From JiuFen(九份) to JingGuaShi(金瓜石)

The next one will be the JiuFen (九份) and Jinguashi (金瓜石). It’s famous with their old street as we can both enjoy the mix cultural building/street of Chinese and Japanese and the scenic sea and mountains view from the mountain itself as the Jiufen is locate at the mountain.

To get here you can get the bus from the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall bus station to KeeLung, or just take the train from the Taipei Train centre to Rueifang (瑞芳) Station, then take bus to JiuFen. Since i haven’t try the train here, so i go there by train.

Here is the entrance of the Old Street.

This is how it look like inside the old street

As normal, there are a lot of food and special things to explore!

Make sure beside u walk into the JiuFen old street, u’ll need to enjoy a lunch or dinner at the restaurant there too. The buildings there mainly built on the cliff, whereby you can enjoy the great scenic view of the mountain and the sea, and it`s very relaxing there.

Take the bus and continue going up will bring u to the Jinguashi. On the way you can reach a gold mines museum. The gold mines there was run by the japanese previously, so there are some old fashion Japanese style houses can be visit in the museum. Normally the entrance fee to the museum will be 50Nt, but it’s at the promotion period when i paid my visit, so with any official receipt i can go into the museum free.

This is the brief map of the JingGuaShi.

So here it’s, the Gold Mines Museum.

you’ll be welcome by a metal horse ^^

After entering, the very first you’ll see is the japanese style houses. There are a japanese style house open to public, whereby it`s actually the combination of 4 houses in a row.

Because it is a historical houses, so we might not touch most of the thing inside. Before wondering around in the house, we need to catch a introduction of the houses.

Inside there is a “hide and seek” space -.-” does it call bunker?

and the local believe that there is an animal bringing the money for their fortune!

After the Japanese style houses, it’s time to visit the gold mine! But before that, have to do some security procedure like wearing helmet and some proper equipments.

here is the mine we enter

It’s so dark inside the mine.

Along the way, there are speakers to introduce how the gold was mine, from the start to the end. I wonder if i could found some gold sand inside, hehe

After visit the gold mine, you’ll get a cert as a temporary employee of the gold mine -.-” of course, you had to paid before visit the mine and the cert…

After the gold mine, let’s see how the look like! Here it is!


It`s darn heavy, i cannot even move it with my hand! how much it worth? see the figure below the gold block as in Taiwan currency.

Here is some art made from the Gold.

There are a lot more however, i cannot keep my hand steadily while shooting it, the photo quality was not good.

Beside the Gold Mine, Japanese houses, there are also a shine, whereby the japanese pray to their god. I believe no much visitor will climb for around 20 to 30 mins just to see the shine like me. So just to show here i am an idiot ^^.

Oh, along the way to the shine, you could see a hill on ur left hand side.

Here is the hill, but can u guess what name is it? It’s named as Tea Pot mountain. How’s the name come from?see the pic below:

Does the hill top look like a Tea Pot for you? haha

Beside the Gold Mine Museum, there is some other scenic spot which is recommended by the tourism booklet. However, for me, it`s not, just because of the accessibility. To go there, u might need to rent a cab, and it’s costly and the scenic spot is not as good shown in the booklet.

But before that, on the way to those 3 scenic spot, we can see some special natural rock during the journey. Here it is:

Can you spot anything from the pic above? if we got a zoom in:

Does the rock look like a man sitting there? Heard the local said that it`s a local heroes that look after the whole village. Believe or not?

Here there are:
The golden waterfalls, is not actually an waterfalls. It`s just a small river and what u can do there is just taking photo, u’ll not even border want to touch the water for the waterfalls. Nevertheless, the water appear to be in gold color, or it`s actually in brown color is due to the iron in the rock of the mountain.

This is so call the golden waterfall. It`s look like some small streams to me. -.-”

Ya, the water appear to be in “Gold color”, can u see?

the 2nd will be the fort (十三層遺址). It’s just some old broken walls facing the sea. Yes, it have the historical purpose, but what the lousiest thing is that it`s not maintained and grow with the grasses and you cannot find any entrance into those walls.

3nd will be the YingYangHai (陰陽海). It’s the waterfront whereby the water from the river flows to the sea. Remember that the color of the water from the mountain is in brown color? so here you can see the 2 colors for the seawater waves and it change rapidly time to time. Nevertheless, it is a great view.

It does have 2 color, Blue and brown. See the pic below:

for the 3 listed scenic spot above, they are just not far away from the Gold Mines Museum. However, u won’t walk there, remember u r at the mountain! if hire a cab, it’ll be too costly. Frankly with my friend, we pay total of 250NT to go all 3 places, but we don’t feel it worth even for 100NT. Save your money for another places ba!

Click here is u want to know more about the place.