It's Day 5 already! Haizzz... Why does time pass so quickly in Taiwan? =(

我是個不想家的沒良心傢伙. I have not contacted my family since I called them upon arrival. I cannot help it! My roaming was not up yet!

Anyway, we headed out of Taipei again, this time to Jioufen to meet Jessie's friends. We took train to 瑞芳 and the boss of the 民宿 where we were staying with the rest arranged for a cab to fetch us! We deposited our luggage in the living room and went out to 逛 around 九份老街. First, we went to this shop of early day setting for us to experience living environment back then and take photos. I really cannot pose, but it was fun taking pictures of the rest posing around with the props. We also visited this shop selling an amazing variety of 古早味 snacks and 綠茶 bought this 麵茶粉, which we tried later on. Entering 老街, we tried 彈珠汽水, which is basically bottled soft drink with a marble stuck in the bottle neck. I kept the bottle, which goes king-king-kiang-kiang when I move around with it. I kept thinking I didn't eat sausage in Taiwan. Now then I realized I did eat one in Jioufen. And the sausage made this dog follow us around for awhile! We hid in 7-11 until the dog forgot about us. Somehow, I always end up buying a lot of random stuff in Jioufen, including this overpriced Japanese clog keychains (I saw cheaper ones along the way), flavoured 麥芽糖, handphone pouches from this shop I remember visiting on my last visit, and some gifts for friends. We also tried caramel apple, which is green apple coated with sticky caramel which got too chummy with my teeth. And also 冰淇淋花生捲, which is like popiah with ice cream inside! I ate until it fell apart so I ended up sucking the ice cream out before finishing off the skin.

Finally, I saw the pretty sights of Jioufen which I missed the last time round. Before my trip in 2008, I saw these really gorgeous photos of Jioufen, but when I visited the last time, I saw nothing like that. 原來, there was this flight of stairs hiding somewhere with red lanterns all the way down and teahouses located along the two sides. We took photos and then went down to find this old theatre called 昇平戲院, and took more photos. Following that, we joined Jessie's friends for tea at one of the rooftop teahouse. While the rest had Chinese tea, Sie Yen and I had milk tea with Western cakes. What a contrast. And for your information, our sets came with a whole pot of milk tea each, which made me almost full and very surprised that Sie Yen was still interested in dinner later on. 綠茶 decided to return to Taipei first so that she could do some filming with Vivi and 凱樂 the next day, so only the three of us stayed over in Jioufen. After tea, we moved on to one of the few restaurants still in operation on 老街 for dinner (the others only had drinks just now). Sie Yen wanted to try 滑蛋蝦仁 so we shared that. The 滑蛋蝦仁 was rather salty, and I am more fond of the 牛蒡湯. I finished off all the 牛蒡 in the soup!

(I'm not talking much about our interaction with Jessie's friends, partly because I don't know how to write their names.)

We headed back to the 民宿 and the lady boss was already there preparing Jioufen's trademark 芋圓. I don't understand why 竽圓 is especially famous, because there's also 番薯圓 and 木薯圓. Anyway, I was really really very very full after eating a bowl of 竽圓. Lady boss came over to prepare it for us, so must finish! Anyway, on to our room. Sie Yen, Jessie and I stayed in one room with Jessie's "bolster" and two more of their friends. After bathing (nice bathroom there! not grand, but nice enough), we camped inside our room to watch TV and play cards. After a few rounds of 大老二, Sie Yen gained the reputation of 新加坡賭后! IR is waiting for you!! But as we could not all play at the same time, we changed the game to heart attack. Actually the purpose of the game was to sabotage Jessie. During the start of the game, I was really slow and 慢好幾拍, but I slowly caught up. Anyway, we did not manage to sabotage Jessie. Finally, we decided to end the games and go to sleep. Interesting point to note, we actually had to turn on the air con because we found it too warm. I guess the house is really well-built. You don't really feel cold inside.

I think that's all for the day!

未完。待續。

。尋找中@23:54