Taiwan No Kids! Day 4, Part 2: Houtong Cat Village, Keelung Miaoku Night Market

We took a bus directly to Houtong from Jiufen. There were staff stationed at the bus stop to help direct the public and tour groups. Huge tour groups were queuing for the public bus that goes to a nearby parking lot, probably for their tour bus. The system was very efficient. 

Our bus to Houtong was a mini one, like one of those one would find in Hongkong neighbourhood. The bus ride was about 20 mins and we took a 10 mins walk to the Cat Village. 

I had imagined that there would be like so many cats but we probably saw 10 max. Maybe the cats were hiding bcos it was drizzling or they were napping somewhere like cats do. We bought treats from one of the stalls but some of the cats were not food motivated. Or maybe they had been overfed. 

They do made me miss the Chis at home but Mochi peed in Nana’s bed. Zzzzzzzzz.. 

There was probably more to explore in that area but I was tired. My legs were tired and I felt like a nanja turtle carrying my big and heavy backpack. We decided to leave for our hotel.

Our hotel for the night was at Keelung, which is at the North West part of Taiwan. I had thought that it makes sense to stay at Keelung, since we wanted to visit the Yeliu Geopark the next day. To get to Keelung, we have to 1st take the local train for 1 stop to Ruifang, then a bus. 

Taking the train was the easy part. We found the bus stop easily outside Ruifeng but realised that the bus wouldn’t come for another 20 mins. Zzzzz.

I was so tired that I suggested that we take a taxi, the only one that we had taken the entire trip. It wasn’t too bad, costing about TWD 375. Definitely worth it for my sanity, back and legs. 

Our hotel room was simple but came with a window! 

Daddy Lim was checking out the window, which looks out to…. a wall! The other building wall was literally 10cm away from the window. They might as well just put a picture of a window. Lol. 

We dropped our bags and went in search of the Miaoku night market, that was like a short walk from our hotel. The night market was super crowded. 

It was mainly food and we like food. Many years ago, way before the kids came along, Daddy Lim and I visited Taipei and had this 螃蟹羹 and 油饭 and they were so good. Daddy Lim even talked about franchising it in Singapore, which we obviously didn’t. Anyhow, we got to eat the combi again in the night market. Just like the old times…

We walked and bought and ate from the beginning of the street to the end and back. There were some game stalls but we didn’t try this time; we were very focused on eating. 

We left the night market with a full tummy and roamed the area a little for the night views. Daddy Lim was very garung and wanted to walk to the observation tower. I was the weak one that was motivated to go back to the room. 

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped for desserts. Hohoho. 

I hoped we have walked enough during the trip to burn off majority of what we eat ah. 

Mummy Lim

Taiwan No Kids! Day 4, Part 1: Jiufen

In my mind, Jiufen is only the old street and eating. That was also why we only did Shifen during our last Taiwan trip with the kids while people usually do both on the same day bcos they are nearby. We planned for Jiufen, also bcos I wanted to visit the Houtong Cat Village, which is one stop before Jiufen. 

My morning started with a morning jog at 6.30am. Daddy Lim was still in lala land. I woke up to Nana’s WhatsApp that Mochi had peed on her bed and blanket. This time it is Mochi. Sob. She kept Mochi in her room for the night, we don’t know if it is bcos Mochi is stressed, he is super urgent or he smelled Yochi’s pee (on Nana’s bed) and assumed that it is ok to do so. Anyhow, it was a massive clean up and Nana was left to do it herself. Welcome to adulting. 

Anyhow, back to my morning jog. Ximending was quiet, which is expected. But I also saw quite a few people, including what looks like tourists walking around. Yes, at barely 7am. Hmmm… almost nothing was opened in Ximending, except for the 24/7 claw machines.  

There are quite a few temples that I came across. They can pop up at the weirdest place/ corner.

I just kept going, turning here and there, just making sure that I don’t lose sight of the general direction of Ximending. 

I am sure Strava had been generous with the distant. Strava always give me extra distant. I couldn’t track on my Garmin Forerunner 55, which was bought back in January 2023. Its battery life is quite sad now and I forgot to bring the charging cable for the trip, despite making a mental note to do so, right before we left the house. Useless mental note. Lol. 

Poor Garmin with only 1% battery. It at least clocked my steps but died shortly. I had no watch for the rest of the trip and that was quite painful.

We packed up and left the hotel, lugging our big backpacks.

The hotel doesn’t not provide bfast. Given how much good food there would be at Jiufen, the idea was to find bfast there. The plan changed while we were walking to the MRT station and were lured by push carts selling some little 肉饼. These are quite nice.

We also bought this Ximen egg burger.

The 1st few mouthfuls were nice but it feels too doughy towards the end. It made a full meal bcos there was so much flour. 

Maybe the people whom I saw earlier were all trying to beat the crowd for 幸福堂. Throughout the time we were in Ximending, there was always a Q. I didn’t know they sell xiaolongbao too. We didn’t Q; bubble tea is not in my “to eat list” for Taiwan. 

We entered the MRT station and remembered that we had to take a local train to Jiufen. We thought to change to the local train at Taipei Main Station but had the sense to ask the station staff bcos Google Map was telling us otherwise. He pointed us to a direct bus instead. Not sure if this is a new route or existed all along. 

There is very clear indication of what time reach which stop. 

As I had remembered, Jiufen is in the mountains. The air was cool and nice.

We alighted and saw this place that charges a fee to store luggage and double up as a parking place. On hindsight, we were so brave (stupid?) to store our bags at such a dodgy place. I figured out that the most valuable thing that I would lose would be the Company laptop. Hmmm… that’s alright. Hahahaha. They charge TWD100 per piece per day. We negotiated to TWD50 per piece. 

Some of the shops were not opened at about 10am. The streets were quiet too. As I remembered, the shops were very generous with samples and I had a lot of joy going around sampling food. Well, I did buy some too. One of my happy buy is this cat ring. So cute! 

We did a lot of roaming. 

Not only the old streets but into the residential area. 

We read that Jiufen used to be some old mining pit. We saw/ found tunnels. 

Jiufen is a lot more interesting that I knew! We did a lot of walking! It was so much fun. 

Despite the amount of food sampling, we still stopped for lunch. We shared a bento. This bento was a lot more sumptuous than the one in Fenqihu. 

It came with a very black 茶叶蛋, so black that it looked like century egg and was very salty.

With lunch done, we walked back to collect our bags. This was the last thing that we ate - some fermented red wine chicken dumpling. Not nice. 

I was surprised that we managed to spend 3 over hours in Jiufen. My legs! OMG! Different gods somemore. Lol.

Mummy Lim