Taiwan Trip - The Sexy Beitou Hot Spring

From Longshan Temple Station we took blue line to Taipei Main Station and transferred to red line to Beitou Station.

From Beitou Station, we transferred again to pink line to Xinbeitou.

This is how Beitou Station looks at Xinbeitou train platform

And this is how the train looks like. Not an ordinary train.

Of course not just the outside. You see that table? It's a screen with some information of Beitou Hot Spring!

The MRT journey took about 10 minutes and we finally arrived at Xinbeitou Station! Our destination was just in front of the station: the park.

Beitou Park. Right in front of the station.

The map showing all the possible trail

We didn't know which one to go so we just walked. We visited Katagalan Culture Centre first. This building is located just besides the park. There is no entrance fee, no security, nothing. Just walk in and enjoy the story of aborigins there.

Hello from the first floor

The exhibits

One of the aborigins with the traditional clothes

One of the equipments used long long time ago

We then continued our journey at the park. We walk around to find Beitou Hot Spring Museum. From the outside, it looks like a colonial house but it shows its Japanese heart inside. This area was developed as hot spring resorts during Japanese occupation.

The exterior of Beitou Hot Spring Museum

The Japanese style interior 

The Public Hot Bath Area

The view you get when you look out of the window

We were required to take out our sandals before entering this museum and change with their slippers. I guess this practice is to preserve the Japanese feel of the museum.

Then we walked and walked and walked.

We passed by a public hot spring bath and another museum but we did not get in. We wanted to visit Beitou Geothermal Valley at the end of the road.

The valley is a volcanic crater filled with steaming sulphuric water with acidity of 1.2 to 1.6. The high temperature can reach up to 100 degree celcius and it is not suitable for bathing. The hot spring bathes around this area are sourced from Beitou Geothermal Valley.

In earlier days, there was no fences along the crater and people could boil egg in the water. However, a few accidents had happened until the valley was called Hell Valley. To prevent more unexpected things to happen, the government decided to fence up the area. No more boiled egg but no more accident.

The sign to let you know where to turn

Hot Spring Valley

What you can see when walking inside. Cool?

No, it's hot. See the steam.

There is a cute temple up there

When we walked out of this area, we realized that we were hungry. So we walked and looked for the well-known 'Hot Spring Beef Ramen' as mentioned in some travel blogs. It was a bit of up slope walk to reach the restaurant but it was about 2:30pm when we reached there. The restaurant was having the break.

We walked back down with some disappointment.

We saw a lot of people did some foot bath at one area and we decided to try. It is freeeeeee.

The Public Foot Bath

Some people even brought their dog to have some hot spring bath

After soaking our feet and let the warm stream massage them for a few minutes, we decided to close this journey at Beitou and walked back to Xinbeitou Station. Time to go back to Taipei for our last destination.

Love is in the air,
Little Feet

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