Day 2 - Jiufen

After having a good sleep, it is time to explore Jiufen as I heard a lot of good things and I never went there.

The city is very small and long time ago, the isolated village housed nine families, thus the village would request "nine portions" every time shipments arrived from town. That is why they are called Jiufen which means nine family (a bit history information here hehe...)

There are ways to go there, but after we asked around, most of them recommend us to go by train to Ruifang station and then go with the bus to Jiufen. We are glad we choose this method. Why? I will explain later. We went there using normal train with reserved seat from Taipei Main Station.

Ticket to Rui Fang Station

Once we arrived in Ruifang station, you can go out from the station and FYI, the bus station has been changed to a bus stop besides police station. All those blogs that said you can cross the street and aboard from there, it is no longer valid.

There is a tourist information desk inside the station, and the officer will help you. 

Once you arrived in the bus stop, avoid the bus with no seat for you. The driver drives like fast n furious wannabe and motion sickness is possible. I was standing on the way to Jiufen and barely survive.  After you arrived in Jiufen bus stop, just go straight up the hill and you will see the entrance of Jiufen old street directly. The entrance located besides 7 eleven so it should be easy to be spotted.

Jiufen OldStreet Entrance

 I was lucky because I came on weekdays and not so many people around. There are some tour group, but still ok. The road is small and in the left and right side, all are shops and mostly selling food.

First food we tried

Rice Noodle, yong tofu, and fishball

 Since it was lunch time and we are hungry, so we tried the first stall selling food haha.. The taste is good and the price is also fine, not too expensive. Worth to try :)

After having heavy meal, we look for dessert to complete our meal. There are a lot of stall selling peanut ice cream roll, but only one with the most queue and famous, A-Zhu peanut ice cream roll !!

The stall

How they prepare

ready to eat

The taste is unique, because the ice cream it self is home made, and the peanut is made from sticky peanut grater which make it more crunchy and sweet.

Along the way, there are plenty of snacks sold but we don't buy everything to keep our weight haha! #bullsh*t

Roast "escargot"

Pork, Fish, Squid, Rice sausage. My bro favorite is the squid one!

After we walk a bit far, we finally can find the famous Grandma taro balls. The taro balls taste very nice, chewy, but sadly they only have one kind of serving, with yam balls, green tea balls, green bean and ice only. It will be great if they add vanilla ice cream and all things usually mixed together with them hehe..

Taro balls

 If you still have energy, you can go up the hill and see the scenery from the top. There are cafes, restaurant, which give you the scenery but we decided to take a photo only and go back down.

View from the top of Jiufen Old Street

 On our way back to Taipei, we decided to go direct by bus. The bus station location is not the same with the one when you come.

From Jiufen old street entrance, you need to go up again and you will see the bus stop in the left side of the street. You can go back by bus until Ruifang station and go back by train or you also can go with direct bus to the city.

This time, we tried the bus to the city. Apparently all of the drivers drive like Fast n Furious wannabe, luckily we were all seated so the motion sickness can be minimized. There was a Japanese couple on board together with me, they look so scared and after arriving in Taipei, both of them looks blank haha.. (yes, it is that brutal).

The bus stop is not stopping directly in front of Taipei Main Station, but it is near by. Since we saw Sogo building while in the bus, so we decided to go there first and then heading to 101.

Sogo shopping center

Inside Sogo, you can find all the branded stuff there such as Hermes, Chanel, Balenciaga, and friends. Since we don't plan to shop luxurious goods, so we only spend few minutes there and heading directly to 101 to try the famous Din Tai Fung.

Arriving there around 5 PM, people already queuing

Queue for Din Tai Fung

Kuo Die, Pork Xiao Long Bao, Crab and Pork Xiao Long Bao

Tips: When you go to Din Tai Fung, see the queue counter light. If it is turned off, means you don't have to queue but if you see numbers there, you can decide if you still want to try or pass the Michelin 1 star dining experience.
We ordered some menu, but not the heavy meal since it supposedly tea time. So, we order pork kuo die, pork xiao long bao, and crab and pork xiao long bao.

They have few nationality waitress so when you tell them where you come from, they will assign one with the similar language to you. At that time, they assign Malaysian waitress for us as they know that we are coming from Indonesia.

We love love love all the menus there, especially the xiao long bao. The price is reasonable and we will be back to try their other menu.

While you are in 101, you can also try Agnes B cafe. Yes, she is a designer and you usually will know her bag or wallet, but apparently their cake also taste good.

Agnes B cafe in 101

After done exploring 101, we decided to go back to Ximen and shop some more there. In the middle of our shopping, we spot on a very long queue for a rice noodle so we decided to queue as well.

After 30 mins queue still need to spend another minutes to queue

Large portion Ay Chung Rice Noodle

Now I know why people queue and willing to eat there while standing, because no seat or table provided. It taste so good, rich with oyster and you can add on garlic or chili. For me, I don't need to add anything more because the taste is perfect already.

This is the end of my second day in Taiwan with super full stomach.

You can see what I did in my first day in Taiwan or simply continue to my third day for Tainan experience ^^