Sightseeing Outside of Taipei City

Today we took a bus tour to Yehliu Geopark about an hour’s drive outside of Taipei City. Taiwan has 5 mountain ranges covering 70 percent of the island. Taiwan was underwater about 5 million years ago and it was pushed up out of the sea by tectonic plates. This morning we heard from our tour guide, Vickie, a Tai resident of Chinese decent, that southern Taiwan had an earthquake that registered 4.1 on the Richter scale. There are thousands of earthquakes every year in Taiwan, however, only about 800 are felt by humans.

Rainy, windy, cold weather did not keep us from enjoying our day!

Our bus was filled with about 30 people mostly from neighboring countries such as China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines. There were two American couples traveling in our group; one who lives in Florida and take 4 trips abroad every year and another couple who have been traveling throughout Asia for 4 months.

The observation deck at the point of Cape Diablo named by the Spaniards because of its danger to passing ships.

Yehliu Geopark is a cape about 1700 meters long consisting of honeycomb and mushroom rock formations made by sedimentary stone. When we arrived it was rainy, windy, and cold. We walked out onto the rocks to see the interesting rock formations that were formed over time by erosion from the wind, the rain, and the seawater from the China sea.

Lisa taking a closer look at the honeycomb rock formations on the Yehliu cape.

Next on our tour we stopped for a hike out to see the waterfalls, took photos of the Koi ponds and the field of bronze elephants where people could make wishes and tie red ribbons around these statues.

Swinging bridges are common to access areas of a community otherwise inaccessible.

Huge koi are abundant in Taiwan.

Our last stop was to the mining town of Jiufen that was rich in gold, copper, and other minerals. Built on a hillside, we climbed over 400 steps to explore the town’s museum, small shops, restaurants, cafés, and an ancient temple at the top where we saw a Buddha that had been carved into the rock.

Golden Buddha carved into stone.

You had to climb hundreds of stairs in this ancient mountain village to reach shops like this high end leather shop.

Front door of one of the oldest houses in Jiufen.

Entering Jiufen where the hand rails along streets and bridges are made of cement painted to look like giant bamboo.

Winding roads to this mountain top village with many homes wedged like Lego houses.

Views of the China Sea as we approached Jiufen, a gold mining town.

When we returned to Taipei, we were dropped off in front of the largest and most well known night market in the city, Raohe Street Night Market. Long lines for food and shoulder-to-shoulder people, we left to find a seafood restaurant where we could eat and relax before taking an Uber back to our hotel. Another full day with over 16,000 steps logged. Yesterday it was only 14,000!

Temple near the largest night market in Taipei.

Crowded street market in Taipei even though it was raining!