Taiwan Day 6 (Yehliu)

Before the day start, had this for breakfast somewhere near XiMenDing or LongShanShi (not really sure of that though) but this is really good especially the fried char siu. Apart from their signature watery porridge and thick bee hoon, they sell lots of other side dishes too.

The day continues with the journey to Shifen, Jiufen and our last stop Yehliu. Some place from the internet mentioned about the queen stone statue. After reaching this place, I found out that it's isn't all about that. They have small beaches with sea water view too. Lots of different types of stone if you know how to stand back and enjoy. Do check out more here before you go, I find these interesting explaining all the types and shapes of rocks you will find there.

Mushroom Rock

Princess' head

How can you miss out this very trendy tourist spot here, the Queen's Head. You need to queue for this but the line goes pretty fast :) Lastly, ending with a group photo of us at some random lake, you can see that the weather is actually very hot here.

Taiwan Day 6 (Shifen, Jiufen)

Continue our journey to New Taipei City! :)

Shifen

Shifen is popular with writing down wishes on the sky lantern and release it to the sky at the railway. Anyway, that rail is not just only for decoration, trains are still operating and pass quite frequent fetching tourist here, they call this as the Pingxi line. People are free to cross the track as there will be people on duty there to clear the rails before the train come. Shops at both sides selling souvenir and snacks. We bought the sky lantern with four different colours for different sides each symbolises different meaning for NTD200 each. Red for good fortune, pink for romance, peach-red for decision and opportunities, orange for money, yellow for success in school or career, white for health, green for growth, blue for hope and purple for idealism. Well, the two couples obviously shared and buy their own sky lantern, while the remaining nine of us shared two sky lanterns. They sell also mini sky lantern as souvenir :)

Jiufen

It's a town famous after Miyazaki sketched on Spirited Away. There's a lot of food stall and souvenir stall, not to forget the theme shop. It looks classic with narrow street and steep stone steps. Below is the view of Keelung outer sea. Apart from all the unique and interesting building, we come here for food hunt! We eat according to the food list from our tour guide and some stall people queue and sort of random ones.

This is a must try! Almost everyone come here for these, one bowl of taro mixture prices at NT45. This is good. Each taro has different colours and it actually tastes differently.

This is a shop where we try out their oily rice and braised meat rice with different types of ball. Taste good and price is reasonable. The shop is decorated with photos of the boss with artists, couldn't recognise most of them but I suppose it's a very famous shop with artists.

Ah Lan Hakka Gluttinous Rice cake is famous, you got to queue up for these. We bought all 4 different tastes to try each cost NT10. They have it in salty and sweet taste which are yam, salted vegetables, red bean and salted green bean. 

We ate also Yu Wan Bo Zai selling fish ball, really very chewy and springy. It's priced at NT60 per bowl. This is very nice too!

Taiwan Day 5 (Cingjing)

The first activity of the day, He Huan Shan! Waking up 4am in the morning is no kidding. The weather her is super cold which I don't realise or take note before I came. Wearing an off shoulder blouse with a cardigan definitely not a wise choice especially when the wind non-stop blowing to make sure you know its existence. I think I almost freeze or actually freezing already but still insist on not getting into the car for some heat because you never know when is the last. 

I took this photo when the sun had already risen, the reported weather is 8°C. I believe while I'm still waiting for the sunrise, the weather is way below that. Some of my friends or should I say most of it give up half way due to the cold weather. Anway, that tough one hour actually comes out with amazing and stunning views (photos :P). But Pontianak Bukit Jamur still win the best view! 

Below are some photos taken by me and my friends from the dark blue sky with cloudy winds till the sun rises which is beautiful and amazing!

This view is taken from the second stop, a few turning down the road after He Huan Shan. This cloudy blue sky is beautiful too and slightly warmer here probably because the sun already rise. We had our group photo here! :)

We then had our breakfast at the nearest 7-11 while waiting for Cingjing farm to open. It's operating hour is 8am. By that time, Guan Dong Zhu is not yet ready, I bought a hot sausage bun and a cup of coffee. Seeing those road riders warming their hands by directly touching it with the pot.

We are among the first to arrive here, Cingjing farm. Got our ticket with student price at NTD120 though we are not local student which were discounted to almost half the price, normal ticket price on holiday is NTD200. Lots of grass with sheep, furry and not so furry ones. There are also sheep performance (at 9am) and horse performance (at 10.30am). Oh, you get to feed the sheep too by buying their food for NTD10. This area is big, you might need three hours or so to really enjoy this place. We are a bit too rush as we are chasing time, heading down to Taipei from here need around 3 hours not included all those traffic jam and lunch.

Lunch somewhere in some random shop trying out Taiwan lunch box and this turn out to be good! Price range around NTD60-100. They served free soup and drinks, you just need to order their lunch box. I think I ordered the normal ones, the portion is huge serving with three to four kinds of meat, tofu, braised egg and a little vegetable. This is cheap and delicious! Especially this free soup really nice to drink.

Next update will be Taipei, the main city of Taiwan.