Woke up at 9AM ish and had our complimentary breakfast with the vouchers by CHO hotel!
Shifen/Jiufen is pretty far from the "city" so after our breakfast, we took the train to Shifen!
To Ruifang station! We reached and had to take another train to Shifen which I remembered we waited for about 1 hour since we missed the last one... The weather is cold in Taipei but it's even colder in Shifen! We walked to the station to take shelter and the wind blew so strong and it was so cold. Even in the shelter, we could feel the cold air coming in. Natural air con man.
At the station, we waited for our next train. And we met this very nice Taiwanese who chatted with us while we waited. I believe he was cycling and took a break at the station. He and my boyfriend started talking while I kept quiet cuz Taiwan chinese is so chim and I can't even read the chinese newspaper smoothly.... It was sorta a nice experience communicating to a Taiwanese? Taiwanese people are so friendly I love it man.
Soon, the hour passed and the train arrived and we bid goodbye to our new Taiwanese friend. We hopped onto the train and arrived in Shifen! It was so cold we decided to eat something hot/get some warmth from the restaurants as we take shelter from the cold weather.
We had beef noodles which tasted..... meh? But it warmed up our bodies a little!
We walked through the streets of Shifen and decided to go to Shifen waterfall first before coming back to release sky lanterns!
The Shifen waterfall was a pretty far walk.... considering we had to walk against the strong wind. And we were only wearing 2 layers! It was about 10-15 minutes walk but the view is awesome!!!
Really picturesque :)
We walked back.. (in the cold T__T) and wrote on our sky lanterns before releasing it! We chose the four colours one because the different colours represent different things!
Blue - Work
Orange - Love
Red - Family?
Yellow - Money?
I can't remember lah, but that's based on what we wrote on our sky lanterns!
Orange: Wrote aplenty regarding our relationship~
Translation: #audresmond forever, love each other always, get married faster (haha), tolerate each other, always be together, i love you forever.
Corny much????
Blue: Work
Translation: Bunch of idioms concerning work - smooth progression at work, good relationship with bosses and colleagues, meet people who will help us, earn lots of big bucks!!!
Red: Family?
Translation: To be healthy, and safe, longevity! Health is wealth!
Yellow: Wealth
Translation: Earn big bucks!!! Lots and lots of money!!!! Buy house and have a baby. Ok I don't know why a baby comes under this category. I probably want one too much!
If I'm not wrong, ours is the 3rd one!
After releasing our lanterns, we travelled to Jiufen! By the time we left it was already 5PM ish, it was pretty late to go to Jiufen but I NEEDED TO GO and I thought they wouldn't close so early :(
We arrived at Jiufen probably around 7PM?? It was pretty late and almost all the shops were closed! But we went to take a look nevertheless!
I remembered they said the streets of Spirited Away was inspired by Jiufen but I just can't find that area that looks like the scene from Spirited Away :(
Still, it's a pretty place and I'll definitely go there earlier if I travel to Taiwan again!
We left after taking a walk around Jiufen to Keelung Miaokou Night Market!
I remembered that day was the day we took a bus to Keelung at some ulu place which has nothing but a few lamps and everybody was waiting for the bus at the bus stop. It was dark and I remembered there was this very cocky guy talking to his girl friend about sex?
It was dark and we were waiting in line because everybody was queueing and there we felt it was us against the world :) Waiting, and travelling via buses :) I really like taking the public transport when I'm in another country because you get to see a lot more things and places as the buses drive through the towns!
We arrived at Keelung but walked a bit to Keelung Miaokou Night Market.
I can't remember what we did there... We probably walked around and played Mahjong Bingo because this was the only picture I found of that night! It's my new found hobby! The shopkeeper even gave me a packet of Minnie floss for trying the game!
We then walked to the train station which was quite a distance I remember and travelled back to our hotel :)
