Day 3 Jiufen and Taipei Main Station (4 nights in Taipei - March '17)

A coworker recommended a gold mining town named Jiufen so we started off the day heading out there by bus.

But first, of course we needed some breakfast. There is a place in Ximending called Yonghe Doujiang which serves a very affordable Taiwanese breakfast. It was a little difficult to order food without being able to read Chinese, but luckily we found a menu with pictures. The guy taking orders was hilarious - he yelled at anyone who tried to sit down before ordering. Anyway we definitely ordered too many dumplings and headed out to the train and bus station to Jiufen stuffed.

Delicious and affordable breakfast with soy milk

If you're planning on visiting Jiufen, google the different routes to get there from Taipei. What we did was take the metro to Zhongxiao Fuxing Station and from there wait for Keelung Bus 1062. You'll know you're at the bus stop as there are a decent number of people waiting. Beware that there will be taxi drivers trying to convince you to take their car to Jiufen despite the bus stop being less than 5 min away for probably 10x the price of the bus fare. The bus was a comfortable ride - maybe 45 minutes in total. 

A long narrow street filled with tourists

The town is very picturesque - we spent most of the time walking around a long narrow street filled with shops for tourists. I noticed there were many places that offered an overnight stay which was interesting as I could not figure out what else to do there other than shop and dine at the restaurants. The weather was perfect - not hot at all and with a nice breeze. We really got lucky with the weather on our trip. We probably spent 2 hours walking around and waited for the next bus stop to head back to the city. 

Not sure I would recommend but glad we came since we had the time. 

Taipei Main Station

We were famished and decided to stop at the Taipei Main station to dine and rest for a bit. It took us some time to figure this place out. Taipei Main station is connected to a HUGE underground mall - we thought the food court in this mall was where we would find delicious food. Instead we walked probably a mile to the end of the mall only to discover a very sad food court surrounded by strip mall type stores. It was a very strange place and reminded me of the underground malls in Seoul - the stores sold anything from electronics to children's clothing to foot massages. 

After about an hour getting lost and asking multiple people for directions, we finally found the main station food area called Breeze Centre. From there, go upstairs for the multiple dining options. We found the part of the food court dedicated to beef noodle soup - I think this may have been Lao Dong Beef noodles but I'm not 100% sure - all I remember was that it was delicious.

In addition, we found a Hot-Star on the first floor and I ordered the fried chicken. This location was convenient and looked clean - definitely better than waiting in the long queues at all of the night markets. 

We were tired and headed back to the hotel to rest for a bit. We finally mustered up the energy around 8pm to head out to Aquatic Addiction, which is a smaller modern version of Tokyo's fish market. Unfortunately most of the development had closed but we were able to order from one restaurant - this was definitely our priciest meal and my first time trying hairy crab (it tasted like blue crab but was harder to eat as the "hairs" were actually quite spiky).  Honestly it was pricey for the food and my friend ordered some sushi which didn't exactly taste fresh so we were thinking this place was more for tourists. However - most of the to-go food options were already taken away so that might have been a more affordable option than dining at the restaurant (we ate at the one where the servers wear French berets and black/white striped shirts - I can't remember the name). Also this place was CASH ONLY! Yes we probably spent about $150 USD here and we conveniently took out cash before we hopped on the bus so do not forget to do that.

We took a cab back to the hotel since figuring out the bus schedule was too hard at 10pm at night. Again - remember to always bring cash when hailing a cab as they do NOT accept credit card!