Happy new year everyone! Hope everyone had a memorable Christmas and New Year celebrations. If not, we should still be grateful that a brand new year is upon us and we have another opportunity to make our lives count and do our share of making this world a better place. :-)
Here is the next installment to our Taiwan adventures. After going to Yehliu Geopark the day before, we took another day trip outside Taipei the next day and went all the way to Shifen. Let's take the journey together and enjoy the pictures!
This is the Shifen Waterfalls, which is dubbed the Niagara Falls in Taiwan, because it is the largest waterfall in the country. How to get there? Read on.
From Taipei Main Station, yes, this is where everything begins, we took the TRA (Taiwan Railway Administration) train to Ruifang station. Fare is NTD49. Just follow signage on where to get tickets and which platform to take. The TRA trains are the trains that go outside Taipei.
Ruifang is the last station of the TRA train, and from Ruifang, you need to change trains. Take the train that goes to Pingxi.You can always ask directions from train staff who are very helpful if you are not sure where to go, but the signage is always very clear and straightforward.
Travel time to Ruifang is around 45 minutes or less by train. When you get to the platform going to Pingxi, make sure you stand on the correct platform, or you will board the wrong train. Also, the trains leave every hour or so, so you will have to wait for long if you miss one train. Go to the green arrow for the Pingxi line.
It's always a good idea to bring some snacks with you so you have something to munch on in between trains. Since the train leaves every hour, the trains get very crowded, so it is a good idea to stand on the platform 15 minutes before the train arrives to make sure you can find a seat, otherwise you will be standing squeezed with so many people.
Traveling time between Ruifang to Shifen took another 30 minutes or so, and if you cannot see the station names because of the people, just know that it is the fourth stop from Ruifang. We just used our Easycard for the whole trip.
Shifen is located in the Pingxi area north of Taiwan, and the railway tracks were built initially to transport coal during the Japanese era. Today the train tracks are still in use, and since it runs straight through the village and people can freely run around when trains are not passing, it has become a popular tourist attraction.
People make wishing lanterns and they let them fly into the sky, but since wishing is not my thing, me and my sister just took photos on the train tracks. :-)
On both sides of the track are shops that sell souvenirs and also restaurants that offer all kinds of foods. When there are no trains, people flock to the train tracks to light up their wishing lanterns, take pictures in funny poses, and it all looks chaotic and organized at the same time.
When a train is coming, a whistle will blow, and all the people on the tracks will scurry to the side to not get hit. Crazy? Yes. Fun? Yes. And there can be a lot of people. We were there on a weekday and it was still quite crowded.
This is where you get off, and then you cross to the side for the market or what is known as Shifen Old Street. It is a quaint village, full of charms.
The wishing lanterns are priced according to their size, and the people that sell them are experts in taking pictures and videos as you fly them off. They even suggest poses for people. :-)
From this vantage point it really looks like an old track, and the old buildings add to the vintage look of the whole village.
From the train tracks you can see a hanging bridge, and we did not spend a lot of time in the village itself. After having lunch and walking around a bit, we rushed to go walk on the hanging bridge.
We also tried taking a selfie, but since I almost never take any selfies, the photos never come out very good, but we had to try so that we can have a photo together. :-) That train was parked there for a while.
We had this yummy bowl of beef noodle soup, which is one of the most popular foods to have in Taiwan, according to other blogs I read. I also saw Ko Sung Jae in the Korean show Return of Superman eat it with gusto, and of course, I wanted to try it too. It did not disappoint. The noodles were chewy, and the beef slices very tender and good.
There were other snacks to be found, but you can only try to eat so much. They all looked inviting though. Too bad my stomach was not that big.
There were these yummy sausages again. And I could have them again and again. They were just so yummy!
This was another treat I had to try. We had this after coming from the waterfalls. This is ice cream wrapped in a thin rice wrapper of some kind with grated peanuts. You can choose to have parsley added or not. I chose not. It was good!
Again we came across the rice stuffed chicken wings but since we already tried it in Tamsui, we gave it a pass. These looked better than the one we tried there though.
So then we left Shifen Old Street, crossed the train tracks and crossed this beautiful hanging bridge. We had to wait for a while for people to pass so we could take a picture of it empty.
The walk to the waterfall takes around 30-45 minutes depending on how fast or slow you are, but we took our time, taking pictures along the way. The lanterns that are sent flying land on the nearby areas like this nearby forest, hopefully not causing any forest fires.
The walk is scenic, and there are directions where to go. Just follow the path and it will eventually lead you into the falls. We actually took a longer route because we went on the hanging bridge, but it was worth it as we took nice pictures along the way.
Could not resist taking a jump shot, and my sister has become an expert at taking them for me. :-) And good thing there were not a lot of people on the bridge, they were all busy with their lanterns back at the village.
After walking quite a bit, after the parking lot for tour buses, we came to another hanging bridge. This is by the entrance to the park already, but the falls is still a bit farther away.
It was fun walking as the bridge swayed a bit, but of course I did not want to purposely 'shake' it as I might get shouted at by other people around. :-)
You can see more of the lanterns in the river, another reason why I did not want to light one.
As we walked on, we came to a small waterfall, and we actually wondering if this was the one. It was to be very disappointing if it was, but I was sure the pictures I saw on the internet was a waterfall much bigger, so we kept on walking.
We came to yet another hanging bridge, there were three in total, and after that we can already hear the roar of the waterfalls.
We followed the sound and we came to see this beautiful sight. There were a lot of people, but we just had to wait for people to move to be able to take some pictures like this.
It was definitely worth the hike, plus it was not too hot, and it was a bit breezy although the sun was out, so to have come this far and to be able to enjoy this sight was just worth all the effort.
We took our time, but also decided to leave as we were going to yet another place, so we reluctantly walked back to the train station.
Here is where the water flows to. When we left Shifen, we took the train back to Ruifang to go to Juifen this time, but that will be in another post, so stay tuned! For more travel articles, you can go to this page.
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