I headed to gold ecological park in Jinguashi today early in the morning. The park was a mix of old japanese imperial housing and the miners experience. They tought you how to pan for gold in the panning experience. In the Japanese prince's house, there is an old cement mini-golf course. I didn't know mini-golf existed so long ago. There was also a tour of the 5th mining tunnel (extra cost), but we skipped it. That leaves something for next time. The entire park is situated up in the mountains. There is a long path leading into the mountains which gives a great view of the park below and the seaside. On the way back down, we were tired so we stopped by a douhua (豆花) shop. It's a cold soup made with very soft tofu and clear sugar syrup. Refreshing!
Leaving the park on a bus back down the mountain, there is an old town called JiouFen. JiouFen has a series of old streets filled with food and souvenir shops. Being a mountainside town though, the streets are on a hill. It's like the san francisco streets of taiwan. On our walk up the street, we saw a street hawker selling grilled snail. I don't know what kind, but it was delicious. At the end of the day, we took a long break at a old tea house overlooking the seaside. A perfect place to sit down with some nice scenery and share several pots of tea and just talk and talk away.
You'd think that the day is over, but once we got back to Keelung, we visited the local Miaokou night market (廟口夜市) there. We had a taiwanese sandwich which was special to Keelung. Also some oyster omelette (蚵仔煎) and desert. We spent about an hour there, then jumped on a bus for a long trip back. It was a tiring and great day, so I slept on the bus all the way back to Taipei. Good night everyone! More photos
here.
This noon I introduced Yuki to the Hakka stall at the traditional market near XInSheng. It's the same Hakka stall that my father introduced to me last month. I tried to remember what me and my father ordered last time, but I'm not too sure if it was correct. We ordered Hakka rice noodles （米粉麵一碗）, 豬心? and 油豆腐. It's definitely a unique flavor and you have to really appreciate Hakka cuisine in order to stand the dirty market environment and lines. I loved it. Definitely a hole-in-the-wall, local-only type of thing. No tourists in sight. This traditional market is on the corner of Section 1, XinYi Rd. and Section 1, JinShan South Rd. Afterwards we met up with Lucy and her roommate Grace from Hsingchu. We immediately headed out to Keelung. Once we arrived we explored around before heading into the MiaoKou （廟口夜市) night market. We ate a few small snacks that we can't find in Taipei.
Like giant squid arm and fresh Uni right out of the body. The uni was awesome, but expensive. I LOVE Uni and I've never ate it straight out of the shell. Afterwards, we decided to head back to Taipei early for some further dinner and drinks. First a drop off to Macho Tacos, because Lucy and friends haven't had decent Fresh-Mex since California. Afterwards, back to the bars behind Ximen Red House. It was Grace's birthday. So Happy Birthday and bottoms-up!
