After a restful night in my dear's dream bedroom, we woke up pretty early but a bit too early for the complementary in-house breakfast. Thus, we opted to explore the morning streets of Jiu Fen (actually it was more of my idea to see the nearby park also). No shops were opened and we merely took photos of the surrounding architecture which hinted at the remnants of the past glorious gold mining history.
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The cute version of miners |
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The retro version of miners |
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The cartoon version of miners |
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The historical version of miners |
The park was discovered to be merely a small area of greens with some incomprehensible weird stone relics and we u-turned back to our lodging for breakfast.
On the return leg, we were treated to an unforgettable sight which we would never see if we were on a tour group. The warning signs were there: we smelled insecticides, but we did not think much about it; we saw the white smoke rising up from the drains, but we dismissed them as steam coming out from the ground. It was only upon seeing the actual scene that it hit us that probably we were in the middle of a massacre ground. We did not manage to take a good photo mainly because we were sort of petrified by the fact that we were grossly outnumbered and we were concentrating our chakra on avoiding the escaping cockroaches. But indeed, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Not for the fainted-hearted though.
I guess the purpose of the nice breakfast thereafter was to calm our nerves. However, despite the scare, we managed to see Taiwan's version of our mailbox, public phone and power meter outside their homes as well.
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The rising smoke of death...
was that one flying out at the bottom left? |
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The less crowded deathbeds for cockroaches |
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The familiar uncle which we saw locally |
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The simple and calming breakfast with hot cocoa |
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You got a call saying that you got mail! |
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Power meter in analog version |
After breakfast, we proceeded quickly to Gold Ecological Park. Once again, we were too early and we had to wait for the information counter to open in order to reduce our carrying load as we had already checked out. Well, with spare time and a camera on our hands, more photos resulted.
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How a miner looks like with a luggage instead... |
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Awaiting the opening of the information counter |
After depositing our bags, we were on our way to an educational tour about the historical place by visiting a conserved residential area and going into their conserved mine tunnels. We even climbed up many steps, much to my dear's protest, to reach a rundown place, probably the place of the miners' worship. Along the way, we had a nice view of the summit of the neighbouring mountain, which happened to look a lot like a teapot.
We also had our hand at gold-panning, where we even got to keep a bottle of the gold we collected, though the amount collected was not sufficient to be of any significance. The entire mining experience was further enhanced with their cafe actually selling their meals placed inside the traditional miner lunchboxes, which we happily bought, at a premium price of course. Prior to that, we had quenched our thirst at a rest stop, which happened to sell tau huay (no prizes for guessing why the stall was there).
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The miner |
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The "cabin" which the miner sat in |
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The tickets to the tunnels and the caps for the helmets |
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The entrance to the mine |
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3... 2... 1... Boom! |
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The teapot mountain while trekking up the steps |
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The rundown place of worship |
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Tickets to the gold panning experience |
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Me trying to strike rich... |
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The collected gold dust (not the big shiny stuffs though) |
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The nice tau huay |
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The miner lunch box |
Time flew when we were having fun, and so was our energy level. After our scrumptious lunch, we took the public transport back to Taipei to find our hotel to check in and deposit our bags. We sort of got lost and actually had to go to another outlet of the hotel to ask them to help us find our intended place of lodging. Luckily for us, both hotels were in the vicinity of each other, which got us wondering why the owner placed the hotels so close each other in the first place.
After settling the administrative stuffs, we then quickly went to a famous ramen place (屯京拉麵) for dinner. Indeed, it was true to its name for good food and we were lucky to have reach there early to beat the queue. They even had their own instant noodle version of their ramen, but unfortunately, they were not for sale in Taiwan.
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Her delicious meal |
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His tasty meal |
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The instant noodle version of their ramen |
After dinner, we walked around to find the bookshop that was indicated on the map, but we failed. Upon returning to our hotel, we had some light snacks and that marked the end of Day 2 of Taiwan.
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A happy dear with her long hot dog =) |
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