JIUFEN AND BITOU CAPE PARK

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2016

My friend, David, and I wanted to go somewhere nature-y. Basically, we wanted to see more green space, something different from the urban landscape we are currently immersed in. I had found Bitou Cape Park from Instagram. It looked pretty and it was far enough but not too far for a day trip.  *KEEP READING TIL THE END FOR A GIVEAWAY*

HOW TO GET THERE

David and I took the TRA to Ruifang Station. I took it from Taipei Main Station and David got on earlier at Banqiao Station. We took a 9am express train. It’s a 35 minute train ride from Taipei Main Station. We met up at the station and sought out the visitor information booth. They gave us some pamphlets and we were on our way. From Ruifang Station, we got on the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle – Golden Fuloung Route. The bus is called台灣好行which directly translates to ‘Taiwan good travel’. It comes once every half hour on weekends and once an hour on weekdays. The bus stop was maybe a 5-10 minute walk from the station. Not far. I actually think there might have been a stop in front of the station and maybe we missed it. 

PLAN B

We’re standing at the bus stop waiting for the bus and we make a last minute decision to go to Jiufen instead. David has never been and I’ve only been once by myself. So we hopped on the next bus to Jiufen to see if the rain might clear up later in the day. 

We took one of the many buses from Ruifang Station to Jiufen and 10 minutes later, we’re standing in front of the entrance to Jiufen Old Street. We were really lucky. There weren’t many people and there was enough room to walk comfortably. Usually, it’s packed! I don’t know if it was the time of the day or if it was the day after a typhoon or if it was the last day of a holiday weekend. Either way, we lucked out. Most places were open and a few were closed. 

ICE CREAM BURRITO

Very close to the entrance of Jiufen Old Street, there’s a vendor that sells what I call, an ice cream burrito for 40 NT. It’s a thin crepe with two scoops of ice cream and peanut shavings. The peanut shavings are sweet and freshly shaved off a block of peanut. I forget the flavors of the ice cream, but most times one of them is taro. You can also choose whether or not to add cilantro. I don’t like cilantro so David and I shared one without cilantro. It was delicious! I almost went back for a second one.

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SHOPPING

There’s a lot you can buy at Jiufen. Many of the stores sell Taiwan souvenirs, including postcards, magnets, sky lantern key chains, and more! There are also a couple vendors selling Taiwanese snacks like sausages and soup dumplings.  To my knowledge, Jiufen is not well known for their food. There’s not much to eat up there, and from my experience, the food is kind of expensive. We walked to the end of the path, where we got a view of Jiufen. Then, David and I had tea at a famous tea house.

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This tea house (not pictured above) is famous because it was in some movie, I think. It’s the most photographed place in Jiufen and is on almost every postcard you get from there. I’ve never been and I wanted to check it out. I don’t think David knew much about it and was okay with doing whatever I wanted, hehe. 

AMEI TEA HOUSE

It’s a large tea house. There was very few people there when we went in. Maybe two other pairs. At one point during our tea time, it was just us as the other customers had left and there wasn’t really staff around. I highly recommend this tea house! It was so much fun! I thought the tea was pretty good as well. The water always stayed hot and they would come around and switch it out for you. They show you how to do it the first time and we had no problems after the demo. I will say that it was kind of an expensive experience. It’s 100 NT per person plus the price of the tea. The tea we got was the most popular among customers and was 600 NT. In total, it was 800 NT. However, the tea was good quality and from Alishan. We got to take the rest of the tea leaves home. To justify the price, you’re essentially buying a bag of tea. We didn’t finish the tea leaves and they gave a pretty tea box to put the bag in. We each also got a complimentary postcard with a beautiful picture of their tea house on it.
 

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Not far from the tea house, we found a place to eat lunch. We saw pictures of the food, thought it looked good and decided to eat there. This place served typical Chinese food, but it was kind of expensive. I got akung paochicken set which came with a small portion ofkung paochicken, three sides, rice, and a drink. They actually forgot my drink and I had to ask them to put it in a to-go cup. My meal was 380 NT. It wasn’t even western food, so I don’t know why they charged so much.  I think it might have been a place trying to trap foreigners. I don’t know. David gotxiaolong baowhich are soup dumplings. For six dumplings, it was 180 NT. After lunch, we walked to the bottom of the stairs and I took lots of pictures. haha.  Then we walked back towards the entrance and stopped at the temple behind the bus stop.  Then, we hopped on the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle bus to Bitou Cape Walking Trail.  Check out my other posts here and here for other things to do around the area.

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BITOU CAPE PARK/ BITOUJIAO

Jiufen is kind of on a mountain, so the roads are really winding.  Having taken the bus before from Juifen to the Golden Waterfall, I knew it wasn’t going to be the most pleasant ride.  The bus ride was actually better than the last time I went.  Unfortunately, the girl sitting across from me did not have as pleasant of an experience. Halfway through the bus ride, she was experiencing some major motion sickness. She started throwing up in a Family Mart bag, but somehow missed? I don’t know, but there was vomit dripping down onto her jeans, her shoes, and the floor of the bus.  Yeah, the smell was not pleasant.  When we got to our stop, she and her friends happened to get off as well. I told my friend to wait and I walked away and ended up puking on side of the road. I know, not a lovely picture. I’m just proud I didn’t puke on the bus.  There are signs for the trail and are easy enough to follow.  You want to walk to the entrance of the elementary school and the trail is on the left.

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It was absolutely beautiful up there. The air was cleaner and there is so much green around you.  The trail has mountains on one side and the ocean on the other. It was stunning. The waves were really strong because a typhoon had just passed, but the weather was perfect! The sun was starting to come out a little, no rain, and it wasn’t too hot. I definitely recommend coming here.  The walking trail is a 2km hike with lots of stairs, but it was very easy. It’s easier than elephant mountain. Pictures of me are courtesy of David, benefit of travelling with someone else.  The end of the trail brought us to Bitou Fishing Port. It was really pretty, but then we saw a bunch of trash in the water. There was so much trash, you could not see the water because the surface was just covered. It was really sad.  We hopped back on the bus and took it back to Ruifang Station. The bus ride back wasn’t too bad in terms of motion sickness, but we did encounter a bit of traffic around 4:30pm.  On the way back to Taipei, there were no more seats on the express train, so we took the local train which is 57 minutes to Taipei, but we got seats, so everything’s okay. 🙂

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*FREE GIVEAWAY*

Round Taiwan Round has a new tour called Tripool.  This custom shared local tour makes getting around the area easier and affordable.  For more information on the tour, click here. I’m teaming up with Round Taiwan Round to give three of my readers a free custom shared local tour of Jiufen. All you have to do is comment in this post below, or go to my Instagram and tag a friend in the comment section. A winner will be chosen at the end of September.  The free tour is valid til the end of December. Good Luck!!

#Tripool #WeRoamLikeThis #RoundTaiwanRound

Looking to travel somewhere else in Taiwan?  Book on rtaiwanr.com using my code: MeetWorld for more discounts. 

Happy Traveling! Much love, Tina x.