Night street in Jiufen 夜访九份

I think I'm really good at trip planning. However, I did make several mistakes. Today I'd like to share a story about how a mistake helped me know the city Jiufen, Taiwan in a different, but better way.

My sense of direction is poor. I took the wrong train that evening and had to wait in a really small station called Badu for the right train to Jiufen. I waited more than one hour there. It was after 8pm when I finally arrived at Jiufen.

In Taipei, 8pm is just a start of the long night. In Jiufen, however, most of the stores are closed. There may be only one or two people besides me and my friend wandering on the silent street.

Actually I think it is a better time to visit Jiufen, although you cannot have all the famous food that people talked about again and again on the internet.

After everything quieted down, the wet street and the red lanterns in dim light made the city look like scene of the movie Spirited Away.

其实这篇游记很久前就写了，趁着streetphotography这个主题从之前的博客搬过来。

我一直觉得自己很擅长做旅游攻略。即便如此，也有过乌龙的时候，比如五年前的九份之旅。

我方向感一直不太好，当天不是上错了火车就是坐错了方向，不得不在一个叫八堵的小站呆坐了一个多小时，这么一来到九份已经八点多了。这个时间在台北夜晚才刚刚开始，而在九份，就只有看看卷闸门了。

八点之后的九份，有点雾，或许白天下过雨，石板路很湿润，红灯笼朦胧的光影把一切都渲染得很有质感。街上几乎没有人，偶尔有那么一两家还开着的店也毫无做生意的状态。

不过我觉得这样的九份或许比白天的时候更美。（由于行程安排后来也没有在白天去比较过，怎么办呢，做人要乐观）

当所有的喧闹都静音，没有不可错过的芋圆没有非买不可的伴手礼，这样的九份简单而质朴，仿佛在时钟全都停摆的另一次元。

The fog was getting thicker as it was getting late. However, the next train back to Taipei was after 2 hours.

Why don't we visit the Shengping Theatre? I said to my friend.

That was a very good decision in terms of killing time.

It was frustrating to find the right direction. There were no further hints on how to get to the theatre after the first arrow we saw on the wall. We walked for quite long time, and one dog walked with us all the way. We didn't know when he/she joined us but he/she was a good company.

雾随着夜深而越来越浓密，下一班车还早，于是就想不如拜访下传说中的升平戏院。

这个决定着实谋杀了不少时间。

只有最开始经过的墙头写着升平戏院四个字画了个粗糙的箭头，后来似乎连路灯的间隔都越变越大，身边不知道什么时候开始一直跟着的一条狗眼神又单纯又无辜。

The local culture and history studio we passed by. 路过的九份文史工作室。

Just when I started to think that we may walk into another world like the movie Spirited Away, we found a hostel and asked people there. They told us that just go straight ahead and we should find the theatre on the left.

So we, one dog and two lost visitors, continued our journey in silence. We were very close to giving up when we finally saw the theatre on the corner.

There it was, standing quietly on the corner in dim light. Our company finally met his/her friends here and started to bark. - We had been in silence for so long that we thought the dog barking was the greatest sound in the world:)

What a wonderful mistake. I thought to myself.

好不容易看到一家开着的旅舍，问了几个闲聊着的当地人，说一直往前走就是了，在左边，注意不要错过。

于是人和狗各自拖着模糊的影子沉默地走在浓雾中，路似乎永远也走不完，左边的房子似乎永远一个样子。我默默地想着，这真的不是穿越到了千与千寻里面什么场景嘛。。。

快要绝望的时候，眼前豁然开朗，居然到了红灯笼主街的另一个入口。迎面就是传说中有薰衣草味冰淇淋的咖啡店，升平戏院安静地站在那个咖啡店的转角。跟想象中略有不同。

而狗狗在这个路口遇到了不少同伴，开始大叫。在此起彼伏的狗叫声中，我觉得，这真是一个完美的结局。

Thank you for reading! If you like this post, you can check my previous post and follow me for more.

感谢阅读！如果你喜欢这篇文章，欢迎去看看我之前的游记，或者follow我看更多。

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