Hahahahaha, no, no the rain didn’t stop at all. It just kept raining. And raining. Then raining a bit more just to remind us it was raining, in case we’d forgotten it was raining. Heavy drops in warm temperatures. So, so humid. We would spend the entire day drenched. But, you know what? We didn’t mind a bit. We were in Taiwan! Do you know how many people we knew had been to Taiwan? None! You’ll take rain in that situation.

Nanya Shore And Rock Formations

The northern coast of Taiwan has many scenic viewpoints along its shoreline, and it was to one of these, Nanya, roughly twenty kilometres along the coastal road running east from Keelung, that our Princess Cruises bus took us first in order to get out and take some photos if we wanted. Quite a few people on the bus didn’t want to get off on account of the aforementioned rain but most did, and we were among that mass. As you could have guessed from the fact that this post isn’t called Views Of Rocks Through A Rainy Bus Window.

The Nanya Rock Formations are considered a natural garden to the people of Taiwan. The geology of the region is sandstone, and the constant battering of the rock from the sea, from winds, and from monsoons that blow in has over the millenia sculpted the rocks into attractive, abstract shapes with holes and coloured stripes offering snapshots of different levels of hardness of the rock and oxidisation in the atmosphere when it was all first laid down.

Pareidolia. Human beings are wired to identify patterns in things and ascribe some definition or meaning to them even when it’s all natural, a result of physics, or just random. It’s why we see dogs in cloud formations. It’s why religion was invented. It’s why we dream. It’s why many of the weathered rocks in Nanya have been given names. It’s why the sandstone formation in the photo below looks like Pac-Man had an affair with a giant fish, the child of which, unwanted by either parent, left home to become a beachcomber, eking out a living selling flotsam and jetsam to tourists.

We didn’t stay too long at Nanya; ten or fifteen minutes to wander around and get soaked through to the underwear mostly. I’d never consider myself a landscape photographer, favouring architecture and people more often than not, but this northern Taiwanese coastline offers some spectacular, raw views if you’re that way inclined. There was something here for everyone, really: the sea, rough, carried in on a decent-strength wind to pound the rocks; the sandstone artwork, sculpted by nature and ready to be whatever you see in them; the hills and cliffs inland, covered in green, verdant, lush from the regional climate.

If you ever find yourself on a cruise ship excursion then there’s a chance that you’ll be on one in which a film crew will accompany you. The ships like to produce video mementos of cruises which we’ve always steered clear of based on the price, but it’s a shame that they don’t make these videos orderable years later because we’ve found as time has gone on that we wouldn’t have minded seeing some of the sights we’d missed or forgotten about. For this Taiwan excursion our bus was host to one of the ship’s video teams who would set up panning shots of the scenery and conduct short interviews with the local guides every time we stopped somewhere.

Fushan Temple, Jiufen

The village to which we were heading was called Jiufen (or Chiufen, according to the literature we had at the time) and our time there will be covered in the next post from this travelogue series in Taiwan. We would have one more short stop for photos before reaching the village itself, and that was on the walk to Jiufen from where the bus parked up.

The Fushan Temple was dedicated to the Earth God in Taoism, and if you’ve never heard of the Earth God in Taoism then welcome to the club. In fact, the Earth God is one of the minor deities in the religion, but since Jiufen grew from a late-nineteenth century gold rush you can also say that the Earth God that the inhabitants sought protection from was a miner deity too. Yes, I went there.

The exterior of the temple was covered in sculptures and reliefs of heroic and religious and historical figures, plus typically fantastical and representative creatures like dragons, all from a grey rock that contrasted acutely with the bright reds, golds, and blues painted and lacquered over the flatter surfaces. The detail in the faces was exquisite, reflecting a lot of skill and local wealth from the mining operations.

The interior of the temple, however, was something we weren’t prepared for. Calm, peaceful reflection was not the theme here. Barbara Cartland would have loved this place, and if you’ve got a fondness for pink that knows no bounds too then you’d probably feel at home as well. Personally, phrases like “explosion in a bubble gum factory” and “remember, don’t visit here while on LSD” flew through my mind.

Anyway, feast your eyeballs on this subjective beauty.

That concluded the bits of our excursion prior to the main reason for picking this trip. In the next post you can take a look around the place that’s been claimed is the inspiration for the animation classic, Spirited Away, Jiufen.

It was nice to be able to see Keelung under better weather conditions than either we’d experienced in the morning or on our previous visit ten years earlier.

Keelung From The Top Deck

Until this point our visual experience of the port of Keelung had been all facing roughly eastwards as that was the direction our balcony looked out on. Heading up to the top deck gave us a chance to see the western side of the port which included some small passenger ship terminals, a ship alongside us, and a view of the hill in that direction on which there was a landmark sign reminding us which city we were in.

We became quite distracted looking down in the port basin alongside Diamond Princess as we noticed birds skimming slowly over the water’s surface then soaring around and repeating the task. They were clearly after food just below or on the surface but what really caught our attention was that they were raptors rather than seabirds and this was behaviour we hadn’t expected to see in birds of this type. It’s probably a very common act for them but I don’t know much about birds. A little investigation says that they’re most likely to be a Taiwan-specific family of black kites.

Following the top deck of the cruise ship around I took more photos of the more-familiar views of Keelung that we’d been able to see from our balcony. My excuse for taking as many photos as I do – not that I need one or that you care – is that the higher elevation of the shots and constantly changing light makes every shot different even if there’s little to immediately distinguish one from the other. I’m also immensely drawn to architecture and as much so whether that’s the ancient sort such as the prominent Zhupu Altar or modern buildings with their patterns of windows and repetitive structures creating geometric interest, both types of which we could see in this direction.

We continued our circuit of the top deck, snapping more photos of Keelung’s buildings. As we made our way forwards the most noticeable sight on the landscape surrounding the ship was the statue of Guanyin (the Buddhist bodhisattva of compassion) in Zhongzheng Park. The statue is over twenty metres in height.

We started back down around midships and passed a very serene-looking main swimming pool devoid of anyone in or around it.

Our reason for heading down was to catch the afternoon trivia, something of a rarity for us on a port day as we’re most often ashore on a cruise excursion. I’m pleased to say that we won a bottle of fizz for the second time in three days. We would end up skipping the last formal night of the cruise in favour of room service, a few movies on demand, and our two alcoholic prizes a few days later.

Departure From Keelung

With everyone aboard Diamond Princess it was time to cast off and we spent this time out on our balcony. The sun dipping towards the horizon completely transformed the views of Keelung we had, casting warm light and long shadows across the buildings along the waterfront and the landmarks on the hills.

As our cruise ship started to make its slow northbound exit out of Keelung we passed a fair number of Taiwanese naval ships – American-design frigates for the most part – with some having been built specifically for Taiwan under licence and others being modified former US Navy vessels. We were reminded of our overnight cruise into Portsmouth of only one month earlier and passing by all the naval ships in our city as we arrived home.

The local pilot boat kept up the slow pace with us as we left the residential area of Keelung behind and passed the commercial outskirts lined with warehouses, cargo vessels, and large cranes for loading and unloading containers.

As the harbour entrance opened up we were treated to some lovely pastel colours in the evening sky with the sun having just dipped below the horizon on the port side of the ship. On one of the nearest bits of land there was an interesting tower with offsetting circular levels and beyond it, out to sea, we could see the pyramidal and clearly volcanic form of Keelung Islet, these days a tourist destination but formerly a military training spot and historically sacred, said to be haunted by a female ghost.

The final connection to the main island of Taiwan that we passed on the starboard side was a green navigation marker with which I spent far too long trying to time photos with its flash.

The wind had picked up quite a bit as we left the shelter of Keelung and the heat of the day had very quickly become a very cold wind of the post-sunset evening. There was just enough light left in the sky to make our parting rear view of Taiwan a very attractive one and we shivered ourselves back into our room to plan our evening’s entertainment.

Evening Aboard Diamond Princess

Our evening on Diamond Princess after leaving Taiwan turned out to be quite interesting. When we’d got into our room after our excursion in Jiufen there was a letter awaiting us in our room. On one of the previous days we’d noticed that somewhere around the promenade deck there had been a bit of a pong. It wasn’t nice but it was fleeting and we didn’t pay it too much attention until a few days after that when someone else mentioned that they knew people on the same deck as us, forward like us, but on the port side, who’d had the smell near their cabin for a few days. Again, we shrugged, said it was an occasional issue you could get from the vacuum toilet systems on cruise ships, and paid it no mind again. The letter, though, brought it all back because Princess admitted the smell was unacceptable and as a goodwill gesture was refunding cabins in the affected area $250 per person plus offering a 10% discount on any already-booked future cruise or any cruise booked within a couple of years. So, for something that hadn’t bothered us in the slightest we ended up with a hefty onboard credit plus the knowledge that we’d be getting a bargain on our next cruise too. The credit lasted right up until the Effy shop opened once the ship was out to sea and my wife spent it all on a black and white diamond necklace. Well, it was money we weren’t expecting.

Photos from a very acceptable dinner in the main dining room that evening.

We finished the night in Skywalkers, as is our way. On our arrival at the base of the escalator leading up to the club we were shocked to hear the sounds of lots of voices of people enjoying themselves, this being a completely unexpected thing on the ship. A typical night would involve maybe half a dozen of us sitting around, enjoying the music, enjoying the drinks, enjoying the occasional wander outside to stare at the night view from the aft of the ship, enjoying the exclusivity of the venue. In addition to the strange people there were plenty of decorations up and as we looked confused and concerned that we’d stumbled upon something we shouldn’t have a steward explained that this was the staff’s halloween party, mostly for the benefit of the show dancers as it turned out, but that it would be finishing right then so we’d be fine to take our normal seats and get drinks. We did so.

There then followed a battle between us and the DJ. He saw us and worriedly said he hadn’t realised that was the time and that he would stop. We then insisted he didn’t and that he let everyone carry on enjoying themselves because we were enjoying watching them. Oh no, I can’t do that. Oh yes, yes you can, we’re the passengers – the only passengers in this entire place – and you’re supposed to do what makes us happy. Thus it was that we managed to wring an additional half an hour’s entertainment out for the staff and for ourselves, fending off numerous attempts to get us (barely able to walk straight most of the time) to join them (professional dancers) on the floor. The video below (temporarily removed) shows off some of the synchronised fun we avoided taking part in, although my phone struggled to record the video very well in the venue.

That concluded our day in Taiwan. The following day would see us in Okinawa ahead of two sea days to bring this Asian cruise aboard Diamond Princess to an end.

It wasn’t just the views out to sea that distracted us on this short walk, though, as we kept brushing past orb spiders. They appeared to be the same or very similar type that we’d previously seen in the Sengan-en Gardens in Kagoshima.

Spiders weren’t the only example of wildlife we spotted with cats appearing too both in living animal and street art form.

The first part of our time exploring Jiufen would be a guided tour of a few of the historical landmarks. First stop would be the Shengping Theatre in the centre of the town and the closest thing to a public square in Jiufen, a slightly wider than average, slightly more open confluence of narrow lanes surrounded on all sides by shops and tea houses. When we’d visited Jiufen previously that theatre had been standing but closed, the result of damage from a typhoon in 1986. Since 2011, though, the theatre has returned to working service. It was originally built in the second decade of the twentieth century for the miners and their families but had undergone several rebuilds in the intervening century. We were pleased to recognise the poster above the theatre entrance, having taken a photo of a nearly identical image on our 2008 trip to Jiufen.

The excursion did not include a visit to the theatre itself but it did include a visit to one of the tea houses beside it. We had very fond memories from visiting one of these establishments ten years earlier where Americans in our group had asked for coffee but this time around everyone seemed happy to try the local drink and accompanying charcoal peanuts (and they were lovely!)

From the tea house we next carried on in the approximate direction we’d been taking to reach this part of the town in the first place. This took us out of the bustling centre of Jiufen and onto wider roads and across a bridge to a memorial space set up for the miners which included one of the entrances to the network of tunnels within the hills on which we stood.

We retraced our route a little bit before then climbing up a long, steep set of steps. This took us past a large wall-mounted memorial to the gold miners of Jiufen and provided some sweeping views out across the hillside again.

At this point our guide Olivia made sure that everyone knew how to get back to the bus and what time we would need to be there for and then offered to show anyone who wanted to know where the best places to buy tea were. As much as we’d enjoyed the tea we couldn’t see ourselves making it when we were back home and didn’t think we knew anyone who would appreciate it as a gift so this was the moment we headed off on our own.

We love the look and feel of Jiufen‘s store-lined roads and steps. It is often said that the town is the inspiration for Miyazaki‘s fantastic animated movie Spirited Away and the town’s surge in tourism really kicked off when Japanese tourism guides proclaimed that as fact but the artist himself has denied it. Regardless, it is a stunningly atmospheric place to explore with sounds and smells and the constant motion of people walking past completely enveloping you. Shops in Jiufen range from the sorts of places that wouldn’t look out of place in a modern mall – clean, bright, minimalist – right through to cluttered stalls piled high with mass-produced, cheap produce for tourists, and if you’re keen to buy different food products then you are well looked-after with many vendors offering free tastings too.

Jiufen’s steep, winding roads are lined with tall buildings and the shops typically have awnings out keeping everything shaded and sheltered from the weather conditions, whether that’s the rain we had before or the sunshine of this trip. That obstruction of the outside world, though, combined with the twists and turns of the paths and the huge array of shops along them comes at the small cost of increasing your chances of losing your sense of direction at times. We’d been handed a tourist map of Jiufen on the bus which was almost as useless as trying to use the phone to work out which way was which; only the general sense of upness and downness prevailed and with some roads doubling back on themselves this was of limited help. Luckily, Jiufen isn’t that big so even getting turned around a couple of times won’t lead to you getting too lost but we did start to pay careful attention to the time to ensure we’d have plenty of it to find the direct route back to the bus when we’d need to leave.

Emerging from one of Jiufen’s narrow lanes onto a main road skirting around the town’s eastern side we found a raised viewing platform that provided some nice views out to the coastline and of the surrounding hills once again. More clouds were filling the sky at this point, an indication of the rising humidity of the area, but there didn’t seem to be any threat of actual rain.

Stopping once to render assistance to a couple of American backpackers who’d become lost and who somehow sensed that we knew where we were going and where they might find the tea houses we then made our way back through to the centre of Jiufen on a quest to get rid of the Taiwanese money that was burning a hole in our pockets. We were pleased to discover some backscratchers for sale at one of the shops as this has become a running joke for something to bring back to my dad when we’re travelling.

Still with time to spare we made our way to the western side of Jiufen then as well although the most interesting shops thinned out quite rapidly in that direction. We did get to watch one local playing the guitar in the open doorway to his house just apparently for his own pleasure which was nice.

We were quite high up in Jiufen’s maze of streets so the most direct route back to the bus in the parking lot at the base of the town was down the long, steep steps that more-or-less ran through the centre. These we duly took, passing some more references to the miners who’d once inhabited the place as well the “town square” with the theatre and tea houses again.

We ended up being the last people on the bus (although we were still there before we were due to set off), a good indicator that the excursion provided ample time for people to explore on their own and probably that a lot of people were concerned enough about getting lost that they made sure they could get back early. It’s also possible, because of the toilets in the parking area and the difficulty in finding them in Jiufen itself (there are some), that nature scheduled an early return for some of our fellow passengers.

As I’ve said, we love Jiufen and would strongly recommend it if you’re visiting Keelung, Taiwan on a cruise and the sights of a major city – Taipei – doesn’t strike you as that interesting by comparison. It is a place with a welcoming claustrophobia, a fabulous atmosphere, a by-necessity slow pace, and somewhere that the weather doesn’t really affect as it’s staggeringly charming under rain or sunshine. You can buy pretty much any type of thing here but you will need local currency for the vast majority of places.

It was interesting to see just how much of the port hadn’t appeared to have changed at all in the intervening decade. This was quite a contrast with our previous port, Hong Kong, where we’d seen differences in the skyline almost immediately. The buildings we saw, the temple and statue on the hillside, and even the yellow taxis in the street were all instantly familiar. The only thing that was different was the weather. Gone was the rain that we’d been drenched by previously. Instead, we had a light layer of cloud and the imminent promise of that disappearing with a noticeably rising heat and almost-tangible humidity in the air.

We’d not just booked an excursion for our day in Taiwan, we’d booked as close to the same excursion as the last time we’d visited. With the omission of a stop along the coastline we would be repeating our 2008 trip to Jiufen, the reason being that we’d enjoyed it so much on the first occasion and we just didn’t feel the lure of a drive down to Taipei strong enough.

We boarded our bus at the appropriate time for the cruise excursion and set off on a winding course through Keelung, around the coastline, then up into the hills where the former mining village was situated, a journey of around half an hour. Our guide was Olivia and she provided a running commentary of the history of Jiufen and what we could expect to see on the way there with the promise of information pertaining more to Keelung and Taiwan in general on the way back.

Jiufen, as we already knew, was once a mining town built on the hillside. Its roads are for pedestrians only and are narrow, winding, and lined with shops these days. It is the assumed (though denied) inspiration for the excellent animated film Spirited Away. The roads are connected by long sets of steep steps and traffic passes around the town on similarly steep, winding roads with a number of car parking areas surrounding the main tourist attraction. Our bus parked north of Jiufen in a dedicated parking area for tourist buses which presented us with decent views over the land north of us and down towards the coastline as well as a sight of Jiufen itself climbing higher into the hillside to our south.

We gathered in the bus parking area long enough for several of the passengers we were travelling with to use the toilets there. From the parking area there was an almost straight-up route climbing steps into the heart of Jiufen and we were free to head that way on our own if we’d wanted to, having been given the time that we needed to meet back. However, if we had done that then we would have had to pay for our own trip to the tea house that would otherwise be included as part of the excursion, and with drinking tea in a tea house in Taiwan being one of the highlights of this trip we elected to stay with Olivia.

Rather than heading directly into the town we took a more circuitous route clockwise in order to make for the Fushan Temple, a place we remembered well. While the walk was uphill the going wasn’t too strenuous but with much of this trek requiring us to walk single file along the main road and wait for stragglers this took around fifteen minutes which did at least provide plenty of opportunity to fire off random shots along the way.

The increasing ambient temperature and prolonged exertion of ascending to the temple made our arrival there quite a relief and we hunted for shade as we first waited for everyone else to gather and then to listen to our guide talk about the holy place. The temple is Taoist and still in use and was dedicated to the Earth God, one of the least important gods in the religion but one to which the miners who used to live and work in the area had a lot of faith and used to pray to regularly in order to deliver new discoveries in the hills.

Inside the temple everything was as gloriously, gorgeously garish as we remembered. If you like the colour pink and your taste in worship is as far away from the Lutheran ideal as it’s possible to get then this is the temple for you. There was barely a flat surface in the building’s interior with decorations everywhere you looked. Although it would have been nice to take a closer look at some of the carvings there were people in the temple lighting incense and praying and we quietly and quickly took just a few photos before stepping back out into the sunshine.

In the next post from our day in Taiwan I’ll cover the narrow, curving alleys and the bustling life inside Jiufen itself.

In the previous part of this travelogue series (see: Taiwan: Northern Coast And Fushan Temple) I covered how Princess Cruises filled out this excursion by first taking us to a scenic viewing spot on the coastline, then stopping en route to Jiufen with a look at quite possibly the most garish temple on the planet, both of which were in constant, heavy, soaking-you-to-the-bone rain. Our look around the tourist hotspot, despite its altitude in the hills, did not escape the deluge.

We weren’t to be treated to a tour of Jiufen on this excursion. Instead, we were led by our guide to roughly the centre of the village and a general indication of what lie in each direction was given. Then, before we were let off the leash to explore on our own, we were taken to one of the many buildings now serving as a tea house. We were served green tea – a first experience for us and very nice indeed – but there was also coffee available because the tea house knew that Americans made up the bulk of our tour group and you know Americans! “Oh, what a lovely tea house. I love the wooden beams and the smells. Oh, those tea pots look amazing. This is all so quaint. Do you do coffee? I’ll have a coffee.”

 Our excellent tea consumed we had some free time to set off and wander around. Jiufen was only navigable on foot; the streets were narrow and often stepped, lined on either side by shops catering to visitors and locals with food stalls next to soap stalls and places selling souvenirs or antiques. In areas where the awnings and close buildings would blot out the already dingy light it felt like walking around at night. The darkness, the shop smells and noises and lights, and the ever-present rain tumbling out of the sky gave everything a Blade Runner feeling. We loved it.

We started off by heading towards the top of the former-mining village.

There was only one way to go from the uppermost reaches of Jiufen so, like the rain which had become a waterfall in several locations, we made our way back down into the bustling heart of the village. It became clear why there was no guided portion to this visit; the narrow streets would’ve made keeping everyone together and capable of hearing anything difficult enough, but there wasn’t a huge amount to see anyway. Shops, shops, and more shops. But don’t let that put you off if shops aren’t your thing. Jiufen has a feeling to it. It’s an experience just to be there, even if there’s not a lot to sate your thirst for knowledge.

We ate up all our allocated time completing a circuit of Jiufen, enjoying the views despite the weather, absorbing the atmosphere of the place, before starting on the downwards stretch towards the car park where our bus and the rest of our tour group would be waiting.

Jiufen is a wonderful place. There’s not a lot to do there but it’s worth visiting, it’s worth having some tea in a tea house, and we’d like to have some more time so that we could go on a food-tasting tour of the stalls through its many streets. You wouldn’t need to spend a long time here, but if you’re in the northern part of Taiwan then it’s a place that gets a big thumbs up from us.

Grey skies blended with grey seas but the humidity and general strangeness of a reasonably quiet cruise past rocky islands and the man-made harbour area, coupled with the ghostly feeling accompanying the near-complete lack of seeing anyone else around made for a wonderful experience nonetheless.

You know you’re not far from the port when the pilot boat comes alongside the cruise ship to allow the local expert to guide the huge vessel to its dock.

Keelung is typical of the industrial ports that cruise ships tend to dock at because of their size. Cranes, containers, towers, warehouse buildings, and other ships and boats made up most of the view from the ship as it passed from the open sea into close proximity to the city. I don’t actually mind these views because there are lots of patterns and repetitive shapes that help to form decent imagery for photographs and I have a fondness for the raw power in brutalist design anyway which you tend to see in some form or another around the world in docks.

I liked the attempt to brighten up some of the industrial elements of the port with imagery, even if it didn’t quite bring the splash of colour that perhaps was intended with the decidedly grey conditions of the day on which we approached Keelung.

Coming in closer to the city of Keelung it was interesting to see the the modern buildings, dirty-looking from the dampness in the air and the grime from the industrial location, contrasted with the clean, bright yellows of the taxis and buses waiting for tourists, as well as the ancient temple structures on the hillsides around.