九分 Jiufen

Out of all the places gone and seen as of yet, Jiufen stands out as the most beautiful. I don't use that word lightly. Located on a mountanside, the town of Jiufen receives the refreshing breeze from the bay area below. While once a prosperous town in the early 1900s, supplying gold from their mines, it is now a historic day-visit to both Taiwanese and international tourists. Actually, this tourism is only quite recent (in the late 1900s, early 2000s) - Jiufen actually had a large downturn after running out of gold in the 70s. This spike of tourism in recet times was helped by Miyazaki's Spirited Away (a movie that I own and cherish), which used Jiufen's downtown as a model for the place Chihiro enters. More history can be read here.  Regardless, you cannot beat the 80TWD (less than $3.00) train ticket from downtown Taipei to Jiufen.

(ok, so this isn't the ocean, but it's still really pretty - taken from the museum)

From left: Harry (xiao jin's boyfriend), Yu-san, me,
xiao jin, and xiao ming (their friend) 

Turning away from staring at the blue seacarpet before you, the first thing you notice is the air - a mixed ocean and foresty sent that you know only gets better the higher you go up the mountain. Standing at the entrance of the Gold Ecological Park/Museum, you can see the entire bay area and the town below! Walking around the museum with my 2 coworkers (Xiao Jin and Yu-san), Xiao Jin's boyfriend, and their friend, we had a fantastic time.

Here I am talking about gold, pirates, and the Song dynasty. 
In the same conversation.

We learned about some of the other types of minerals that were mined (byrite, pyrite, quartz, and the like) and read about the history of gold as Taiwan knows it (and, of course, its role with the rest of the world). The museum even has a solid gold brick that is surrounded by a transparent case, open with 2 holes so one can stick their hand through and touch it！ (Which we all proceeded to do and shout - "we're rich people!!!!" haha). I was a little bemused when I read about gold and electronics, keeping in mind my past internship at Kester Solder (or ITW-Kester, however you like to call it now）with Dad.

A golden touch.

I was downright amused when we noticed a large group of caucasians (seen above) following a tour guide. Getting the courage to talk to them, I found out that they were all from Canada and are having a great time touring around Taipei! The next time we saw them, Xiao Jin went, "Fran! 你的外國朋友來一次！" and then proceeded to ask "他們為什麼呢麼大？" ("Fran! Your foreign friends are back!"...."Why are they so big?"). I was glad that they didn't understand Chinese, and hoped that the tour guide head wasn't listening. Finished eating our bakery goods (I had a walnut-something muffin and cream stuffed bun), we headed to the downtown.

The streets kind of reminded me of Venice's - except a little narrower and more...Taiwanese. They maintained that nice dark brown cobblestone and "old-style" buildings (although, like Venice, most of these shops are newly built for the tourist boom in recent times). Every square inch packed with either people, various food stands (stinky tofu included, unfortunately), or gift stores, Jiufen's "Old Street" quite a bit of variety.

Known for its fried taro, 肉圓 (this is a little hard to explain...), fishball soup, and sweet yuyuan冰淇凌 (another dough, like mochi, except different, put ontop of shaved ice), customers leave happy and full. Always a good thing in my mind =D And, like the rest of Taiwan, all the food is really inexpensive - dinner (plus snacks and dessert) would be around $5. Some of the souvenirs that can be bought are wooden goods (shoes, massagers, mooncake molds), jewlery, and other knicknacks. This is all very nice, but you really want to go there for the food and the mochi. ^__^ At night, strings of lanterns, which line the posts from store to store, all light up, and you can see the uncanny resemblence to the nighttime for Chihiro (in Spirited Away). The same coworker who was amazed at the Canadians got to use her two favorite words over and over: "so beautiful" and "so delicious". I couldn't help, but agree!

P.S. Grandma & Grandpa --- Look they had mini golf for the prince! (look near the grass - the long stretches of concrete are minigolf holes/fairways...haha!)