Dihua Street Lunar New Year Market 2017

January 27, 2017 in Photo Post, Old Street, Taipei, Travel

The busiest of all the Lunar New Year Markets in Taiwan is Taipei’s Dihua Street (迪化街) in one of the oldest districts of the city. It is estimated that each year more than a million people visit the street in the two weeks leading up to the Lunar New Year festivities and that number is consistently rising with the market becoming larger each year.

Click here for the 2015 and 2016 Dihua Street Lunar New Year Photos.

This year the "street" has continued its outward expansion and is branching out to the neighbouring streets around it. It seems that with the rent being so extreme and more businesses wanting in on the action that the city has planned several streets to allow people to do their shopping and that in turn should allow for the easing of traffic on the street itself.

Dihua Street (迪化街) and the entire Dadaocheng area (大稻埕) has a history dating back to the 1850s where it was an important centre for commerce in Taipei - especially for Taiwanese tea, Chinese medicine, fabrics, etc. The street today still remains one of the most commercially active areas in Taipei and has been preserved to show its historical roots. Many of the buildings on the street were built in the baroque style which is quite common on many of Taiwan's old streets (Like Daxi Old Street)

Check out: Love, Daodaocheng - A site dedicated to the historic area of Taipei

The street is busiest during the preparations for Lunar New Year, but considering its history, it is an important tourist attraction for Taipei and you will also find the Xiahai City God Temple (霞海城隍廟) on the street as well which is one of Taipei's most important temples with Bao-An Temple (保安宮) and Confucius Temple (台北孔廟) also nearby. There is always something interesting going on in the area and it is a great place to visit to see "old Taipei" so if you can't make it during the Lunar New Year market, you can still go whenever you visit the city!

While visiting the street it is common to find vendors selling all sorts of peanuts, cashews and pistachios as well as different types of candy and traditional snacks. There are cured meats, freshly made Taiwanese-style and Hong Kong-style sausages as well as pork knuckle. If you are a fan of jerky you are in for a treat as you will find various styles of Taiwanese pork and beef jerky as well as different styles of dried fish and squid.

Vendors also sell all sorts of dried mushrooms, dried scallops, dried abalone and something called mullet row (烏魚子) or as the Japanese call it "karasumi" (カラスミ) which is an expensive salted and dried roe of the mullet fish. I'm not really a big fan, but it is popular in Taiwan and is a sign of wealth if you are able to serve it at your Lunar New Year feast.

You will also find an unhealthy variety of candy that can be in the form of dried fruit or the gummy variety. Lunar New Year is all about the family and children are an important part of the family. It is quite common to have a lot of candy available for the kids to eat while the parents are having fun and drinking Taiwanese Kaoliang (高粱酒) or Cognac and gambling.

One of the unfortunate aspects of the traditional market is that the sale of Shark Fin is still so prevalent - despite protests and a society that is changing its attitude toward the terrible and inhumane act of shark finning. There are various vendors throughout the market selling dried shark fins and while they continue to make profit off of such a bloody and wasteful trade - they are also quite aware that societies perception is changing and that the foreign community are very vocal about it which means these shop owners are not very keen on being photographed.

The Lunar New Year Market on Dihua Street is progressively getting bigger each year and the amount of people that show up in the time leading up to the important holiday has also increased exponentially. It is a great time of the year to be a photographer in Taipei and getting to the street is one of the things that photographers around here enjoy doing. Getting good shots however can be difficult due to the amount of people and the constant state of motion. You have a split second to get a photo before the people behind you are pushing and that is part of the reason why it is so exciting.

Lunar New Year is a busy time in Taiwan and I'll be quite busy as usual. The entire country has a week off from work and I'll be taking part in the festivities with friends. The weather is looking good for the first few days so I'll be busy with my camera!

Happy Lunar New Year! 大家，新年快樂～雞年大吉！恭喜發財

Gallery / Flickr (High Res Photos)

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Neiwan Old Street (內灣老街)

June 18, 2016 in Photo Post, Travel, Old Street, Hsinchu

Since I've started this blog, I've covered quite a few of Taiwan's old streets with plans to visit more as they are often a wonderful look back into Taiwan's storied history. The old street I'm introducing today is probably my favourite of all the old streets and despite some recent changes which I think takes away from the authenticity of the old street, I still go back several times where the vendors and shop owners recognize me and in some cases even know me by name!

Neiwan Old Street (內灣老街) is in south-eastern Hsinchu county’s Hengshan township (橫山) and next to Jianshi (尖石鄉) the beautiful Atayal area known for its mountains and rivers. The village is quite remote and is part of the reason I like it so much. It is nestled in the mountains next to a beautiful river and is quiet for at least five days of the week. On weekends the old street comes alive and is jam packed with tourists sampling many of the treats the street is famous for as well as the Hakka culture that is so prevalent in the area.

The origins of the town are quite similar to what we have seen with my previous posts in Daxi and Sanxia where historically the town was set up as a way-point in the logging and mining industry. This brought a lot of prosperity and opportunity to the people of the bustling little village which quickly became a self-sustaining town with banks, post offices and movie theatres. When the mine closed in the 1960s the town slowly transformed into a backwater and it fell out of public consciousness almost until the turn of the century when the it started to be marketed as a popular tourist destination becoming one of Taiwan's “old streets” (老街) and a strategy was devised to keep tourists coming to visit.

While most of Taiwan’s old streets are known for the architecture of the houses lining the streets being constructed with “baroque” designs, the Neiwan old street isn't like that at all - The town became prosperous much later than the others and that style had already faded by that time and wasn't very practical in such a remote area. The architectural style of the houses along the street is pretty much the same as what you'd see in many of the older neighbourhoods around Taiwan.

So without the "old street" feeling, how has Neiwan become so attractive to tourists? I believe that it is in part because of the Hakka culture and cuisine, the quaintness of the town and also because of the special railway line that brings tourists into the small village making it quite special and differentiating itself from other old streets.

The railroad that brings people into Neiwan is a special branch of the Taiwan Railway. It isn't on the main mountain (山線) or ocean line (海線), so if you plan on going to old street via the train you will first have to get to Zhudong Train Station (竹東車站) and then transfer to the special Neiwan Liujia line (內灣六家線). The line was completed in 1951 and departs every 90 minutes from the city. The train (slowly) brings you through the mountains and part of the experience of going to Neiwan is taking the train and enjoying the scenery on the trip.

The problem with the train is that it takes a long time and it doesn't come very frequently. If you travel to Neiwan by train on a busy day, you need to make sure to line up quite early to take a train back to Hsinchu, otherwise you may get stuck and it is very likely that you'll have to stand for the entire 90 minute ride. If you do take the train, make sure to check for information about the bus just in case you get stuck in a long line and can't make it back by train!

Travel information: Bus (Left) / Train Schedule (Right) - Chinese Only

The old street has a number of popular Hakka restaurants and there are also a number of vendors lining up on each side selling local specialties like Hakka sticky rice (客家麻糬), Hakka desserts, tea, and pretty much anything you might expect from a typical night market. The street is quite well known for one of its Indigenous sausage vendors as well as vendors selling a special type of glutinous rice (野薑花粽子) wrapped in ginger leaves (as opposed to lotus leaves), and of course my favourite, Hakka Lei tea (客家擂茶) which is one of the main reasons I've been back so many times.

One of my favourite places to eat is the old Neiwan Cinema (內灣戲院) which is an old style theatre that has since been converted into a popular Hakka restaurant. The restaurant still plays movies and they even have a store where you can buy DVDs of the old Taiwanese movies that they play. I watched a movie in the theatre a few years back while having dinner titled: “The Green, Green Grass of Home” (在那河畔青草青) which was one of director Hou Hsiao-Hsien's (侯孝賢) earliest films about a teacher from Taipei who was assigned to substitute teach at the elementary school in Neiwan and falls in love with the resident teacher there. The movie was filmed on location and it was amazing to see how the village looked decades ago compared to how it looks now as well as well as the dedication to promoting environmental preservation that would become part of Hou's career as a director.

When I said earlier that people know who I am in Neiwan, I wasn't joking. I’ve been going to the same Hakka Lei Tea vendor (阿珠擂茶) for years and every time I come back the owner gets really excited and somewhat embarrassingly yells about how long it's been since I've been back. The tea in this place is awesome and you can choose to either make the Lei Cha by yourself (which actually takes a lot of time and hard work grinding the stuff up) or you can have it made by the boss. She sells hot and cold versions as well as a iced smoothie type. If you've never tried this tea, I highly recommend you sit down for a pot and enjoy some of her awesome Hakka sticky rice (客家麻糬) with it.

Now that I've said a bunch of nice things about the old street, it's time to do a little bit of complaining - The old street (like a lot of places in Taiwan) has changed a bit in the past few years. It remains a big attraction for Taiwanese visitors but it has become a destination for bus-loads of of Chinese tourists. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I feel like the authenticity of the old street has been lost and what was once an “old street” has branched off into several streets selling kitschy things to tourists.

I'm not particularly a big fan of the new changes which even include go-kart tracks and noisy carnival-like attractions. I tend to avoid those areas and stick to the more traditional areas of the village. If you haven't been to Neiwan before, I recommend just staying in the original street which starts at a 7-11 and goes past the train station, downhill past the theatre. It's a long straight street and you don't need to really wander off to the side streets which are the new ones full of flag-following tour groups.

That being said the new streets that have been incorporated into the old street have brought me to explore other parts of the residential area of the village and I have found quite a few things that even after visiting for the first fifty times. There's a large temple behind the old street and near there is a bridge with a small stream that the train passes over - in the stream is a traditional Hakka set up for doing laundry and on off-days you can still see the residents of the town doing their laundry in the street. The street is also a popular attraction for viewing fire flies and in April and May people come from all over the country to see the fire flies that are native to the area behind the village.

If you get a bit tired of wading through crowds on the weekend, I recommend taking a walk across the old Neiwan suspension bridge that connects the village with the other side of the river. You can also go down to the river banks where you will see locals playing in the river and having barbecues. If you traveled by car or scooter I also recommend driving a bit further up the mountains past Neiwan into Jianshi (尖石) where the river is a bit more beautiful and eventually becomes an Indigenous area where you can find some great food, hot springs and really friendly people.

I've been going to Neiwan at least four or five times a year for well over ten years. I'm a big fan of this old street and everything it has to offer. It is in the middle of the mountains, there's a beautiful river, great traditional foods and even some of the more modern snacks that you'll find in many of Taiwan's modern night markets. It's great for a day trip especially if you want to get out of the city for some fresh air and good food.

If you have any comments or questions don't be shy – comment below!

Gallery / Flickr (High Res Shots)

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Sanxia Old Street (三峽老街)

May 21, 2016 in Old Street, New Taipei City, Travel, Photo Post

Sanxia Old Street (三峽老街) otherwise known as San Jiao Yong Old Street (三角涌老街) is located in the Sanxia district of New Taipei City and is a popular old street for the residents of northern Taiwan. The street is about 260 meters long, but don't tell that to the people going on the weekends who will ultimately have to endure a massive traffic jam to get there!

The Sanxia area is steeped in history and there are several other notable attractions in the area that make the old street a worthwhile day trip out of the city. The street has a similar history to that of the Daxi Old Street (大溪老街) in Taoyuan and was once an economic powerhouse due to its location next to the Dabao River.

Sanxia had a long history of trade and exporting goods (mostly wood) from the mountains nearby to other parts of the island and to China which brought with it quite a lot of prosperity. When methods of transportation improved and transport by way of boat became less useful the town started to decline, merchants moved away and the economy suffered.

The buildings we see today are a reflection of the former prestige of the town - Much like Daxi, Hukou and other old streets throughout the country, the facades of the buildings on the street were built in the baroque (巴洛克式風格) style. Sanxia stands out from the rest however due to the fact that the facades of the buildings were built uniformly in red brick and that both sides of the street have an arched sidewalk. The street was renovated by the local government in 2007 in an attempt to attract more tourists but that doesn't take away from the fact that the buildings on the street are said to be an excellent example of the architecture of the Japanese colonial era.

I’m not particularly a huge fan of crowds so I usually visit the street during weekdays - If you visit on weekdays like I do you won't get the full “old street” experience and not all of the stores will be open, but what you will get is the opportunity to take some great photos of this historic relic dating back to 1685.

I've been to Sanxia Old Street dozens of times and I've found that I now enjoy walking along the road and checking out the wood carvings on the houses as well as the small alleys you might not notice if it were full of people.

On days when the street isn't that busy, the locals seem to be much more willing to have a chat and explain the history than they would if there were thousands of people walking along the road. On my last visit for example I was walking around alone shooting some stuff and I ran into an old man wearing a fedora who struck up a conversation with me. He told me I should pay close attention to a few things along the road and showed me an ancient “door bell” that was beside the door on his house. The door bell was a carved horse and was actually a bell that you would have pulled a string to ring which I never would have noticed on my own or even if I did think it was historically significant.

These days the street is full of vendors selling traditional handicrafts, antiques, tea and kitschy things that tourists would buy. There are also tea houses, restaurants, shaved ice dessert places and the streets most popular product: A type of hard and sugary croissant called a “bulls horn” (牛角) that I can't say I'm particularly fond of. Whenever I visit the street I find that I don't spend any money and for me, I think that is a problem. The government invested a lot of money into the rejuvenation of the old street, so I think that it should be more than something that people just walk through once in a while.

When Taiwanese people visit an old street, they expect to enjoy the history while following their stomachs to the place that has the best food. If you asked me about any of the old streets in Taiwan I would be able to tell you a few specific places to go and eat or have a drink. The problem with Sanxia is that the street itself doesn't really have that staple “famous” place to go and eat (save for the various vendors selling bulls horns) which is kind of a problem because it doesn't really offer anything particularly special like the others do.

The good thing however is that there are a lot of attractions in the area and the other parts of the town have some great places to eat. The Qingshui Zushi temple (清水祖師廟) is next to the old street and any visit to the street should also include a visit to one of Taiwan’s most beautiful temples designed by one of Taiwan's most famous artists.

If you enjoyed the art in the temple you may want to visit the Li Mei-Shu Memorial Gallery (李梅樹紀念館.) You may want to bike along the river path or enjoy the sunset on the banks of the river next to the temple. When you're hungry you may want to go to Batiao Sushi (八條壽司) a popular Japanese restaurant that serves up some pretty authentic dishes, fresh seafood and sushi.

The town is also close enough to Yingge (鶯歌) with its pottery street (鶯歌老街) and museum (鶯歌陶瓷博物館) and a trek up into the mountains following along the Dabao river (大豹溪) to places like Wuliaojian (五寮尖) one of my favourite hikes, the Great Roots Forestry Spa resort (大板根森林溫泉渡假村), the Cloud Forest Waterfall (雲森瀑布) and Manyueyuan forest park (滿月圓森林公園) are all highly recommended for filling up a day trip.

If you are planning a trip to Sanxia old street, I recommend taking public transportation or a scooter. If you travel by car it's likely that you will be struck in traffic for quite a while. You can takes buses from Taipei or Xindian and a train from Taipei to Yingge and then a bus or taxi to the street itself. If you have a scooter, the street isn't a long drive from the city and gives you more access to spots away from the old street.

The street is an excellent excursion out of the city and is great for experiencing a bit of the history of greater Taipei. If you're in the country for a short time, a visit to this old street is recommended more so than visiting any of the overcrowded museums. For me the best kind of museum is an interactive one and the Sanxia old street is about as interactive of an experience as you're going to get.