Continuing from my previous post about tourist activities.
Jiufen and Jinguashi
Jiufen is a famous tourist spot because it’s so beautiful, with its view of the ocean from the mountains and the hillside village with red lanterns everywhere. After visiting twice I still haven’t actually figured out how to enjoy it, but I have faith that it is possible.
Something more quiet and pleasant that we did beforehand was taking the bus a few stops past Jiufen to Jinguashi. The view of the mountains here (including Teapot Mountain) is really beautiful and I enjoyed “hiking” up a long set of steps to get to the ruins of an old Shinto shrine.
View from the Jinguashi gold mining museum
It’s hard to get a seat on the buses taking you from Jiufen back to Taipei at the end of the day (life hack: go to Jinguashi second?). I like this photo I took at one of the bus stops though.
Tea
As I described in my last post. We also did some tea brewing in Jiufen. The tea houses there deserve their popularity as they are a rare chance at some peace and quiet in a crowded destination.
View from the window of our chosen tea house; the people in the window are at a different tea house, and down below is one of the souvenir selling alleyways.
Cycling
These were the routes we took:
- Tamsui to Daqiaotou (it’s a little confusing to get across the Keelung River and get on the path to Daqiaotou, although we did it just by following signs. If you don’t want to visit Daqiaotou you can instead cycle the Tamsui-Shilin route as described here on Taiwan Trails and Tales) The highlight for me are the views of the mountains, the bright red Guandu Bridge, and the very wide flat road on the last stretch to Daqiaotou.
- Ximen to Xindian. This route is also described here on Taiwan Trails and Tales. I think the waterside cliffs and the bridges at Xindian are so beautiful and the perfect place to arrive at.
I didn’t take any photos while cycling because I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of the journey. This was a tradeoff as I was less stressed but now don’t have any photos of what were some of my favourite moments from the entire trip…
Bitan Suspension Bridge at the Xindian end of the route
Cycling has always been a highlight of visiting Taipei, and I’m hoping that next time I visit I can focus entirely on cycling and perhaps hiking. Last year when I visited, my trip was very stationery focused and I think having that specific pursuit helped me to explore the city more naturally and have a more unique-to-me experience. Cycling would be great for that too.
Stamps
At all of Taipei’s MRT stations and tourist destinations (such as visitor centres, museums or historical buildings) there will be at least one stamp and ink pad for you to collect some proof that you’ve been there. I had gotten a few of these stamps in the back of random notepads in the past, and for this trip it was fun to instead collect them in a dedicated notebook, go all in and make sure I didn’t miss a single one! (Actually, I did miss one at the Kenting nature reserve but D went back and got it for me, my hero!) I also glued in a few tickets and other memorabilia.
Bottom left - the elusive Kenting stamp
In the past, urban sketching was my way of creating some on-the-spot physical records of places I’ve been, but it was never rewarding enough to justify the time, effort and underwhelming results, especially not if I had another person with me… this collage-like activity was a good replacement. I still got to exercise some sort of artistic judgement in designing the pages of the notebook.
Of course, this method relies on visiting places that offer stamps. I have been thinking of getting a cheap mini printer, inspired by this Wonder Pens blog post recommending them, so maybe I could collage with my own photos in the future, and do my travel journaling as a composition element alongside the collages too…
How to enjoy a holiday?
A pattern in most of the things I’ve enjoyed on the trip (and what I enjoy when trying to connect with any location, I suppose) is a sense of “discovering” something I didn’t realise was there or didn’t realise was going to be so nice. I had to “find” my own way to enjoy each thing.
For example, my favourite part of the Jiufen trip was visiting the shrine at Jinguashi. There was nobody else on the way up but us; no clues of how we should feel about this rather desolate place. The weather was bad, climbing the steps was tiresome, but when we got there we realised that the sight of the waves of rain blowing through the enormous open space between us and the mountains was so beautiful. The view of the coast from Jiufen itself is more impressive, but it was less significant to me.
The activities that I left out from my blog posts were the ones where I wasn’t able to form this sort of personal relationship. For example, I had been looking forward to visiting the Lin Family Mansion to see the traditional Chinese style garden, but when I got there I couldn’t really figure out how to experience it. Or our trip to Kenting, which was a big one and contained plenty of fun activities, but most of it didn’t make me feel anything special.
My favourite thing in Kenting was wandering around this accomodation complex built in a traditional Minnan style. It was very empty and weird but I guess it fills up with school trips sometimes.
Maybe these attempts to have my own unique experiences in the world and to construct personal significance are another type of creative activity. Is this something we all do and I am just more conscious about it? Or am I a chronic edgelord who can’t enjoy things normally without putting my own twist on them…
Conclusion
Today while I was drafting this post D randomly told me that he wants to go back to Taiwan, so I can count myself as a successful tour guide.