May 2008 has been a remarkably cool month or so with only a little rain in the north of the Island. It produces wonderful weather occasionally, and yesterday was one of those days! We traveled to Jiou-Fen and The Gold Mining Area nearby. It was remarkably quite and pleasant even when we drove up the mountain roads.

David from Taiwan Guide visited the museum on several trips, taking these pictures and these. He was my inspiration to go, so we left. Unfortunately, we were delayed quite a lot by laziness. Then we

Taken in Keelung on the No. 2 Coastal highway, some kms south of Central Keelung. Of course, we hadn’t intended to be here at all, as we ended up taking the wrong route. To get to the area of the south of Keelung, we took the No. 1 Superhighway, and exited in Keelung City. We then followed the No. 2 all the way to the Jiou-fen exit. We had planned to take the No. 62 Expressway, but hadn’t realized that to get on that, you have to take the No. 3 Superhighway! So irony of ironies, to avoid going into the City Center, you HAVE to drive into the City Center on the No. 3, but you can avoid it. By avoiding the City Center on No. 1, you actually end up going through the City. But then we discoved this nice area on the coast, with impressive rock cliffs, low density of population and right by the sea.

Once you find a place to park you can enter the museum property and walk along this charming roadway which I’m told was used in a movie or tv show that I have never seen: City of Sadness.

This is the little Gold Nugget Store with real nuggets in the window. Of course, they’re not worth a lot! Each nugget has a little speckle of gold in it! Great souvenirs~!

By then, the Museum was closed so we headed out… Next time we’ll leave earlier, make a more detailed stopover and take a bunch more pictures!