Chiufen - An Old Mining Town

After our 5-day bus tour around the island concluded, we chose an afternoon tour to Chiufen on our last full day in Taiwan. My husband randomly picked a tour from the brochure to visit this small town by the coastal hills. We have never heard of this place, but we were not disappointed of what we discovered.

This once abandoned mining town is now thriving especially on the weekends where visitors from all over come here to enjoy the food and atmosphere.
The center of activity is this historical narrow pedestrian street that stretches endlessly for blocks. Vendors on both sides were busy hawking their merchandise as customers pushed and squeezed through.
This is not a fun place if you do not like crowds although I have seen pictures of it almost deserted posted by blogger Eastcoastlife here.

We arrived close to noon on a very cold day so food vendors were busy preparing for lunch.

There were a number of peanut vendors selling their product by weight.

Then there were other vendors who sold a dessert made up of peanut brittle and ice cream folded into what looks like a rice paper wrap and topped off with cilantro.
People were buying these to eat like it was summertime, but I was already too cold to try one.

There were grilled giant mushrooms.

Seafood

This vendor sold fresh off-the-grill Sponge Bob character sweets. Yes, I could not resist and bought a set to snack on.

Some of the vendors did not look happy when visitors were taking pictures of their shop unlike this guy.

There were also a number of tiny sit-down restaurants if you do not want to eat while walking around.

My one pet-peeve was there were not enough dumpsters around to throw away used plates and cups. The few that were around were stacked with garbage already so waste was lined up on stairways, ledges, and wherever convenient.
This brave kitty tries to get to the last bits of food left on the ledge. I was nervous he might fall over.

Note: This concludes my trip report on Taiwan which spanned for a few months. I hope you enjoyed the trip as much as I did. Thank you for reading!

- Karen