Taiwan Trip －Day 3

14/05(Mon)
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Yehliu/Shifen Pu Bu/Jiufen Village/Ji Long

• Booked Mr Meeky Yang's cab for the whole day for this tour.

• At first I was worried and unsure if Mr Yang is as depicted, but it turned out that my worries were unnecessary. Mr Yang turned out to be a safe driver, polite, down-to-earth and reliable cab driver. As we could converse in Chinese pretty fluently, we talked to him a lot during the trip. On the way, he brought us 槟榔 just for us to try. Costs about NT 100 in total, he’s really generous to treat us to it. On top of our itinerary, he even brought us to Nanya and 2-colour bay after Jiu Fen (九份), as it was on the way to Ji Long, and let us stop to take pictures, even though we did not ask for it. He said that he was from Mei Nong village, a hakka village south of Taiwan. Perhaps that’s the reason why one of the first questions he asked us was if we’re Hakka. We learnt much about him during the trip, so much so that at the end of it, I look upon him more as an uncle rather than a cab driver, and we gave him our contacts and told him to visit us should he come to Singapore. His contacts can be found here:

Name: Mr Meeky Yang
Contact No: 09-2191-5586
Cab Licence Plate: 589NT
Cost: NT2500


• We met Mr Yang at 7.30am downstairs at our hotel and he drove us to Yehliu (野柳). Saw the “Queen’s head” there, and other rocks. It was drizzling slightly when we arrived, but luckily the rain stopped after a while. After exploring the place for 1.5hours, a lot of tourists suddenly flocked in.

• Next stop is Shi Fen Pu Bu (十分大瀑布）. We gotta drive quite a long way to reach there. But seriously it was no big deal. We had to pay NT180 to get in, and it was pretty X. They claimed that part of it went to preservation of nature, but Yehliu doesn’t charge that! It was only about NT50 for Yehliu. Anyway the waterfall was quite small, in my opinion, can give it a miss. But it was on the way so I planned in into my itinerary. There were a family singing karaoke (apparently they brought the whole system there) and bbq-ing. The area around the waterfall was very slippery and you really gotta have shoes with good soles, otherwise you’d risk falling on the hard stones. I kept holding onto the handrails they had along the way. My sense of balance is not very good, I suppose.

• Then we went to JiuFen Village （九份）. It used to be a gold-mining town, but now it’s filled with colourful stalls. We spent quite a decent amount of time here. We had the taro balls at 赖阿后婆 , bought the 太阳饼 (buttery and yummy) and 凤梨酥 from 九仪. Had the 阿兰草仔果. A bit like our soon keuh but with different type of fillings. Then we chilled out at Jiu Fen teahouse （九份茶坊）, and just soak in the atmosphere. There was a mini museum displaying things related to tea downstairs and there was a nice koi pond too. Ordered tea and they boiled the hot water using charcoal! We ordered small side dishes also and ended up paying about S60 for the whole affair. But we could bring back our tea leaves, and according to my sis, good tea leaves cost a lot, a small bunch can cost as much as S30, so I guess the other S30 for some snacks and lazing at the teahouse after our tired excursion was worth it. We were given an indoor seat and it was a gui fei bed converted into seats. Very cosy and even ancient. Some people chose to sit outdoors, and they could get the mountain views. I thought that was pretty cool too, as it was quite chilly outdoors but you get to savour a pot of good hot tea and enjoy the mountain view. I like Jiufen village.

• Next as mentioned earlier, Mr Yang took us to Nanya to see some rock formations and the two colour bay – to me it’s essentially polluted water. Sulphur from land got into the sea created a yellowish colour and the original sea was greenish-blue. But the distinction was so clear that it became a popular tourist spot.

• We headed to Ji Long Zhong Zheng Gong Yuan （基隆中正公园）. There was a huge Guan Yin statue there guarded by two gigantic Qi lin. I could see the 基隆 harbour and cranes there. There was even KeeLung sign (like the Hollywood sign) from the temple.

• We headed to Miao Kou Night Market （庙口夜市） at 基隆 after that for dinner. As 基隆 is near the harbour, they are famous for seafood. In fact, anywhere near the sea, you’d find plenty of seafood at the place. There were a lot of stalls selling crabs soup, and butter crabs. We tried thea butter crabs, and thought it was ok only. Basically they just grill the crabs and season it with butter on a piece of aluminium foil. Looks quite easily done at any BBQ. There was this stall that sells ping tang hu lu, except it was not hu lu but an assorted type of fruits including pineapple, kiwi, strawberry, apple. Quite nice. Then it's all the way back to Taipei, and chatting with Mr Yang along the way. Found out alot about Taiwan from a local within this day! =)