{  Taiwan Diary: Jiufen  }

Taiwan Diary: Jiufen
Taiwan Diary: Jiufen
Taiwan Diary: Jiufen
Taiwan Diary: Jiufen
Taiwan Diary: Jiufen

Have you ever seen the movie “Spirited Away” by Hayao Miyazaki?

Jiufen (九份), a small little town in the Taipei country side (about an hour away from Taipei by car), is breathtaking and has an aura of serene beauty. Jiufen has a very calm and nostalgic feeling to it, it’s easy to spot bits and pieces of inspiration & resemblance from the movie.

As you might expect, it’s a very popular tourist destination (especially for Japanese tourists like myself :p) but since it rained in the AM and cleared up by the afternoon on the day we went, we got very lucky and were able to experience it with fewer crowds than usual. According to my friend, Jiufen is known to be the most beautiful right after the rain so it was definitely the perfect timing for us as it sure was beauuutiful. We actually purposefully visited towards the late afternoon so that we could experience both the daytime and the early evening to savor the two different atmospheres. When it started getting darker and all the red lanterns turned on, it created such a magical atmosphere and we were very glad we stayed for both times. I personally LOVED the evening atmosphere more.

We tea-ed at 阿妹茶酒館 aka Yubaaba’s Tea House (湯婆婆の屋敷) and since we had a party of 9, we were seated upstairs where they had the larger tables. Our friends ordered some traditional dishes that go well with tea and we enjoyed chilling here while looking out at the city landscape. Some people say this place is over-rated but this was one of my favorite places we visited during our trip :)

This concludes my “Taiwan Diary” posts. Hope you enjoyed seeing some photos from my trip!

01. Jiufen from the top
02. The inspiration for the tunnel scene that connects to the ‘other side’ in the movie of Spirited Away.
03. Tea time at 阿妹茶酒館 aka Yubaaba’s Tea House (湯婆婆の屋敷)
04. Look who we found! lol A fan dressed as ‘Kaonashi’. 「カオナシ」に遭遇(笑)

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Taiwan Diary: Taipei
Taiwan Diary: Night Markets
Taiwan Diary: Ice Monster
Taiwan Diary: Jiufen
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{  Taiwan Diary: Night Markets  }

Taiwan Diary: Night Markets
Taiwan Diary: Night Markets
Taiwan Diary: Night Markets
Taiwan Diary: Night Markets
Taiwan Diary: Night Markets

Taipei, Taiwan is well known for their amazing night markets and the most famous/popular one is called “Shilin Night Market (士林夜市)”. It is so lively and filled with locals and tourists. However, our friends gave us some insider info and told us that the locals think “Keelung Night Market (基隆廟口夜市)” has the best food so we made it a point to visit both of them. All of the photos above (except the last one) are from Keelung Night Market since we spent more time there.

Keelung Night Market is located slightly in the outskirts of the city center and it’s a little difficult to get to (we went there by car). Our friends told us to pace ourselves but it sure was hard to since there were so many delicious looking foods. As soon as we saw something we were interested in, we bought it and ate it. We were literally stuffed but the funny thing is, our friends didn’t even think we ate that much because they easily ate twice as much as we did…sigh*

There were some hits and misses in what we tried but the most memorable for me was the “nutritious sandwich” and the gyoza-like little dumpling cakes only for NT$10 (USD$0.33 cents). I knew Taipei street markets were cheap but that was really cheap!

The major difference between the Shilin and Keelung night markets was that Shilin was much larger in size and had more clothing/souvenir shops and less food. Keelung was mainly focused on the food vendors with a little bit of shopping. Although we didn’t get to try everything, I’d say we got a good taste of Taiwan’s night market scene :)

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Taiwan Diary: Taipei
Taiwan Diary: Ice Monster
Taiwan Diary: Night Markets
Taiwan Diary: Jiufen
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{  Taiwan Diary: Ice Monster  }

Taiwan Diary: Ice Monster
Taiwan Diary: Ice Monster
Taiwan Diary: Ice Monster
Taiwan Diary: Ice Monster

The best . Shaved ice . Ever!

I had to make a special post on this place because this was one of the most memorable things we ate during our trip and we loved it. The shaved ice is just so fluffy, soft, and melts in your mouth. Never had anything like this. Pictured above are “Bubble Milk Tea Sensation” (NT$180), “Lime Jasmine Tea Sensation” (NT$200) , and “Fresh Mango Sensation” (NT$200). All the boys liked the Milk tea flavored shaved ice the best and the girls liked the Mango one the most ★

Address // No.297, Sec. 4, Zhongxiao E. Rd. Taipei, Taiwan (map)
Phone Number // 02-8771-3263
Website // http://www.ice-monster.com/

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Taiwan Diary: Taipei
Taiwan Diary: Ice Monster
Taiwan Diary: Night Markets
Taiwan Diary: Jiufen
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{  Taiwan Diary: Taipei  }

Taiwan Diary: Taipei
Taiwan Diary: Taipei
Taiwan Diary: Taipei
Taiwan Diary: Taipei

We recently visited Taipei, Taiwan. Although it’s not related to Tokyo, I thought I’d share our vacay and a little on some of the Taipei eats we enjoyed :)

We’ve been wanting to visit Taiwan for quite some time now, and since we have friends there and the price was right on flights, we decided to go! This was our first time in Taiwan. To sum it up, we basically focused on our highest priority: eat, eat, and eat!

Before we go visit anywhere, I usually do some major research and make a list of places I’m interested in visiting. For this trip, I made a long list of places I was interested in and our friends narrowed it down to what we should do the most in our limited time and helped to plan out our basic schedule. Overall, I have to say we couldn’t have planned this trip any better. We did everything we wanted to do and way more. Special thanks to J&J and Miss I who made our bellies so FULL, drove us everywhere, and hung out with us and made our trip fun and memorable!

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