My Neighbor Taichung

So a while back, my cousin sent me this article:

In case you didn't click on the link, the article is basically about a three-meter Totoro statue that popped up in Taichung not too long ago. The statue is not, as you can tell from the headline, an official Studio Ghibli-made statue, but fan-made by Taiwanese artist Lin, who completed the statue in just two months for about NT$6000 (about US$182). Since there is some potential copyright issues with the making of this Totoro statue, there is some curiosity about whether it will be taken down. However, since Lin is not making any money off of the statue, Studio Ghibli will hopefully allow it.

While I shared the article with my friend and fellow Miyazaki fan, seeing as I plan on going to Taichung this summer, I could only hope that the statue would still be up by then. A week or two ago, however, my friend told me that she and another friend planned on taking the 臺灣高鐡 (Taiwan High Speed Rail or HSR) down to Taichung to see the statue and spend the day there to explore and she graciously invited me along. And so on Saturday, the four of us (my friend, two of her friends, and I) left Taipei at around 10:18 in the morning and arrived back at around 10:36 at night.

Front and back of train tickets

The tickets were a little expensive at NT$915 two-way, but tickets for the HSR tend to be a little pricier and seeing as how fast it got us there, I would say that it was well worth the price. The train itself was pretty comfortable as well and plenty spacious with more than enough leg room and nice air conditioning (it wasn't too cold either!).

The HSR took us to 新烏日車站--the Xinwuri Station in 烏日區--the Wuri district--of Taichung City. The station itself was pretty amazing--it had a lot of sights to see and a few stores as well. From there we purchased train tickets to the Central District of Taichung--台中車站--which only cost a mere NT$15.

My friend posing with one of the many trains around the station

And me

There was a honey museum in there too!

 And then we came across this little gem of a store: 紙箱王 (Carton King)

Everything in there was designed to look like paper and I think actually was  made of paper, or else wood, which was pretty amazing--they had bags and hats (which were washable!), phone stands, and best of all (in my opinion), lights and music boxes!

These lamps were so pretty--I wanted to get some for my sister, but I didn't have much money on me and I didn't want to spend it all before we had even left the station!

If anyone knows how I can rotate this video, that would be lovely

On our way back to Taipei, we decided to visit this store again to make some purchases--I didn't but I was completely enamored with the music boxes they had. It's a little hard to make out the melody playing what with the background noise and music playing in the store, but it was really soothing and hopefully I get to come back and buy one--I really liked the 兔子跳舞 music box (which was sold out). The store personnel was super nice--she saw us looking at them and gave us a demonstration of the different ones showed us how they worked.

More train station attractions

A reading bar with a bench and a bookshelf shaped like a lightbulb--how awesome is that??

When we finally arrived in Taichung, it was hot--I think the temperature was in the low 90s--humid, and sunny. The weather was a little overbearing and we couldn't help but sigh in relief every time we passed a place with air conditioning. The area actually reminded me a little of Flushing, back home in Queens, just because of the layout of the buildings and bus stops, the amount of people, and just the whole atmosphere in general. 

After a quick lunch, we hopped on the bus (which cost NT$20, exact change only--for some reason they didn't accept EasyCards) and were on our way to see Totoro!

He was actually in this sort of not very busy, seemingly random street and would have been easy to miss if you were facing the wrong way or not looking out for him. According to the article, there are huge lines of people waiting to take a picture with Totoro, especially on weekends, but actually when we went there were only a few groups of people there and we didn't have to wait long to take our snapshots.

There was even a red umbrella there for visitors to use in their picture!

The artist even included the soot spirits!

Can't forget these little guys!

No-Face from Spirited Away was there too! Although people were mostly there to see Totoro of course.

Poor No-Face from didn't even get a mention in the news article

Across the street from the statues--this fella is from Kiki's Delivery Service I believe

Afterwards, we went to the famous 宮原 (Miyahara) for ice cream and waffle--they actually had two stores nearby--one was the original Miyahara which, because of that, had long lines of people waiting. We decided to go to the other one just so that we didn't have to wait so long and also, seating!

Their milk tea shop right next to the original store--it had an antique feel to it

The back store where you can buy pineapple cakes, which they also seem to be famous for

The other store bigger and more spacious with three floors and was just as elegant.

You can see them making waffles here

Chocolate- and cream-covered fruit

Mille crepe cake! It looked so good

Pricey bear-shaped desserts on the top shelf

We got a large platter with a total of eleven different ice cream scoops--pineapple, coffee, grape, mango, kiwi, two kinds of chocolate, black tea, yogurt, green tea, and some other flavor that had grapes in it. The grape ice cream was pretty good, but I think my favorite scoop had to be the kiwi one--I've always preferred fruitier flavors to dessert flavors and the kiwi was quite light and refreshing!

 As you can tell, there was safari theme to the platter, with a giraffe, wildcat, rhino, and meerkat graham crackers all artfully arranged on the ice cream scoops and chocolate logs and trees

Afterwards, we headed on over to 台中公園--Taichung Park--to enjoy the scenery and relax a little. There were an awful lot of mosquitoes though and my poor friend who seems to be even more of a mosquito magnet than me got bitten quite a few times.

Sorry about the quality of this picture--I didn't realize it wasn't clear when I took it, darn camera

There were horse statues all over the park--maybe it's because I'm short, but it was not easy getting onto the back of the horse, although one of my other friends didn't seem to have any trouble...

Happy Year of the Goat! This might have been for the Lantern Festival which had been held in Taichung this year

Front view

The sun was quickly setting as we were making our way out of the park

越南華僑! Saw this little restaurant across the street from the park. Haha, kudos if you can guess why I was so amused by it (Hint: It's related to the "Identity Talk" post from a while back...)

After we left the park, we decided to head to the night market for dinner before making our way back to the train station to return to Taipei. Unfortunately I did not get any pictures of the street market, but it was a pretty large, lively, and bustling place with many food stands, clothes stores, and accessory shops.

Although some parts of Taichung seemed just as lively and crowded as Taipei (probably less so), there was definitely a different vibe and a different atmosphere. It's hard to place, but I guess it was less of a metropolitan feel in Taichung even though both are busy cities. I would definitely recommend going down to Taichung for a visit just to experience it, or you know, to see Totoro.

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!