Category: 旅のエッセイ / Travel Essay

Since my trip to Taiwan was mainly for my mother, I thought I would keep the itinerary simple, with little effort required to move around. Still, I wanted to add a twist, so I decided to spend one night in the port city of Keelung near Jiufen, and another night in Taipei. This way, we could complete our trip within northern Taiwan and see cities other than Taipei.

I am now not sure if it actually made sense in the end, but in order to avoid crowds, we had decided to stay in Jiufen on a weekday, which meant we would go there on Friday as we arrived in Taiwan. Since it is possible to travel from Jiufen to Keelung by direct local bus, the next day, Saturday would be the overnight stay in Keelung. As a result, the third night in Taipei to be Sunday night.

However, after making all the arrangements, I found out that public local markets in Taipei are closed on Mondays (at least Google told me so). No matter how reasonable the route itself was, as a local market lover, I felt that the last day of our trip would be uninteresting one. Moreover, the private kitchen that impressed me during my last visit had been closed. Should we continue to Taipei on our last day?

My wanderings began.

I started looking travel guides and YouTube every day. There were many choices, but if all we did was move around in Taiwan, it would be contrary to my original purpose and it would be too packed in itinerary. After much consideration, I came to a conclusion that the city of Tainan seemed like a good choice. Tainan is a city in the southern part of Taiwan, where the old cityscape still remains. We decided to stay two nights in Tainan, forgoing overnight stays in Taipei and Keelung. When we finally decided to stay in Tainan, it was less than two weeks before departure, and we had a hard time finding a good hotel.

After returning to Taipei from Jiufen, where was chilly and drizzling, we took the Taiwan High Speed Rail from Taipei. Although the distance is long, the trip takes only about two hours, and the seats are reserved. When we arrived in Tainan, the weather was sunny and almost sweaty. It was like in an another country.

In Tainan, I wanted to visit the ruins of an old warehouse called Anping Tree House, so we headed there first. I was able to capture beautiful oblique light in the early evening. If I had gone to Keelung as I originally planned, I would not be able to get out of the cloudy weather, so it turned out to be a great decision.

For dinner that night, we went to a private kitchen that I had selected from a list of restaurants made by my Chinese-speaking friend. I went there thinking it was a Cantonese-style restaurant that also served Western-style food, but it turned out to be more delicately flavored than I had imagined. It was worth overcoming to make a reservation and other arrangements, and this restaurant alone made me feel glad that I had come to Tainan.

Full-day sightseeing began the next day. We started with an early morning visit to local markets. After purchasing some snacks at the market, we returned to the hotel, took a rest, and then walked around the city’s tourist spots. The city was delicately large and we cut about half of the places we wanted to visit, but we still had to walk about 14 kilometers on this day.

Tainan was extremely interesting and very enjoyable, Taiwanese culture was influenced by Dutch and Japanese rule era. There were some places I missed and there seemed to be many charming back alleys. It is a city I would like to revisit.

Although I used UBER and took breaks from time to time during this trip, the distance we walked during the four-day trip was about 40 km. While I was able to adjust our air and rail travel schedule, as a sightseeing trip for an elderly person, this probably meant that we walked too much.

I tried to reduce the amount of effort required for travel, but it seems that I could not change my travel style. I am a selfish old son after all. By the way, my mother is 80 years old this year, and she is taken care by the same acupuncturist as myself and wife, who says my mother is in the best in health among the three and I am the far worst.

I guess that means I should take care myself without thinking about other things.

Last December, when I caught a flu-like cold, my mother came to my home with relief supplies. While we talked, she told me that she wanted to go to Jiufen, Taiwan.

I looked up the weather in Taiwan and found that it generally has a rainy season from April onward for about six months. I take my trips seriously and try to act quickly. I decided not to wait until next season. Looking up the calendar, there were two three-day weekends in February this year, but one of them was tied with Chinese New Year, so I decided to pass. I decided to take one day off to make it a four-day trip, as I thought it would be too much to take my mother on a lightning trip.

This was my second visit to Taiwan, and I had heard that Jiufen was extremely crowded. The last time I visited Taiwan was a 2.5-day weekend starting on a Friday afternoon, I did not go to Jiufen nor the National Museum in Taipei to avoid crows.

To avoid the weekend crows, we decided to spend one night in Jioufen on a weekday this time.

On the first day of the trip, we arrived at Taipei’s Songshan Airport around noon. Since this airport is located in Taipei City, we decided to take the UBER directly to Jiufen. It was cloudy when we left Taipei, but gradually began to drizzle. By the time we arrived in Jiufen, it was completely raining.

The inn where we stayed was located at the back of a public parking lot, but the parking lot was already overflowing with tourist buses. We gave up driving to the front of the inn and headed out on foot in the rain. Although nothing to do with the UBER driver nor Jiufen town, I started to have a bad feeling. I had my umbrella in my suitcase but unable to take it out in the rain, however, that was not the point of the problem.

We left luggage and went out to the town, it was already crowded. It was crowded as if I had come to see tourists. It was past 2:00 p.m. at that point, but since the town is famous for its night view, the number of people would probably increase as the evening progressed. Moreover, it was extremely difficult to walk in the narrow alleys with umbrellas. It was not good in any way. There was a coffee shop with a good view, so we decided to escape and see what was going on.

Even after spending some time at the coffee shop, the rain had not stopped, and the road below us was jammed with buses. There was no sign to get any better, so we gave up and decided to return to our inn.

I had heard that the tourist crowds would be decrease after around 8:00 p.m., when local buses from Jiufen back to Taipei would stop running. At 7:00 p.m., we went back into town again. The rain had not stopped, and the streets were still crowded, though perhaps a little less than at 2:00 p.m. Jiufen is a town of steep hills, and returning to the inn at the down of the hill is tedious and strenuous. We went into another coffee shop to kill time again. Although there is nothing bad about the cafe, it was not good in any way.

When we left the coffee shop at 8:00 p.m., the crowd had finally reduced. The rain did not stop, but we finally reached the front of a teahouse, a famous tourist attraction. I heard that there was another teahouse in front of this famous teahouse that had a viewpoint, so I went in to take some pictures.

In Japan, I rarely go a cafe, but this was the third time in half a day since I arrived in Taiwan. I have not consumed any alcoholic beverages yet, not even a glass of beer, despite the fact that I have consumed too much coffee or tea on that day. It was not good.

The only meal I had on this day was in-flight meal. I felt hungry, but meal serving time at the tea house was already over. It was not a good day.

While we were having cups of tea in traditional manner with a view of night scenery, my mother seemed to be cared by lao ban, an elderly gentleman of the tea house. After talking in Japanese for a while, he gave us a bento box. It must be an extra box made to tourist groups, but it was quite tasty. He even lent us plates to serve it on. Thank goodness for that. Finally, I could not wait any longer and said, “Lao ban, can I have a beer, please?” It was nice that Japanese was understood.

The rain continued until the next morning and it became a drizzle just before we left, but it was cloudy anyway. There were less crowded in the morning, so I ran up the hill for about 15 minutes to the famous teahouse to take pictures.

I heard that it rains a lot in Jiufen, not only on this day, but also throughout the year. It is too touristy place to take pictures. No matter where you take pictures, they will all look like pictures you’ve seen.

In the end, the only good memory of Jiufen was the bento box. It was thanks to the lao ban who made Jiufen into an unimportant place for us. 真是謝謝你.