Taipei and Keelung

Each day this weekend has begun with sunshine, a boxed lunch, a half hour bus ride, and a museum at a new destination. On Friday, we spent the day touring Jioufen and Keelung beginning our day in the Gold Ecological Park located in the beautiful, mountainous town of Jinguashih. With plenty of historical and natural heritage, this park was the first ecology museum in all Taiwan! 

This park definitively lived up to its reputation, overlooking the ocean between breathtaking mountains that dipped and rose with an untouchable grace. For lunch, we took a bus halfway down the mountain, only to climb hundreds of narrow stairs leading to the streets of Jioufen Old Street, a quaint town tucked away in the mountains. So far, this town has officially become my favorite place visited in Taiwan. Each street sits above the next as if the town was laid out lining up and down tall rice terraces. If you looked carefully while battling the crowded streets of the markets, between the cracks of buildings was a breathtaking view of the entire valley leading to the ocean. We shopped through the crowded streets of town, and I actually found plenty of souvenirs to bring home to friends! As I sat on a bench with my new friends here eating one of the most divine strawberry icecream cones I have ever eaten, I just took in such a great afternoon.

Our next destination was the Bisha Fishing Port, complete with an intense walkthrough fishing market filled with more live fish and seafood than I could ever want to see or smell again! I think Hanah said it best at dinner: “Best dinner ever.. and not because of the food!” J  More shopping and eating followed at the night market in Keelung. Our group split up somewhere along the way, and let’s just say that my group took about a about half mile detour down the river on the way back to our meeting point at the end of the night.

This morning kicked off with another museum: the Taipei County Hakka Museum. We learned the history of the Hakka culture and attempted our best at the games the people of this culture traditionally played. The skies were clear again today, and the sun brought both shine and smiles to our day! We had Italian for lunch and played at the Yingge Ceramics Museum for a couple hours. The museum itself was very interactive and just fun to walk through with its inside and outside exhibits.

The absolute highlight of our day, and probably one for this entire trip, was our mini-ceramics class in the late afternoon. We painted coffee mugs and learned the technique of making pottery pieces with a spinning wheel. Most of us hadn’t played with clay that is fired in a kiln since elementary school! It was great getting our hands dirty and molding some pretty impressive pieces from slabs of clay. I could sit for hours doing crafts like this! Dinner tonight was just a great time all around: great company with great laughs and great food. I am very much looking forward to another overnight trip tomorrow to the beach with everyone!

Espcially last night, I’d like to say a huge thank you to Jesus for Skype and chocolate bars.

View from Gold Ecological Park

Bisha Fishing Port

Ceramics museum

Spinning wheel skills