This is one of the must-see places for me in Taiwan. My trip would not have been that happy if I didn't go to Jiufen. See, I'm a huge anime fan; and any anime enthusiast should know Hayao Miyazaki and his masterpieces, one of which is Spirited Away. And, apparently, Miyazaki's inspiration for the teahouses in Spirited Away came from actual teahouses in Jiufen. The narrow, chinese-lantern laden streets, to the noh mask on the wall of one of the teahouses, everything appealed to me. So, I really had to go there no matter what, even for a short period of time.
According to our tour guide, Jiufen means nine portions, or something. Apparently, Juifen originally had nine families settled in there, and since the travel from Juifen to the town was far, to save time and cost, whenever one family one goes to town to do shopping, they would have to buy for all the other families. So, they would have to buy nine of each item. Hence, the name Jiufen. To keep the tradition alive, the tour guide told us that we may buy nine of each item, and help the economy.
As we were nearing Juifen, I noticed that there were buses parked on the side of the roads, and lots of people were walking uphill. A few moments later and we encountered a traffic jam, but we were almost at the entrance. The guide told us that if we were riding the big bus, we would have to hike on foot all the way up to the entrance; only small vehicles, such as vans, are allowed since the roads are narrow and busy. Moreso, it was a weekend and it was packed with tourists.
The entrance is beside a 7-11, but the alley is so narrow that it was easy to miss. Our guide told us that the stalls are sequentially numbered and that we'd meet at a certain stall somewhere in the middle, gave each of us the number of the stall and the time we were supposed to congregate there. We were supposed to roam around by ourselves; some free time for us to eat, sightsee and of course, shop.
After an hour of shopping, I realized, I haven't eaten any taro balls yet, let alone any solid food since 7 a.m., but our free time was up. Grudgingly, I went to our meeting place around 4:00 p.m. The guide then walked us through the narrow paths leading to those oh-so-famous steps and to the platform to get pictures of "the teahouse" and it was so worth it. So nostalgic...I made a mental note to myself that I must return to Jiufen and stay there longer. And of course, never to return there on a weekend. So many tourists.
Though it was a short visit, I was grateful that we had a tour guide. At least, we started at the top, near the entrance, going all the way down, and not the other way around. It would have been brutal to climb those narrow steps, no?
