Jiou Fen (九份)

Jiou Fen, facing the Northeastern Coast and located half way up the mountains, used to be a prosperous gold mining town, like San Francisco at her old days. When the gold was gone, most young people moved away to Taipei for jobs and she deteriorated into a ghost town. Slowly, one after another artists moved here for her astonishing scenary, affordable prices, and proximity to Taipei, but her old wild and flourishing days stayed a faint, sweet-and-bitter memory for her few leftover townsmen.

Thanks to a popular movie, “A City of Sadness“, about the taboo White Terror and infamous 228 Incident, traditionally decorated shops popped up everywhere like bamboo shoots and tourists gushed in this forgotten town. Jiou Fen finally found her long-waited second Spring in the sightseeing business.

The most popular section of Jiu Fen; a movie about the infamous 228 Incident was filmed here.

An interesting looking mask shop.

The well-known local dessert — Taro Balls. Now it contains taro, sweet potato, green tea, black sesame, and yam balls; customers can also add various beans to enhance the experience. Except black sesame and some taro balls, they don’t have much flavor. They are chewy and fun, but personally I don’t know why they are so famous. The friendly grandma in the photo is the owner of this particular shop, making a new batch of black sesame balls.