Stepping outside of the hotel as usual, I noticed something was wrong, it was a lot colder than the previous days and people were wearing jackets. Time to quickly turn around and get some extra clothes and change the plans for today. I don't mind hiking in the rain, but with the low hanging clouds there's no point in hiking to an outlook for hours, just to see nothing and get soaked in the process. The backup plan for a rainy day was Jiufen, a small town near the coast, famous for it's tea houses.
Jiufen Old Street, Jiufen
It takes about an hour per bus to get there. Luckily the buses (bus 1062) go frequently and with the rain and it being a Monday morning there weren't a lot of people taking the bus. On nicer days and weekends it can get really crowded in Juifen and on the busses.
Juifen old street is basically a covered alley with tons of shops selling souvenirs and food.
The tea houses in Juifen are (falsely) rumoured to have been the inspiration for Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away.
There are a couple of must-try things at Juifen and one of them is a bowl of Sweet Taro Balls. (Which I didn't like much, it has hardly any taste). And the Peanut Ice Cream Roll, which was really nice, basically a pancake with ice cream and peanut shavings. It was pretty neat how they managed to not touch any money at this shop by having the customers place the money in baskets and ask them to take the change themselves.
After exploring nearly every (side) alley I was slowly getting soaked, as having a camera and an umbrella doesn't work really well in these narrow alleys.
Time to head back to Taipei, where I entered the metro in a pretty neat station. It reminded me of another station on this trip.
After a shower I walked a "small" (5km) walk towards the south in the Wanhua district and eventually took the bus back, after eating some delicious fried chicken.
