Kobato's Travelogue: 2015 Taiwan Summer Trip 09: Lively Jioufen Old Street, Enjoy Tea at Amei Teahouse

After taking ferry from Green Island back to Taitung, we then took Puyuma Express, a new express train which operates at east coast of Taiwan, from Taitung to Songshan. It was another 3 hour and 22 minute train. Since we arrived at Taiwan, we had traveled around the whole island.

Outside Taitung Station

The aboriginal sculpture at ticket entrance

View at Hualien

Since Puyuma Express do not stop at Ruifang Station, which is closer to Jioufen, so we need to head back from Songshan to Ruifang.

Child Sacred Sedan in Songshan Station, this sedan is a gift from its sister station, Matsuyama Station at Aichi Prefecture, Japan. It costs 2 million yen and handmade by wood, while metal part is copper covered by gold.

Automatic book stop in Songshan Station

We went to Ruifang together with our luggage. It is highly recommended to keep luggage at Ruifang Station before going to Jioufen, because Jioufen Old Street is an uphill street.

Jioufen is one of the major attractions in Taiwan for Japanese tourists. Service counter with Japanese translation is also provided at Ruifang Station. The bus frequency is quite high in this area. Besides bus service, tourists could also take taxi to Jioufen with NTD 180 for single way.

Xiahai Chenghuang Temple

Entire Ruijin Road to Jioufen is mountain road. Although we were here on Wednesday, the narrow road was so crowded with cars and buses. When we reached the entrance of Jioufen Old Street (Jishan Street), it was full of tourists. Since we booked a homestay which located at the most inner part of the Old Street, so we had to walked uphill all the way.

(The homestay that we stayed was Linyuan Cunzhuang. In my opinion, other than the breakfast cooked by the owner herself, there is no more worthy point to stay here. Its location was too far away from the main road, the room was well-designed in old style but too small and without good view of scenery. So I would not suggest to stay in this homestay.)

It was 5:30 pm after we checked in. Most of the shops in Old Street are closed at 6 pm, so we had to hurry up to have our dinner.

Jioufen Koza Meatball (Koza, lit. traditional)

The cute dog in this shop

Noodles and meatball soup

It was so crowded in Jioufen Old Street

Ahlan Caozaiguo in the early morning of next day, the queue was so long the night before

The green one is Caozaiguo, grey one were Yuguo (Yam cake). Caozaiguo was quite nice in taste, but Yuguo was a bit hard to chew.

Jioufen is famous with its pineapple cake, and also ginger tea. A lot of shops selling these two food along the street. The seaweed behind were bought at Fo Guangs Shan that we went few days ago. It were quite nice in taste and less oily.

After that, we went to the famous Amei Teahouse. We were quite lucky to sit at balcony, where beautiful view could be seen here. The customers in the teahouse were mostly Japanese.

Shen'ao Harbour

The special menu at Amei Teahouse (dessert)

Tea menu

We ordered Qingxiang Oolong. The waitress first introduced the tea set, then demonstrated how to make a tea. There was a boiling water beside our table, which allow us to make tea ourselves. Before we started to drink tea, the waitress let us smell the fragrance of tea. The tea leaves that we chosen could be boiled for 7 times. The boiling time increased each times and then change another new portion of tea leaves after 7th times.

Tea cup and long cup for smelling tea fragrance

Teapot for making tea (brown) and teapot for boiled tea (white)

The night view at Amei Teahouse

We just enjoyed the good tea and beautiful night view at here for several hours. This should be the first times that my family had a long conversation.