Taipei, Taiwan (Day 8)

Today, I've decided to venture to the outskirts of Taipei using the railway. 


In order to get on the railway system, you will need to travel to Taipei Main Station using the metro. Follow the signs for the ticketing for the railway system. 


In order to venture into the outskirts of Taipei, I bought a ticket for the railway from Taipei to Ruifang. It costs NT76. There are a lot of train services going to Ruifang from Taipei as it is the first stop, so fret not.. after buying the ticket, I went to the platform, and waited for about 5 minutes before the train came. 


This is the train station, Ruifang: 

I did not want to explore Ruifang, but instead I wanted to explore the Pingxi line which was much more interesting. Hence, if you are intending to do the same, do not exit Ruifang station. On the platform of Ruifang station, there will be a booth that sells the tickets for Pingxi line. I bought the ticket that allows me to have unlimited trips on the train on Pingxi line. It costs NT52 for the entire day. 


It looks something like this:

Behind the ticket for Pingxi line, there is a map that tells you what is good at each stop. I have also included the last picture that is clearer to show how the entire route goes. 


The interior of the trains are very clean and they even have a toilet on board the train. 

I wanted to work my way backwards so my first stop was Pingxi station. It was a good 35-40 minutes ride on the train. 


One thing to be cautious if you have planned a day visiting Pingxi line and you do not want to return back to Taipei at a strange hour would be to check this board so you know how much time you have at a particular spot. The train is not very frequent, and it can take 45 minutes during each interval. 


The board to check looks something like this at Pingxi station:

Pingxi station is famous for its black pig sausage and its heritage. They had a cave with all kinds of small rooms during the Japanese Occupation. 

It was super yummy and juicy! It will be better to come during a weekday as during weekend, it will be filled with many people. There's usually a long queue for this stall. 


After walking around for about 40 minutes, I quickly returned back to the train station to catch the train to go to Shifen station. This is the station where many Taiwanese movies like to feature their releasing of Sky lanterns/lights (天灯). 

I also found it very interesting that the shops were next to the train tracks. My main purpose of coming to this station was to view the waterfall. In order to view the waterfall, from the train station, walk straight ahead and follow the signs. The journey for walking will take about 45 minutes. Just keep following the signs ahead. 


These are some sights that you will pass as you are walking...

I was actually quite afraid at one point because I didn't know how long the journey was. I just kept walking and since it was a weekday, there was no one on the road to check for directions. Luckily there were signs along the way, and I finally reached the end point: Shifen Waterfall! 

The sights of it were amazing: 

This is also a great place to release the sky lanterns as it was high up on the mountains. People will usually write their hopes and dreams on the sky lanterns and hope that their prayers/dreams/hopes will be answered. 

This was one of my best sights and greatest accomplishment in my entire trip... and it was really a great walk up. Don't miss this!