of pork is frozen, but still maintained it’s freshness.

A closer look at the pot of gold.

Pork Trotters Mee Suah NT$260, is one of the best mee suah that I have eaten. The pork trotters are so sinfully fat that it melts in my mouth. The soup is some sort of herbal broth and is quite tasty. Just by looking at the photo now can make my saliva drooling.

May giving the thumbs up for the good. Me with the bowl of Pork Trotter!

After a very satisfying dinner, it was still drizzling so we ended up strolling in the rain back to our rooom. Managed to take some photos by the hillside under the rain, which I think partially contributed to my Blackberry’s malfunction.

Something that I would die for, a house that overlooks the hillside and to the sea. Everything is picture perfect, but the only thing is it’s drizzling at Jiufen.