Day number three in a row where I’m telling you about my daily journeys. I can’t help but to be exploring these places and seeing these things. I’m so excited about all these interesting things that I saw, and today was no different. Today I went to Jeifun.
Jeifun was a hike. I don’t know why I did it after yesterday, but it’s in the name of exploration. I want to see what’s out here, and I didn’t come here to sit down, did I? So I went to Jeifun because it was along the time of the Lantern Festival and Jeifun is an area in Taiwan to the north of Taipei where you can take a day trip there, and you can see the lanterns being over the water.
You can see cliffs, and you can see old Jeifun town, which is a very interesting attraction, and it also has a lot of craft shops there for people looking to get some cool things that are handmade. Some of the older traditional arts are still alive there, and you can get a few different things that are touristy— yes—but at the same time it gives that air and traditionalism. A lot of shops, a lot of shops. There are also a lot of steps and a lot of different alleys.
The town itself is an old town where it’s a little bit of a maze to explore, sure, but it’s well worth the journey, especially if you come to Taipei. Jeifun is it. So I want to start off with my day and tell you how it went from the beginning to the end because it was an action-packed day to say the least. It started off with me taking the bus. I took the bus all the way to the connecting bus because there’s a special bus who takes Jeifun. It’s not easily accessible by metro so you do have to take a bus and the bus takes around I would say two hours, two and a half hours.
It was probably an hour, two hours and I had timed going to Jeifun with the sunset. I was told by my contact and my friend here that the best time to go to Jeifun is definitely around the sunset where you can stay at the peak or on the mountain at the observatory areas and see this beautiful gorgeous twilight drench the scenery.
Did he disappoint in that description? Not one bit. I’ll share pictures none of the pictures will ever compare to how it is being there and being in the moment; being in that space and seeing the light yourself—feeling the energy of the people. It’s around two hours to get there.
Once you get there, because it’s a very touristy place, it’s one of those areas where you’ll have a tourist unloading spot and then there are a few signs that direct you where to go because Jeifun can get very crowded. One of the things they suggest for you to do is to walk around it in a certain path or in a certain way so that you’re not impeding the flow of traffic. So they give you signs to let you know which direction you should be going in, which direction is each one of the different things that you want to see there.
Now me, I rolled up in there with my sunglasses on looking all cute. The only thing that saved me from Jeifun and the amount of people, the sheer capacity that this place has, is the fact that I’m tall. As a tall person, you can just look over a lot of people’s heads.
In fact, as I took a picture and as I saw myself walking or as I’m walking, the thing that stood out the most for me was that I’m towering above everybody, so I’m not particularly bothered by the amount of people there because most of them fall below at my shoulder or below. I can clearly see a lot of the things that are going on. I saw a lot of the different shops before I reached there.
Not only that, but I didn’t have to fight my way through a crowd. I could sometimes see a good block down from where I was and see if I needed to get somewhere or see the different type of shop that I might want to visit and quickly make my way through to it. For shorter people, that might be a problem. It gets very crowded to be honest. One of the things that is great about it, even though it’s crowded right, because Jeifun is a city or a village of mostly maze-like interactions, what you could do is you could find yourself on a little side street, take a break from the huge crowd, walk up one of the little alleys, take cute pictures. I found myself doing that for sure.
This is somebody’s livelihood. This is somebody’s home sometimes where you’re going to. You do have to be mindful of that. There were beautiful pagodas, beautiful vistas. One of the places that I went to take a picture, which was at the lookout point basically, was this gorgeous place where there’s this railing, and you’re at the peak. I didn’t go during Lantern Festival time, but the town itself is also littered in lanterns. After the sunset, after I saw all of this beautiful visage and walked around, I then came back to the town because one thing I had noticed during the day that I was walking were that during, throughout nearly all the streets I would say, there are lanterns. They’re lanterns pretty much at the height of my head.
You’re wondering, how it would look at night? So that’s also why I did not leave. After I walked around Jeifun itself and saw the crowd and left, I walked around the outskirts of Jeifun, but I knew that I was going to come back because I wanted to see these lanterns at night. When you look at in the evening, the twilight and the gentle lighting of the lanterns as you’re walking and the buzz of people, the smell of the food, there was stinky tofu—yes Stinky tofu did dominate some of my senses. I can remember that right now, but there are also lots of other different street food and different food types that are here in Jeifun. It might be a little bit more expensive than in Taipei City, even in Ximen.
Did I have it? No, I had something else. I had, I had the, uh, the rolled candy. Then I had the, um, I had the stick candy as well. One of the desserts that they have here that’s very special. It’s like a milk tea dessert or a sweet syrupy dessert where they put, I don’t know what kind of things in there, but it was some jelly-like substances. My friend said, try it out. I would highly suggest Jeifun as an area for people to visit and an area for you to see some of the cultural significance and some of the old school cultural architecture or the architecture of some of the villages before, because Jeifun is so prized. It’s kind of preserved a lot of what’s going on.
That’s why it’s so crowded. They haven’t pushed any of the buildings aside to make bigger anything. It’s just kind of, this is our tradition. This is our culture and this is what we are. And I felt blessed to be able to appreciate that with them and to be able to see this beautiful sunset, a lot of the older architecture in the space of Jeifun. It’s definitely a must-visit in Taiwan. If you go to Taipei, find your way to Jeifun. Have some fun, and I’m signing off for today. My legs are tired.
We’re going to see what we’re going to do tomorrow because I’m going to try to pack as much action into these days as possible because I am leaving soon, and we’ll be on to my next destination. I will be going to Hong Kong.
-Tall Black Nomad