Jys ~ Blah Blah Blah

Jinguashi (金瓜石)

September 2nd, 2009 | by jys |

Time flies, today will be the last day of our Taiwan trip. After our not so nice McD breakfast, we began our journey to Jinguashi. First, we took the train from Taipei Main Station to Keelung, then from Keelung(基隆), we took a bus to Jinguashi (金瓜石). Why choose to take train instead of bus? Well, I had bus sickness when we took the bus to Yeliu Geopark(野柳地质公园) and it was really an unpleasant one hour journey. I felt very uncomfortable. That is why to prevent that, we decided to take train then only take bus. Train is more stable and more comfortable although it’s a bit slow.

We used our EasyCard (悠游卡) to pay for the train fare, therefore I don’t remember how much is the ticket fare from Taipei Main Station to Keelung.

here’s our train, arrived pretty fast, we only waited about 5 minutes..

it’s clean and comfortable

About an hour later, we arrived at Keelung. The bus stop (to get bus to Jinguashi/Jiufen) is just opposite the Keelung train station. When we arrived at the bus station, there’s a taxi driver asked us whether we want to take his cab to go to Jinguashi/Jiu Fen or not. We told him we decided to take the bus and luckily he did not bug us further. We were quite surprised to see the taxi driver reminded us when the bus to Jinguashi/Jiu Fen had arrived (and we still blur blur standing there..), he even told us how much was the bus fare (nt 55 each, approx RM 6.50) before we boarded to the bus. What a nice taxi driver!!

The bus was full of passengers, there were no place for us to sit also. After 30 minutes or so, we arrived at Jiufen. We decided to go Jinguashi first then only to Jiu Fen. Seems like 99% of the passengers were to Jiu Fen. Only left me and FL were left in the bus to Jinguashi. Jiufen to Jinguashi took us another 5 or 10 minutes. I wonder why nobody interested to go to Jinguashi? hmmmm….

and here we are…

Taipei County Jinguashi Area Plan
台北县金瓜石地区展览图

the main entrance of Gold Ecological Park （黄金博物院区）

the ticket counter

the ticket price

with the Youth Travel Card (青年旅遊卡) ,
we’re entitled to get the nt 70 (RM 8.20) tickets

it’s drizzling, seems quite empty..

nice place to pak tor hor.. hehe..

Jinguashi was once a booming gold and copper mining town. Although the industries faded, Jinguashi still hold the value and it was named a potential World Heritage site in year 2002. You can see the old mining facilities can be transformed into a recreational destination. A lot of the original buildings had been rebuilt and reused as exhibition space.

guess which one we’re going to visit first?

our first stop, The Residence of Mike Kikujirou (三毛菊次郎宅)

This is the bureau director’s house used by the second but last director of the Jinguashi Mining Bureau in the Japanese era, Mike Kikujirou. We were required to queue up in front of the house to wait for our turns to visit the house. About 8-10 ppl are allowed in the house for each visit and it takes about 15 minutes to finish the tour. There were 8 ppl in our group.

we were first brought into this room to watch a short 5 minutes film about the history of Jinguashi Mining. Then our guide brought us around to visit the house.

the living room

the kitchen

the dining room

the study room

the toilet

someone asked the guide, wah, that time they already got flush toilets ar? So advance!! hahahahaha, then the guide explained said they built this recently one. hehe.. funny lar…

the bedroom

this one i forgot what room, hehe, the wet kitchen? hehe..

this one. err.. yum cha room?

After finished visiting the residence of Mike Kikujirou, we walked further in.

some souvenirs shops

amazing view right?

this is the police station, nice hor…

Remains of the Gold Refining Building (炼金楼)

brief introduction..

Gold!!! I’m rich!! I’m rich!!!!

Next, we proceed to the Environment Education Center (环境馆). You can find exhibits on the natural ecological environment and also information on how the Jinguashi community of Japanese style buildings was contructed to meet the local conditions. Here’s some photos we took in the Environment Education Center.

Environmental Education Center (环境馆)

After the Environmental Education Center, we went to the Crown Prince Chalet (太子宾馆).

Crown Prince Chalet (太子宾馆) main entrance

This was built to welcome a visit by the Japanese crown prince. That’s where the name comes from (although the prince never actually stays there).

Crown Prince Chamber/Master Bedroom

Special Guest room

this was taken from the garden of the Crown Prince Chalet

After visiting the Crown Prince Chalet, I remembered we had up climbed a long long stairs to go to the Benshan Five Tunnels (本山五坑). So tired oh…

I like the view.. nice right?

finally…we’re here!

main entrance of Benshan Five Tunnels (本山五坑)

This is a place where we can experience going into a real mining tunnel to understand the working conditions of miners, how they extracted gold and transported it out of the mine.

we need to buy another ticket to enter

our tickets, nt 50 (RM 5.90) each

each ticket comes with this… a blue helmet. hehe..

A brief introduction was given to us before we enter the tunnel. We were also required to wear a REAL helmet before entering the tunnel. hehe..

here we go.. it’s working time!! let’s go dig some gold!!

in the tunnel…

is this gold? OMG!! I found gold!!! wuahahahhahaa…

some fake miners working… hehe…

it is quite deep ..

it’s time to rest!! hehe.. a resting area..

the exit..we spent about 10 to 15 minutes in the tunnel..

all miners will need to be checked to make sure they nv steal any gold out..

this is to record the working session and it’s used to calculate the pay..

amazing amazing view outside the tunnel…

beside the tunnel is the Gold Ecological Park Museum/Museum of Cold (黄金博物院)

By visiting the museum, you will understand the development of Jinguashi’s mining culture.

miner’s tools

transport cart rail

We also got the chance to see and touch a 220 kg gold brick. Picture of the gold brick were not taken cos too many ppl surrounding it. hehe… Everyone loves gold…

At first we plan to visit the ruins of Gold Zen Temple which was built in 1897 after visiting the museum but the temple was situated above the museum and it was way too high. We still need to go to JiuFen (九份) so we decided to skip that one. I heard the views up there were spectacular!

Look at this picture.. don’t you think this is a MUST visit place?

Prev: Wufenpu & Raohe Street Night Market (五分埔 & 饒河街觀光夜市)
Next: Jiufen (九份)

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Tags: gold, jinguashi, miners, mining, Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, Travel, tunnel