Decided to head to Jiufen today, which was also said to be the inspiration for Miyazaki Hayao’s Spirited Away. I had wanted to head here before, but my family insisted that they wanted to visit it too, so had put off the idea of visiting it till now.
We took the train till Badu, then changed trains to get to Ruifang. Managed to get an additional stamp from the adjustment fare window. Noticed that they were also selling bus tickets to Jiufen, and almost everyone bought them at OK Mart, so decided to follow suit. Bad decision of the day, and one of my greatest regret to date which I will elaborate later. The next bus would be coming in an hour, so we headed out to the road in search of food, and found a food court.
Ordered lots of stuffs to eat, which included snowflake desserts, muachi, porridge, mixed rice, and my brother got himself a large platter of raw fish. Finished up everything within our one hour limit to head back to the bus stop to catch the bus to Jiufen, and the bus was running late.
Got off at the foot of the stairs, and we were the only ones who did it. Luckily there was a tourist information center nearby, so went in to ask for directions and got some maps from them. Finally figured out where we were, and the next thing was to, climb the long flight of stairs!
Climbing a crazily long flight of steps wasn’t an easy task, and we had to stop every now and then for a breather. Most of the tourists were heading down, unlike the crazy bunch of us which were going up! Finally made it to the very top of the hill, where the stairs ended, and was rewarded with a million dollar view, including the sea.
By then, it was crazily hot, so we ducked into a coffee shop for a drink, to reward ourselves from the hike and also the keep out of the heat. Decided to then make our way down through the old street.
Apparently, most of the tourists, well, almost everyone, would take the bus right up to the entrance of the old street. After making your way through the zig-zagged streets, and also cringing up noses at the almond powder, they then head down to the foot of the stairs. Walking down it, but we did the opposite and it was too late when we figured it out.
Now back to the bus. We found out that the expensive bus ticket which we had purchase, did not stop at the entrance of the old street at all. After asking around, we were told that we had to head back to where we got off earlier. Taxis would charge an exorbitant price to bring you back to Ruifang, so it wasn’t really worth it at all. Decided to walk down to the bus stop along the winding road to where we started.
Finally got to the bus stop, and guess what, after almost an hour of waiting, the bus finally came, but it refused to stop for us all, including some other tourists who had bought the same bus tickets as us. We were all in disbelief, and another tourist said he had enough of this nonsense, so he flagged down a taxi, which brought him to his destination. We took the local bus which came along next, and it was scary riding it. The bus was swaying wildly from right to left, and it was driving pretty close to the edge of the cliff.
Was lucky to reach Ruifang in one piece, and we were too tired to head to the Yeliu park anymore, so bought tickets back to Taipei instead.
The next day, was my last day in Taiwan, but I came down with a high fever, so spent the whole day sleeping indoors while the family went out to do some exploring on their own. Such an uneventful end to my 2 months stint in Taiwan.
この長い旅で 