Yehliu, Shifen, and Jiufen
September 2025
No trip to Taiwan is complete without a visit to Jiufen. The tiny town is accessible by public bus from Taipei, but due to our tight schedule we organized a driver to take us efficiently to multiple locations on the north coast of the island.
Our day trip started at the Yehliu Geopark which sits on a cape jutting into the East China Sea. The park is famous for its hoodoos, rock structures carved by the erosive forces of wind and water. Several formations are famous in Taiwan such as Queen’s Head (for which there is always a line for pictures) and Godzilla. The coastline is scattered with fantastical shapes, each inviting the same imagination employed when watching clouds.
We moved on to Shifen, a tiny railway town known for its Lantern Festival which commemorates the end of the Chinese New Year jubilee. During the festival, celebrants paint wishes for the upcoming year on paper lanterns before lighting a small fire to carry them aloft. Shifen has evolved into a bit of a tourist trap, as now anyone can go at any time of year to send their own yearning lantern skyward.
Naturally, ours pleaded for good health for us and our dogs, and prosperity in the future. My wife forbade me from painting a certain political wish onto our lantern. More fun than sending ours upward was the people-watching as families argued about what to write and how to launch their lanterns.
The final stop on the tour was the tiny mountain town of Jiufen which developed as a result of a gold rush. It is famous for inspiring the Miyazaki classic Spirited Away, and nearly all tourists today visit for that reason. In that sense our purpose was somewhat unique: Jiufen was a stop on the 2010 GIS tour, and at that time I had never heard of Studio Ghibli (since then I have seen, and loved, nearly all of their movies). We are not the type of tourists to chase movie sets and our visit was driven by pure nostalgia for that summer.
The town seems to have changed little in the last fifteen years, other than perhaps being slightly more crowded. I was pleased to find no references to Spirited Away in souvenir stalls or public art. That absence allows the town to stand on its own authentic charm without becoming a theme park. The winding alleys retain their mystique and Amei teahouse is iconic as ever. Red lanterns occupy every vantage point, making it impossible to take a bad picture. And because Jiufen is perched on a mountain, our dinner overlooked a gorgeous valley that stretches to the sea.
From hoodoos to lanterns to narrow alleys, the day unfolded like a series of postcards. Each stop was photogenic in its own way, with dusk in Jiufen serving as the perfect finale.
Recipes: Reggie’s Portra, Classic Cuban Negative, Bright Summer
Taiwan Photosets:
Taipei Days
Taipei Museums
Taipei Nights
Jiufen/Shifen
Taichung
Sun Moon Lake
Food
Baseball
