Taipei 台北遊 (Dec-2010)

[chin]

The town is very near the sea, and Taiwan is also famous for the many typhoons every year. You can just imagine that this place has lots of rainfalls and sun. Plants grow everywhere, which is very pleasing to the eyes. But at the same time, I can just imagine how bad it can be in a strong typhoon.

[chin]

More pictures of greens everywhere. The first one was taken at the entrance to someone's home. The second photo was the wall on a small hill side alley, leading to the Gold Museum. I will have more picture of the "museums" later.

[chin]

For so many plants to grow so easily everywhere, the place must have lots of water. And as I walked the street, I heard running water in many places. The town has many sewage like water pipes, perhaps to channel the water collecting in the hill area.

Many of the sewage has covers like these - saying this is the Properties of the Town of Ruifang (where Jiu Fen belongs.)

[chin]

More nice store fronts. The first one wasn't open so I have no idea what do they sell. I like the store front very much.

The second pis is a tea house 天空之城. It's part of a group that owns a few tea houses, potteries and art galleries in Jiu Fen. Their business is scattered into a few buildings along the hill side, with one of the shops 九份茶館 occupying a hundred-year-old house (as claimed by the shop.) I quite like some of the tea cups on display in 九份茶館 but the shop keepers were too busy entertaining some Japanese visitors...

In one of their potteries, they had a 煤氣窯 in a very dusty room, creating the impression of a real workshop.

[chin]

Not all houses in Jiu Fen are nice ones like the above. In fact there were many ruins, often right next to a nice house.

Perhaps this shows how difficult it is to maintain a business or a home in Jiu Fen, that the owner rather just abandon the property and let the plants take over?!

[chin]

Plants just grow in all unlikely places. Any opening.

[chin]

During my little walk around town, I saw two gold mining "museums". None of them seems to be in business any more. And the signs and advertisement just sounded so desperate to get people in. I will translate some for non-Chinese speakers.

- Free gold mining game, get gold rocks for free
- Our museum is the best place for school field trips
- Get yourself & your kid ahead on the "golden" starting point (of life)
- How can you come to the treasure mountain not bring back some goodies
- Are you not happy with your work & career? Come to our museum to mine gold to change your luck

But the funniest sign I saw outside the gold museum has to be this one
- Thieves, there is no valuable inside in the evening! 

[chin]

This window cover was once part of a 牌匾, probably proudly displayed by the owner in a prominent place of the house.

[chin]

If you paid attention to some of the small details of the photos above, you can see that "cat" is a popular theme in Jiu Fen. Like in this picture.

In one of the pottery shops I went, the owner/artist was making a small cat sculpture, using her own cat as the model.

[chin]

The reason for the popularity of cat theme? Maybe simply because of the large number of stray or domesticated cats?

I found this one at the ruined house photoed above.