We woke up earlier today to prepare for day trip on Pingxi line (平溪线）. Had been there on our last trip and fell in love with the place. This time, I planned to visit 十分 and 菁桐.. Wanted to visit 平溪 too but due to low frequency of the train, I decided to give it a miss.
Also, the last time when we were here, its on a wkday and thus things were pretty quiet, most shops were not open. This time, I chose to go on a sat, hoping to see more things and man, did I regret the decision.
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| Tickets |
Wanted to take the 8++am train but missed it as hubs need more time due to stomachache, missed the next train too as it was full and we only manage to got tickets to the 9:15am train and we are due to arrived in Ruifang at 10:09am.
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| Early morning look |
This would means that we missed the 10:04am connecting train to Shifen and had to wait for the next 1 at 10:59am and will only be reaching Shi fen at 11:28am.Abit messed up on the planning but we will see how things go. I reckon we will need to forgo 九份 too as we need to rush back for dinner with 姗姗姐.
While waiting on the train platform, I spotted a grp of HK tourists looking lost. With my kayponess acting up, I asked 1 of them where they are heading. Turns out, they are going to Shifen too but did not know which train to board. I was juz in time to stop them from boarding the wrong train and so, I told them that I would inform them when the train is here.
Then, we heard the announcement that we will need to wait at specific door for the train and thus told them to follow me. Haha Its like I am bringing a grp of tourists around when I am the tourist myself.
The thing about having no seats allocated to your tix is, you will have no seat lo. But shd you see an empty seat, you can sit down till some1 claim for it. Hehe Its not like I dun want to buy tix with seats but they are sold out, so we used this tactic. I was lucky to get a seat all the way to Ruifang while hubs had to give up his when some 1 claimed for it.
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| Beri packed train |
As expected, the platform was very crowded when we reached Ruifang, told the HK tourists to get down here and they seems to purchase the transfer tix oredi. I then went and purchase the Pingxi line tickets and wait for our connecting train.
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| Tickets for Pingxi line-Unlimted rides |
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| See how packed the train is |
Not sure whether it due to wkend or Shifen is getting more popular, but the crowd today is crazy. The only good thing is, most of the shops are open today as compared to our 1st visit.
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| Shifen old street |
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| Beri cute stall |
Mr Love was drawn to the chicken thighs wrap stall immediately hahha and we brought 1 to share.
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| Chicken thigh wrap |
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| Oiiishhhiiiii |
We decided to look for something to eat before trekking to Shifen falls and saw a shop selling almond soy bean and fried dough stick （杏仁豆浆，油条）. I was no fan of almond but they dun sell normal soy bean drink and thus I have no other choice.
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| Menu |
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| Old school furnishings |
The almond soy milk is served hot as the owner only start to cook it when we ordered. I must admit, it tastes smooth and the almond taste is not as strong as I tot it would be.
Fried dough stick is super long can. Haha we dipped it into the soy milk to eat. If I am not wrong, this is 1 of the traditional breakie in Taiwan.
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| Almond soy milk with fried dough stick |
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| Wishes on 天灯 outside Shifen Elementary |
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| Caution to tourists |
After visiting 十分瀑布, we came bak to the old street again. As we have missed the train, we decided to release another 天灯 again. Hehe Randomly went into the 1st shop we saw. As this shop is pretty far away from the main street, we have all the time in the world to choose what we wanna buy here..And since there is no other customer, the boss let us decorate on the lattern as long as we want while chatting with us to pass time.hehe
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| Yellow side- Wealth |
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| Pink side- Mental |
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| Red-General self |
As the shop is no where near the tracks, the owner brought us to an open space beside the shop to release the wish lattern into the sky. Took tons for photo before the release and the boss is happie to help us.Haha
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| Released! May all our wishes come true |
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| Up up and away |
While releasing, we saw the grp of Hong Kong tourists again as they walked past the shop. The leader can still recognised me and greeted me warmly, haha told them to come back to this shop should they wanna release a wish lattern later. Hehe.. The owner was happie for my help :)
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| Back to the main street |
And so, we bid the owner good bye and continue back to the station where we will need to catch a train to Jing Tong. Since the next train is an hr away, we took our time to check out the shops here.
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| On the tracks |
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| Interesting chess set, played hanging |
We came across a stall selling glutinous rice sausage and I brought 1 to try out. Had always wanted to try but Mr Love preferred the 1 with made with meat..
The auntie heated up the sausage and cut it open in the middle, putting in some cucumber pickles. She had other pickles too but since I dun take, I told her not to add in. Hehe she gave me a generous amount of cucumber.. After grilling, she added some dark soy sauce to the sausage and its ready to eat..Really yummy!! Even Mr Love was impressed by the taste, the pickles which is abit sour makes it more appetising:)
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| 米肠 |
I decided I wanna buy the packet milk tea I brought here during the last visit and went to the provision shop near by, then something else caught my attention. Bottles of frizzy drinks with cartoon characters were on sale here. The owner told me that he could either teach me or help me pop the drink open. Of cuz, I choose to do it myself.
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| See the bottles!! So cute |
Brought a small bottle (NTD 10)which does not have the cartoon on it. Was afraid that I dun like the taste thus didnt buy the bigger bottle (NTD20).
The uncle gave me instructions on how to pop open the drink. There is an opener attached to the bottle and all I have to do is to press down hard to pop open the bottle. Sounds easy but its actually not.. Took a while for me to get it rite while Mr Love stood there helping me to take photos.
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| Popping the bottle |
The drink itself is actually tastless but is quite frizzy. Am gald I didnt buy the large bottle.
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| The bottle |
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| Traditional kuehs |
Near to the station, we came across a stall selling fried calamari and brought a cup to eat. The calamari sold here is very juicy even after deep frying..We found some seats along the street and set down to njoy the food.
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| Cups of calamari awaiting to be served |
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| NTD 100 |
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| Letter post- not sure whether is in service or not |
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| Train station master mascot of Shifen station |
The platform which serves the outing train to Ruifang is so full that we had trouble walking thru it. Am secretly glad we are going towards to the other direction, else realli not sure how r we getting onto the 4 carriage train with this crowd.
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| Full |
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| Near empty platform here |
My happiness was short-lived as plp start filling the platform we are on. Turns out they only started to walk here neaer to the train arrival time. It was even more packed than the other platform by the time the train is pulling into the station.
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| Love the greens here |
We managed to squeeze onto the train with much difficulty. And then, I decided that we should skipped Jing Tong too as 1, Mr Love is getting fed up with the crowd and time is not on our side. It is near to 4pm as we pulled out of the station. It will take 30min to reach Jing Tong and after which we need catch the 17:30 train out to RuiFang that is, if we are able to board the train.
Moreover, the train schedules are all messed up due to the crowd. Alighting and boarding had taken a long time den expected and the train is moving slowe than usual for safety reasons.
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| Coal transporter |
We managed to get seats when passengers alighted at PingXi station and thus we decided to just sit in the train while it does a turn about in Jing Tong. Fell aslp almost immediately till we reached Ruifang. I was disappointed to skip Jing Tong today but have no other choice as I do not want to be late for our dinner appointment. Well, we can always come back again the next time, but I will be sure not to come on a wkend again.
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| Tickets back to Taipei |
It was already 5+pm when we arrive in Ruifang to transfer back to Taipei. Jiufen is out of the question also. Luckily, hubs was not too grouchy as he likes Jiufen and had always made a tour up on our visits to Taipei. We reached Taipei around 6:40pm and went back to our hotel room to prepare for our dinner appointment tonight.
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| It is starting to get dark at 5pm in Taiwan |
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