La tournée de Taiwan 2013 : Shifen

The morning was hot.  Took a Guo Guang bus at Taipei Main Station to Ruifang on the way for the Shifen excursion. It took about one and a half hour to reach Ruifang.  There were only 4 passengers in the bus.  The bus stopped in front of the Ruifang railway station.

As I looked around I saw the sign showing the way to the food street.  I wasted no time, quickly Icrossed the road to investigate the food street.

There was a very old woman selling 番薯粿 which was fried sweet potato cake.  It was not that the cake tasted very nice but I just had  to have a taste of it.  I bought one.

I also bought a piece of 九层糕which was not to my liking in front of the old woman's stall.  Then I came to a small food shop beside the railway station where they sell 糯米团  rolled  glutinous rice with stuffing inside and 炸水饺 fried dumplings. I ate them both for breakfast. Then I moved on to the railway station, bought one day train pass which will enable me to travel the Jingtong line for as many times as I liked on that day.

First stop, Houtong.  This place was also known as the valley of the cats.  It was said that those days people brought their unwanted cats  and left them here and now the population of cats had multiply.  But as we walked around, we don't see many cats around but I sure saw this giant cat sitting on a roof top.

The train reached the Jingtong station,  passing by Shifen and Pingxi, the two towns  which we will visit later on. There were many passenger from the Houtong station.  Many alighted at the Shifen which was the main attraction of this railway line.

There were a lot of short bamboo sticks hanging all over the place.  All these stacks had wishes written on them...

I bought this..a must eat 葵花冰淇淋, the sun flower ice cream.  It was always nice to eat something cold in a hot day like this, so the ice cream tasted extra good.

Next stop was Pingxi.  Just had a quick walk through the old street.  A few shops selling souvenirs mostly in the form of 天灯.

The toen had beautifully designed drain covers though.

Next station, Shifen, which was the main destination of this trip. The number of visitors was a shocking sight to me. We thought Shifen was a quiet and peaceful rural village when we were doing the pre-visit research but...OMG... the number of visitors here was as many as in Jiufen.

Coming to Shifen, one must not miss a visit to the famous Shifen Waterfall.  It was a half an hour walk. With clear road signs one cannot miss the place by any means.   It was a nice waterfall, but due to the drought, there was not much water flowing but that did not hinder her beauty.

十分大瀑布

This is how it should be.

This was what I got to see. :(

眼镜洞瀑布

Should looked like this

..and I saw this :(

Back in Shifen, many people were letting go the 天灯with wishes written on it with the hope that God who art in heaven will pick them up, read them and grant their wishes.

Took the 6 pm train back to Ruifang and hopped on to a bus which brought me back to Zhong Xiao Fuxing, to end a day of fully enjoyed excursion.