Spirited Away to 九份 (Places You Must Go)

So a few weeks back, I had the pleasure of meeting a friend of my sister's who was in Taiwan for the week. He was with a friend of his from Japan who had in turn invited a Chinese co-worker/friend who also happened to be in Taiwan. They all spoke Chinese although the Japanese friend and the Chinese friend mostly spoke to each other in Japanese while my sister's friend and I spoke a considerable amount of English to each other (and some Cantonese, hooray for Canto! Haha) (Although we did transition to using Chinese later when we were all conversing). We had brunch at a nearby Japanese restaurant in the Gongguan area (although my sister's friend had some mishaps when trying to order from their fancy touchscreen menu--I'm not kidding, when you enter, there is a giant touchscreen display showing pictures of the food items with the name underneath in Chinese and after you press what you want, you insert money in, while a server stands nearby in case you're in need of assistance, after which you take your receipt upstairs to be seated--whatever happened to the good ole days of having a person take your order??) and my sister's friend even insisted on treating me to lunch despite being the guest.

Of course I got the Korean style dish--kimchi and pork rice accompanied by a side of (rather fishy) miso soup and a refreshing cup of iced green tea (instead of your standard water)

 As we got onto the discussion of their plans while in Taiwan, they mentioned that they would be going to 九份 (Jiǔfèn) later that day and when I mentioned that I've heard of it but haven't been, they invited me along. After (not very much) consideration, I decided sure, why not? My 8 am for Monday had been cancelled for the week so I could afford to stay out a little later (as it was, I didn't get back to my dorm until about midnight). Plus I did want to go to 九份, if only because of the Miyazaki movie Spirited Away (more on that later) and what better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than with some new friends? So off we went!

A Little History

九份 (whose name is literally "nine portions"), is located in 瑞芳區 (the Ruifang district) of New Taipei City and is about two hours away by train and bus from Taipei. Its name comes from the fact that (according to Wikipedia) during the early Qing dynasty, 九份, which was an isolated little village, housed only nine families, hence every time shipments came in, the village would request "nine portions." There was also a history of gold mining in 九份 during the Japanese occupation and as such led to a rapid development to the town due to the resulting gold rush. In fact, a prisoner-of-war camp was set up there during World War II holding captured Allied soldiers who worked in the nearby gold mines. However, after the end of World War II, gold mining declined and the mine was shut off in 1971. Many features of 九份 from the era of Japanese colonization have been retained to this day and as such you can still see many of the surviving Japanese inns.

~*~*~

We took the MRT to 臺北車站 (Taipei Main Station ) and from there bought a ticket on the TRA (Taiwan Railways Administration) train to 瑞芳車站 (the Ruifang Station) which cost only NT$59 (roughly about US$2) one-way. The way back was a little more expensive at NT$75 and they were standing tickets, but the price was still pretty decent. Once we arrived at 瑞芳 we took the bus to 九份, about a 15 minute ride I believe.

The sight that greeted us--as you can tell it was a bit of a cloudy day

九份 is a mountain area

九份 was a lovely little town with narrow, winding alleyways and stairways all filled with shops along the way. Most were food places but there were some souvenir shops too.

We saw 小籠包 and couldn't resist

I'll be honest--I had better 小籠包, but they were still good!

Inspiration for Miyazaki's Spirited Away

As I mentioned previously, part of the reason that I had an interest in 九份 was because of the famed 2001 movie Spirited Away (『千と千尋の神隠し』 in Japanese). Downtown 九份 actually served as the inspiration for the setting of Spirited Away with its more traditional style housing (retained from the Japanese colonization as I have mentioned), its narrow winding roads and stairways, and its overall atmosphere. As such you're bound to see a lot of Japanese tourists in the area (there were also a lot of Korean tourists that day too).

This was actually from a Studio Ghibli exhibit I went to when I was in Korea last semester

Also from the Studio Ghibli exhibit in Seoul--you can really see the similarities to 九份

The bathhouse where Chihiro worked from the movie

As we were going down one of the staircases, we came across this lovely tea house:

In case you can't see it, it reads

"Rare in-line window sills enable light sources to dance within the tea house spaces; which inspired the Japanese animation "Spirited Away" by <Hayao Miyazaki>. Unique masks fills the tea house which is especially interesting when you sip up the cocktails stirred up by A-Mei herself!"

If you're ever in 九份 (where you should really go), I recommend this tea house, A-Mei Tea House. We had a bit of a wait but it was nothing too bad since it was still early in the evening (around 5 o'clock) and so the streets and restaurants, while busy, where not super crowded.

The exterior, featuring the unique masks they mentioned

We had this lovely set which, while a little expensive in Taiwanese terms, would be considered cheap in U.S. terms. For each person, this cost NT$300, which is about US$10, for which you can get a considerable amount of tea, black sesame and sesame cookies, sugared plums, mochi, and green tea biscuit cookies (which are a bit dry so I don't recommend eating the whole thing in one bite as the guys learned). Not bad at all.

It was late by the time we finished, we had been in there drinking tea for about an hour and a half, so when we left the sky had begun to darken. The atmosphere in A-Mei Tea House was really nice , after showing us how to steep the tea they left us alone to drink at our leisure (except to return every once in a while to refill our water kettle). There was quite a bit of tea leaves and they could be steeped about three times before you had to change them. In fact, we didn't even use all the tea leaves--there was just that much--but there was a little zip-lock bag provided so we could take the unfinished tea leaves to go. As I mentioned the atmosphere was really nice and cozy and we just wanted to sit there and relax all day.

You can really see the similarities to Spirited Away from the building's exterior

It started drizzling a bit though so as we were trying to get back to the bus stop to return to Taipei, it was rather dark plus with all the stairs, it was a little hard to navigate at times, so make sure to bring a flashlight with you! It also got super crowded and at several points there was just throngs of people pushing to try to get through. We were even holding on to each other at several points just to make sure we didn't get separated.

When we got back to Taipei, it was only about 9 pm so we decided to go to 士林夜市 (the famous Shilin Night Market), but that is a post for another time. 

The postcard we were given from A-Mei Tea House; the bottom right reads:
千と千尋の神隠し [Spirited Away]
湯婆婆の屋敷 [Yubaba's Mansion]

Thanks so much to Johnny and friends for inviting me to come along with you to this lovely little gem of a place! I hope you enjoyed your stay in Taiwan and plan on coming back soon!