Ruifang 瑞芳鎮, the gateway to Jiufen

A small town before Jiufen

Ruifang township (瑞芳鎮 in Chinese, pronounced Ruìfāng zhèn) translates as "Lucky fragrant small town", but I can tell you, these days I would not call it fragrant, if you ask me. And the lucky part can also be debated, judging from the photos below. This town looked pretty gloomy and run down to me, but maybe the fact, that it was cold and foggy that day, added to the bad image. The town looks pretty small. It used to be a center of the mining industry in the 19th century (source), but these days it's just the gateway to the popular tourist destination Jiufen. And that's the reason, why I ended up here: Our train from Taipei City brought us here and we had to transfer to a bus, that brought us up to the beautiful mountain town Jiufen 九份, the place we wanted to visit. See some photos of Ruifang below:

Ruifang train station.

This part is like a public square and connected to the main road.

This road across the street from the train station is full of food stalls.

This is a type of sausage on a stick, it's very popular in Ruifang.

The photos above were taken in early morning and then we moved on to Jiufen. We didn't spend a lot of time in Ruifang. But we returned in the afternoon, while going back to Taipei. We were hungry, so we decided to eat something here. See some more photos:

This would be a kind of a day market in Ruifang, but it's more like few food stalls only.

We saw food along the street, but we decided to go to that covered area.

This is not really Zhong Xiao East Road, but it has a certain charm.

That famous sausage again. We tried one and it was pretty good.

Then we were headed to that covered area, we were hungry and wanted to eat.

You can read about the food we had there in this post>>

More photos of Ruifang near the river:

I wonder what is built there. A bridge? An overpass? No idea.

Doesn't look like some well thought-out architecture.

I wouldn't live here, it looks pretty gloomy. Wonder how it is, when it's sunny.

When heading back, the whole area was lively.

Ruifang is only worth a visit, if you happen to go to Jiufen or Keelung. You can stop for an hour, walk around a little, try some local food. I don't want to be rude to the people of Ruifang, but there's really not a lot to do here, if you come as a tourist. I hope my photos will help those, who are curious about Ruifang.

[My TAIWAN page][Related: Our trip to Jiufen, Ruifang food][All photos by MKL, 2010]

Our trip to lovely Jiufen 九份

A mountain village in northern Taiwan

A friend of ours recommended us to see a lovely mountain town in northern Taiwan named Jiufen (九份), which is about an hour and a half away from Taipei City. My girlfriend knew the place instantly, because she used to visit it in the past many times. We had to take the train to Ruifang, an old mining town beneath the famous mountain resort and then take a bus from there. I think we needed more than an hour before we finally set foot in what proved to be one of the most amazing Taiwanese small towns.

Jiufen, sometimes spelled as Jioufen or Chiufen, (pronounced Jiǔfèn, in Japanaese 九フン) became famous in the late 19th century, because of the gold that was discovered near by. At that time, Taiwan was under Japanese rule and many buildings reflect that era (source). And that's why there's a lot of Japanese tourists visiting Jiufen. The town is also famous for the excellent tea and there are teahouses everywhere around town. And the waitresses speak Japanese, too. The whole town focuses a lot on Japanese tourists, but there are also many Koreans visiting recently, because a Korean drama was shot here.

Take a tour around the beautiful Jiufen with me:

The first view of Jiufen on a foggy and cold winter day.

After taking several photos of the wonderful view on the houses on the hill, we decided to go to the central part. There's a street full of tourists. It's really crowded. Food and souvenirs are sold there. Have a look:

The overly crowded main street, full of tourists.

All this is located on more than 300m above sea level.

The street is not so long. And it's very narrow, you just can't avoid the crowds.

They sell all kinds of food and lots of souvenirs.

More food. Yummy? Maybe. Next time I have to try it.

Slowly coming to the end of the street and out in the open.

We saw so many cute cats. My girlfriend captured these two funny fellows.

The view on Jiufen again. We couldn't stop making photos of it.

Teahouses on the right. The mountain on the left is above 500m.

The fog covered the view of the sea. Jiufen has a great view of the Pacific ocean.

Would you live here?

View on Jiufen again.

The opposite side.

The main temple in Jiufen. There are also 2 big temples built on the hill below the town.

A smaller building close to the main part.

The main entrance, looks so rich in colors, so majestic.

A view inside the temple.

After we saw the temple, we decided to head down and try some of their famous tea. So we had to find a nice teahouse. But there are so many to choose from.

When going down, we saw funny faces on a wall.

Off to the famous teahouses in Jiufen!

We chose this one, we wanted to try the great Taiwanese tea.

A view down from the terrace of the teahouse we chose.

The menu. What to choose... hmm...

An abandoned terrace of a teahouse below. So bad we couldn't see the sea, it was so foggy.

The view up: Tourists and more teahouses.

My girlfriend chose this excellent tea: Jin Shuan Oolong Tea (金萱烏龍茶 in Chinese).

She also ordered pastry with tea leaves inside. The tea was mild at first, I liked it.

A Japanese tourist on the left, the waitresses on the right.

A view from the teahouse. We soon left the place.

Lovely tourists from Hong Kong taking photos. We did the same.

The last view of this lovely town before we left.

We took the bus here to go back to the train station in the town below.

And then we were back to the gloomy Ruifang.

We walked around Ruifang a little, had something to eat at their night market. After that left back to Taipei City. It was really a great trip for us. We took a lot of amazing photos of this incredible town and tried their excellent and high-quality tea, but most importantly we spent a whole day together and shared precious moments that we will never forget.

Jiufen is small and one afternoon is enough for you to explore it. The food is yummy, even if you just try some snacks, you'll have a great experience. The tea is amazing, but it comes with a price. It will cost you 500TWD or more. Together with the delicious pastry it cost us around 800TWD (which is nearly 20€). If you go in summer, the sky will be clearer and you can see the beautiful sea, which we sadly couldn't see this time, it was too foggy. Jiufen is a place definitely worth to see, especially if you visit Taipei. But there are many tourists, so be ready for that. I love Jiufen and hope that one day I can visit again.

[My TAIWAN page][TAIPEI][Jin Shuan Oolong Tea info][All photos by MKL, 2010]