Taiwan: Jiufen & Keelung Night Market 1

On our 3rd day in Taiwan, we decided to pay a visit to the popular tourist spot, JiuFen -九份. We took the TRA train to RuiFang station for NT$ 90/ way. The whole journey is about 45 mins, which is quite long, with not much to see along the journey.

We woke up late that day, about 11 am, thus we miss the opportunity to visit Jing Gua Shi, YehLiu and also the Pingshi Line, which I believe should be somewhere around the RuiFang area (that is what the guide told us, guidance is availabe once you reached the Ruifang station, they will advice you on where to go and what to do in the area).

Me with the souvenir shop in the train station.

We reached the station at about 2pm and there is no way for us to visit the above 3 mentioned places, so for those who wish to pay a visit to the 3, PLEASE WAKE UP EARLY.

Since we're left with no choice, we took a bus to JiuFen, look for bus with the destination 'Keelung'. It was raining when we reached Ruifang, and it's damn cold.

The 3 of us posing at the entrance to Jiufen, sorry for the blurryness, aunty tak-tau (duno in Malay) snap photo. Once we reached Jiufen, I had no choice but to buy a beanie (hat) for NT$ 250 as it was raining.

Jiufen will be a better place if it's not for the rain. Bad luck for us..

The things which are sold in the shop. 

The 1st shop which comes to our attention. Shop which sells taiwan delicacies, loved the pork cracker thingy,  they also sells peanuts and more crackers. This shop is located on the left from the Jiufen entrance, we were pulled in,literally, to the shop by the crowds in the shop, where we later realised that it is a group of Japanese tourist brought in to the shop by their guide.

There is another shop down the street that sells the same thing as the shop above and I think it is more famous judging from the crowd in the shop. Too bad that we had already bought from the 1st shop. My advice, explore the street 1st before you buy anything because there is only 1 way out, meaning you will pass by the shops again on your way back. So, you can survey the shops 1st. 

After reading alot of *thumbs up* review on the fishball in Jiufen, we decided to give it a try. We walk in to the 1st shop selling fish ball that we saw. Look at the mountains of fishball.

The fishball soup at NT$ 25 for 7pcs and the beancurd with meat at NT$ 25 for 2pcs. The fishball is a disappointment, it does not have a good springy bite as in no 弹性. I doubt it will bounce off the floor like the beef ball in Stephen Chow's God of Cookery. Maybe some of you out there will disagree with me, but isn't a good fishball should have the chewy bite?

But the beancurd is good, love the meat in it, also the sauce-can't figure out what sauce it is tho, but its abit sweet, also they have the version where they wrap glass noodle in the beancurd. Did not have the luck of eating that as the lady boss can't figured out what we want from our Malaysian Mandarin slang.

I love this snap of the Jiufen street with the fish ball at the foreground.

Showing off my big head hat, which cost me NT$ 250, the beanie makes my head appears bigger than it originally is. " This hat has 2 layer which will keep your head warm" - Quoted from the lady boss, which explains the sudden growing of my small head.

Unique way of eating ice cream:
1. Prepare a piece of popiah skin
2. Put abit of green onions on it
3. Place 2 scoops of ice-cream on the skin.
4. Lastly, grate some peanut from a peanut block like the one you saw in the above picture, or you can make some yourself like the 1 I did in my Tong Yuen post.
5. Voila, there you have it, ice cream popiah the Taiwanese way.

Too bad, we are too full to try. Love the mechanism used to grate the peanut, so antique looking. Can I have one?

Follow my journey at Jiufen & Raohe St Night Market on my next post...