九份 (Jiu Fen) in pictures and words

Ohh this is sooooo belated. :D But I've got so many Taiwan photos left to edit and share and I'm so happy with a lot of the photos that I MUST POST THEM!! Going through photos and editing them till I'm happy can get pretty tedious/tiring since I'm no professional at it (I'm sure there's some sort of method professional photographers use to speed up the editing process no?) but at the end of the day, it's so worth it. :) I feel all happy thinking about the moments behind those photos and I must say that the trip to Taiwan with my pals from soooo long ago was really good. We were all such lazy bums who could never get out of the hotel room at the stipulated timing that we had planned the night before. 
So here are photos when we went to 九份 (Jiu Fen) for a little day trip. It's one of those small towns just outside of Taipei that's known for its rustic charm and olden day streets and shops. The only downside to the trip was that it was RAINING that day :(( which made for some inconveniences. Picture us making our way through the crowded narrow streets dodging the rain while trying to take photographs. My circle scarf was a big saver. :) It kept my camera nice and dry. Oh and it was funny how at the start of the day we had planned on taking a direct bus to Jiu Fen but in the end we were taken in by an extremely enthusiastic taxi driver who ended up taking us on a mini tour of other scenic spots around the Jiu Fen area ("I'm taking you all there for free!! No extra charge!"). Taiwanese taxi drivers are sososo nice. :) I guess that's their way of fishing for tips. 

 
Oh yes, so my mum would like to let the world know that for all the photos of the 4 of us, she's the one who took them! :)
  Urghgh, word of advice, best not to get the stick of corn on the extreme left if you happen to go there next time.
I'm sure the ordinary corn without special flavoring would've tasted pretty sweet and nice but for some reason we were adventurous that day and decided to try out the corn with the special dark sugary-salty flavoring. It tasted like something you'd get in a corn chip snack.

Isn't this adorable?? :D I was so surprised at how smart this little pun was. Who would've thought the Taiwanese knew how to pun English words like this eh?? (JUS KIDDINGZZ. My Taiwanese friend, Yueh, is probably reading this and getting pissed right this minute.)
Little cats to decorate cups/glasses with! Aren't they so cute? :) I love the one hanging upside down chillaxing away.

So this young chap's in the middle of making a type of dessert-snack which is basically a wrap filled with sugary peanut shavings. I was pretty impressed by how diligent and quick he was. 
Man look at those huge slabs of peanut coated in syrup. 
 

One thing that Jiu Fen is famous for apparently, is this dessert called 芋圓湯 (Yu Yan Tang) (Yam Ball Soup) (haha yeah that's roughly how I'd translate it), which is basically red bean soup with lots of small yam balls in it.What made this dessert so good at that time was the fact that it was warm and comforting and we were so cold from the rainy weather. MMM.  

Cutest little girl playing with the rain. :)

I like how our umbrellas came in useful in the end. :D 
Ahh how I would like to go back there again in the Spring or Fall... when it's not raining!! 
xx