The next day, we had our breakfast at the hotel (surprisingly, most non-international chains hotels in Taiwan seem to have breakfast included in the price. There is no "room only" price), and checked out to visit the 3 main attraction in the area.
Unfortunately, the weather is not on our side. It started raining shortly after we left the hotel. Well, Keelung is not known as the "rain capital" of Taiwan for no reason.
As Harbourview hotel guest, we are entitled to 10 hours of free parking, which means we only have to pay for 8 hours. Each hour at the carpark cost NT$ 30, which works our to NT$ 240, or slightly more than S$10.
We went back to our car, paid for the parking, and off we go. First stop. Jinguashi.
The area around Jin Gua Shi & Jiu Fen used to be a gold & copper mine during the Japanese colonial period. During the 2nd world war, the area was also a prisoner of war camp where the Japanese put many allied POWs to forced labour in the mine.
The mining has since stopped and the area has developed it's own tourist charm. Most tourist will take a day trip from Taipei to explore the area, before going to Keelung's Miaokou night market and then back to Taipei.
We decided to take the coastal route, where Taiwan's northern coast meets the pacific ocean.
On the way up to Jinguashi, we stopped by the Golden Waterfall (黄金瀑布), where ground water mixed with copper deposit, created a seemingly "gold" colour waterfall.
Directly opposite of the waterfall, there is a small carpark, from where you can see the ocean. On a good day, you may be able to spot the colour contrast at the river mouth where freshwater meet seawater.
From there, we took a short 10 minutes drive to the town of JinGuaShi, where the Gold Ecological Park documenting the "golden" heydays of the area is located. This park contains different attractions related to gold mining.
The public carpark (cost NT$ 100 per entry) is a 10 minutes walk (plus quite a bit of climb) from the main entrance of the park. If you're taking bus from Keelung, the bus stops directly outside the museum.
Once at the top, the view is breathtaking.
Happily, entry to the park is free, and only a few selected attraction is chargeable at a nominal fee.
The public carpark (cost NT$ 100 per entry) is a 10 minutes walk (plus quite a bit of climb) from the main entrance of the park. If you're taking bus from Keelung, the bus stops directly outside the museum.
Once at the top, the view is breathtaking.
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| The town of Jin Gua Shi |
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| The view out towards the sea, too bad the weather is not our side. |
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| Map of the immediate area
The first attraction in the park is the 四连楼 (4 joined Japanese style residence). This residence housed the most senior management of the Japanese mining company, and after the war, the senior management of Taiwan Metal Mining Corporation.
There will be a guided tour (as far as I know, in Chinese only) into the residence, with max 20 people per tour. We were there early, therefore, the waiting time is short.
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| A short video presentation showing the history of the area and the building. |
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| Bomb shelter in the house. |
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| Living room |
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| Kitchen |
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| Dining hall |
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| A different style of living room |
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| Bedroom |
The house is setup to show how the furnishing looked like during the Japanese colonial period, and after Taiwan Metal Mining Corporation took over.
When we exited the house, the sky started pouring again. But we ain't letting that dampen our mood.
Next attraction is the Crown Prince Chalet, built to house the Japanese Royal family when they visit (which never did happen).
A short 10 minutes walk (and some 50+ steps of stairs), we arrived at the next attraction. An actual mining tunnel which you can walk into. Note that there are many more mine tunnels which are in the area, all but one are closed for safety reason (or due to prior rock slide which sealed the entrance).
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| Air pumps which are used to pump fresh air into the mining shafts |
To enter, you have to pay an entrance fee of TWD100, which isn't really much. And the fee covers the rental of a safety helmet (which is compulsory) and a "shower cap" for hygiene purpose.
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| A replica of how a gold vein look like. |
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| Life of miners in the mine. |
The last attraction we visited is the museum building housing artifacts and pictures of the mining days in the area, and reportedly, the biggest gold bar in the world.
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| Miniature scale model of a mindshaft |
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| Gold ore |
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| And the biggest gold ar in the world. At the present gold value, this is worth TWD 254.6 million. Or approximately USD8.34 million． |
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| This gold bar weigh 220.3kg. |
There are 2 other places of interest within walking distance after the museum building, but due to the fact that we are running behind schedule to visit Jiufen (it's autumn when the sky gets dark at around 5pm), we decided to skip those. One of the POI is the ruins of a Japanese shrine and the other, the sealed entrance of another mining tunnel.
As we walked down to the entrance of the park, the sky sort of cleared up a bit, which gave us an opportunity to take more awesome pictures.
From Jin Gua Shi to Jiu Fen is only a short 10 minute drive, but boy, we are in for a surprise when we reached Jiu Fen.
It being a Sunday, the place is crowded with visitors and we had to park at a public carpark about 15 minutes walk away. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, but roads are narrow mountain roads, with many buses trying to negotiate up and down the mountain. Well, at least the weather stays clear.
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| Traffic |
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| more traffic |
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| And even more traffic.
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Easily more than half the shops in Jiu Fen Old Street is selling food. For those into drinking tea, there are a number of tea houses too, with some having breathtaking views of the seas below
One of the commonly found food here is the fish/meal ball.
And we found something new, which is 红糟肉丸. It is a kind of meat dumpling which is kind of difficult to describe. So it's best that you try it on your own.
We also ordered meat balls soup along with the dumplings.
Next item on the menu is their very famous Taro Ball.
And who can give the ice-cream peanut wrap a miss? Definitely not us.
There are many other food and drinks on sale too.
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| 茶叶蛋 (Eggs infused with tea) |
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| All sorts of BBQ stuff. |
After Jiu Fen, our final stop for the day is Shi Fen, where we will spend the night. Shi Fen is the place where many will go there to release sky lantern (天灯). It is also the place where the 2 main characters of the Taiwanese movie 那些年我们一起追的女孩 (You Are the Apple of My Eye) release their sky lanterns.
As most people will include Shi Fen as part of their day trip itinerary from Taipei, there are not many accomodation choices there. In fact, my prior researched turned out only 2 minsu. Both are within 3 minutes walking distance to Shi Fen Old Street (十分老街). The first one is 十分旅人民宿 and the second is 楼仔厝民宿(pronounced in the local dialect as lou-ya-chu). We chose the second one because it has it's own private parking space. The minsu building is built in 1922, during the Japanese time. Therefore, the decor are also from the era.
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| Each room has it's individual names |
As typical of many minsu in Taiwan, the rooms are about average size, has pretty much the things you need for a short stay, and served it's purpose well.
Of course, the main reason of coming here is to release lantern.
Next part: Day 3 - Driving the 雪隧 and 苏花公路 from Shi Fen to Hua Lian
