Day Tripping!

Over the weekend, Rebecca and I took a couple of day trips out of the city. One to a place called Jho Fun, which means "nine pieces" or "nine rice" depending on how bad your Chinese pronunciation is, and the other to a small market town called Beipu.

Jho Fun was a copper/gold mine during the Japanese colonial period and is situated up in the mountians nearby the port city of Keelung in Northern Taiwan. The place is well known for it's night market and traditional tea houses. There are a couple of ways to get there which take about te same amount of time depending on traffic. One way is to ae the train to Keelung (pronounced Geelung) and then catch a bus from the train station, or you can take a bus from downtown Taipei.

Rebecca and I went fairly late in the day on New Years so we got there after the sun had gone down. This would be a great trip on a nice day because the town is high up in the mountains and probably offers a spectacular view of the ocean and surrounding countryside. The night market is a tiny warren of covered walkways weaving in and out of the town. The market is full of food salls, nicknack shops, and, of course, tea houses. I would recommend going here on a day that wasn't so busy, simply to avoid the constant jostling of hundreds of people in a very cramped space. Also, fewer people would give you more time to check out the shops and food stands. Since I tend to get a bit claustrophobic in big crowds, I was very happy when Rebecca suggested we stop to get something to drink. We sat in a nice little tea house with an outside patio that offered a great view of the coast. After that, since it was about 8pm, we decided we should head back home. This is where going on a less busy day would really pay off. We ended up waiting in line for a bus for about 45 minutes simply because there were 500 other people all waiting for the same damn bus! Anyway, we finally got home around 11pm, very tired from the day's events.

Beipu is another fairly short day trip, but is a little more difficult to get to in the fact that you have to catch a bus to Jhodu (Jhongdu?) and then catch another bus to Beipu. This would have been tough without Rebecca because EVERYTHING is in Chinese and there are no English signs anywhere. Beipu is a small market town which Rebecca told me was very popular with tourists. There wasn't much info in my Lonely Planet other than the place is famous for "Lei Cha", which stands for "pounded tea". Apparently this particular tea is popular amoung the Hakka farmers as a kind of energy drink. It's made by grinding tea and other stuff together, pouring hot water over it and adding rice. The stuff looked like split pea soup to me and tasted a bit like tree bark (not bad if you happen to like tree bark tea). The other thing the place is known for is having some of the oldest examples of Japanese colonial architecture. The Japanese buildings are classsic baroque style concrete structures and don't really do much for me personally. The local temple, which is the centerpiece of the market is another thing. Although many Buddhist temples seem the same, it's the detail in the decorative carvings that are amazing to me. The scenes covering the roof and wall mouldings are so intricate and they don't seem to be repeated anywhere else. Each corner has it's own scene.

Of the two places, I think Jho Fun was the most impressive. I want to go back there earlier in the day to be able to take in the scenery and possibly hike the mountain. Beipu was good for a day, but I don't think I'd go back. Either way, it was nice to get out of the city for a little bit and check out some of the countryside.

(Sorry there are no photos, but I don't have anyway to post photos until I get my own computer.)