Juifen

Day 3: Juifen

So far, I have neglected to mention how hot it is in Taiwan. It’s really hot!! Think 85-90 everyday with high humidity. My only comfort is that even the Taiwanese people think it’s hot. However, this day was gorgeous. It was so nice out, probably about 70-75 everywhere we went with light sun, absolutely the nicest day so far. Chandler originally wanted to go to the National Palace Museum, but I talked him into doing something outside for the day, so we went to a coastal area called Juifen for pretty much the whole day. Juifen is about an hour and a half bus ride from Chandler’s condo and was very pretty. Apparently the town experienced a gold rush in the 1960s, but now is a popular market area. When we got there we went right to the market street and it took us probably about 2 hours to get to the end after checking out some of the stores. As usual, there are lots of food vendors, and we had to try just about everything. I ate something that came out of a shell that looked like giant escargot which was good but chewy and we tried some local sausage things made out of boar’s meat. Oh, and there are bakeries with various kinds of cake and whatnot. I brought back a variety box of pineapple, blueberry, etc. cakes, but I have no idea where they went. The market was very cool, and we walked up and down it twice. I saw a belt that was pretty cool for about $9 that I almost bought, but decided to wait, and if I really still want it, I’m going to make Chandler go back later.

Juifen’s other attraction is Keelung Mountain. It is a mountain right alongside the ocean and it’s just under 2000 feet high. The entrance is just a short walk from the commercial area in Juifen. As there are no laws on open intoxicants in Taiwan, Chandler and I each grabbed a beer at a convenience store at the base and commenced the climb. Surprisingly it only took us about 35 minutes to climb to the top, but when you leave Juifen you are already about halfway up. The views that the summit afforded were absolutely worthwhile. You could see Taipei about 30 miles away with the Taipei 101. I must have taken about 30 photos of the Taipei skyline from this vantage point to ensure that I got some that came out. The views of the coast are beautiful as well and you can see Juifen behind you. In short, it was awesome. We stayed at the top for about half an hour and climbed back down, which took about 20 minutes as it’s really steep with hand laid stones everywhere that are difficult to traverse.

By this time it was about 5:30 and we fooled around in Juifen for about another hour and hopped back on the bus for Taipei. We saved about a half hour of bus/MRT rides on the way back because I was positive that if we got off at a certain stop that Chandler’s building would be just around the corner, and I was right! I wasn’t very hungry when we got back, but Chandler’s mother made us some beef dish that was really good, kind of a soup with a couple sides that were also tasty. I have to refuse a lot of food in Taiwan, otherwise you just keep eating. After that, we just watched some tv and went to bed.