Taiwan Day 4 - Jiufen + Shifen + Shilin

Woke up early as we had to leave the hotel by 9 to catch the taiwan railway train (TRA) at Taipei main station. The timetable online doesn't seem to accurately because we were suppose to be early but we when we bought the tickets the train was has already arrived and moving off in a few minutes. So we literally ran to the train.

Alighted at Ruifang station and took the bus to Jiufen. Forgot what's the bus to take but Taiwanese are super friendly so can just ask them.

Once again, it was a rainy day in Taipei, sucks to be raining when you're travelling.

Jiufen is like a street with lots of tu chan of Taiwan.

Went into Sophisca which sells interesting sweets and chocolates. 

Condom Chocolate

Sanitary pads? or not.

It's a mistake to enter this shop. Enter up spending close to 10000twd on chocolates and sweets. They're too cute and good for souvenirs. I only bought 1 chocolate condom from the interesting chocolates shown above and it's still with me. Haha, I have no guts, I don't know who to give. Wanted to give to my brother or cousin or friend but awkward.

You can add red bean or green bean into the dessert. I don't like beans so I didn't add but I think you should add cause it will give it more taste. If only the weather wasn't that cold, then I would have eaten the cold one.

Before leaving jiufen, went to get huang li su and tai yang bing from li yi tai yang bing. Their tai yang bing is damn good!!! Buttery and nice. Super love. 300twd for one box of tai yang bing (10) and 250twd for one box of huang li su (10). Actually there's one stall at taipei main station too so don't have to get at jiufen. 

I left Jiufen with 1 big bag of sweets, 1 big bag of mochi and jellies and 1 big bag of huang li su and tai yang bing. Imagine how heavy they were. Totally a torture. In my mind I was thinking, how the f am I'm going to carry so many things to shifen.

Went back to the train station to take the train to shifen. Imagine my happiness when I saw lockers! 50twd per locker. Stuff all the shit into the locker and I left a huge burden in jiufen. Bought the train tickets but there was still a long time till our train came so went to sit down for a rest.

Tea egg

Saw tea eggs and decided to buy 1 which became 2 after tasting 1. They're only 8twd each. Damn good for warming the hands on a cold,rainy day. Eversince I poured bubbletea into bag, my gloves has been left to dry in the hotel toilet but somehow, they just don't dry.

Pingxi train timings

Pingxi train timings

Shifen

Of course when you're at shifen, you have to fang tian deng. It's a must.
They have different colours that symbolizes different things. You can have a mix and match of 4 colours (They have already pre-matched the colours though, so can only choose the combination that fits you while).
100 for 1 colour, 120 for 2 colours and 150 for 4 colours. 
I got the red (health and safety), green (money and smoothness in life), peach red (happiness) and peach pink (tao hua & ren yuan).

With limited chinese, most of the things I wrote on my tian deng is from their provided words.

Please make my wishes come true!!!

Dan Zhu Qi Shui - 25

Tried dan zhu qi shui. I remember this drink from sj-m variety show. The uncle selling was very nice, he still ask if I know how to open. Fun to open. Should try at least once.There's a marble inside which I tried to get it out but couldn't. I think you have to break the bottle.

Bamboo - 30twd

Only tian deng is not enough. Need to make wishes using bamboo too.

Would have loved to visit the waterfall but it was late and rainy. Next time! 

After that went back to ruifang station to switch to the TRA back to Taipei main station. We were rushing like mad women again, after we got back, realized the ticket is for 5? mins later and we had to get our things from the locker and rushed to the platform.

Went back to the hotel to drop our stuff before we headed to shilin night market.

Shilin has 2 areas, one for shopping, one for food. We had a hard time looking for the food area actually.

七里香

This is damn good! Although having to eat the chicken buttock is abit weird, but it's good.

Fried Milk - 20twd

I like fried milk!

Fried Oyster

The oysters are nice.

We had the zai ji pai too but no pictures. Their ji pai is really huge but has bones.

Ice Cream Popiah

Before going back to the Hotel, got popiah ice cream at Ximending. Love the ice cream popiah too.

It's damn funny cause I think these stalls  are actually 'illegal' so suddenly you'll see them all disappear and few minutes later, they'll all appear again. 

My appetitie was really bad the first few days in Taiwan. Haha okay, bad appetitie if you look at how i normally eat. I blame it on jet-lag!

For the rest of my taiwan post, click here.