Taiwan: Shifen, Jingtong and Pingxi by the Pingxi railway line
By Cubie - March 15, 2025
Pingxi railway line is a a single-rail line servicing the Pingxi area of New Taipei City between Ruifang Station and the terminus at Jingtong Station. In the order of distance from Ruifang, it is actually in the order of Shifen, Pingxi and Jingtong. I wanted to have lunch in Jingtong so I visited in the order of Shifen, Jingtong and Pingxi.
There is option of getting an unlimited usage day pass at NT 80 or one can simply pay with EasyCard which is what I did. Breakdown as below.
| Route | Cost |
|---|---|
| Ruifang - Shifen | NT 19 |
| Shifen - Jingtong | NT 15 |
| Jingtong - Pingxi | NT 15 |
| Pingxi - Ruifang | NT 30 |
Shifen (十分)
Shifen (十分) literally means "10 portions” for the original 10 families living in the area. Similarly, the nearby Jiufen (九份) means "9 portions" for the same reason. The legend has it that whenever a shipment of goods arrived, it was divided into portions, one of each of the families living there. The Shifen Old Street isn't long and many people stopped here to release sky lanterns. I decided to continue walking to the Shifen Waterfall.
Shifen Waterfall's opening hours are 9:00 AM - 4:30 PM. Walk from Shifen Old Street to the waterfall park is around 20 minutes. It was a good stroll despite the rain. It ended up raining the whole day,
After I went through the loop, I walked back to the old street. There were even more people releasing sky lanterns then.
I didn't participate in the activity but got myself a magnet replicate and proceeded to buy some snacks to nibble. I got the peanut brittle coriander ice cream wrapped in spring roll skin. This one in Shifen was from Bingo (冰哥花生捲冰淇淋). The flavour somehow works.
 |
| Peanut brittle coriander ice-cream, NT 50 |
On my walk back to the train station, I also got myself a bbq chicken wing stuffed with ham fried rice from Liou Gou (溜哥焼烤鶏翅包飯). I got the original flavour. Yum.
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| Orignal flavour rice stuffed bbq chicken wing, NT 75 |
Jingtong (菁桐)
Jingtong was a classic mining town following the booming of the local coal mines in the olden days. By the 1980s, coal mining in the Pingxi Districts were stopped due to safety issues and low worldwide coal prices.
It is the last stop on the Pingxi railway line and its old street were also lined with food and souvenirs shops. It was however much quieter compared to Shifen. Next to the tracks, one can see wishes written on bamboo hanging along a fence.
The beautiful Jingtong Station was built in 1931, it is a wooden architecture of exclusively Japanese style.
I wanted to try the miner's rice (礦工飯) from the Jingtong Miner's canteen (菁桐老街紅寶礦工食堂). The shop gave old school vibes.
I contemplated to get railway bento (鐵路便當) which came with a bento box, chopsticks, hand dye wrapping cloth as well as the miner's rice but after considering the additional cost of the bento, I just ordered the miner's meal. The miner's rice came with braised pork rib, braised pork rice, braised egg, bamboo shoots, tofu, seaweed knots, spicy radish and green vegetables.
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| Miner's rice, NT 120 + americano, NT 60 |
By the tme I finished my meal, the next train wasn't too long to wait and would be faster compared to me walking to Pingxi, so I continued my walkabout in Jingtong before hopping on the next train towards Pingxi.
Pingxi
Similarly to Shifen and Jingtong, one can also release sky lanterns at Pingxi. In fact, this is where the Sky Lantern Festival is held. Pingxi Old Street is further away from the train station I didn't see hordes of tourists around. Possibly also because Pingxi is further away down the train line compared to Shifen.
I got some postcards from one of the souvenir shops nearer to the station and was told that there is a post office nearby. So I finished writing them in the post office itself and promptly sent them.
I returned to Ruifang to pick up my luggage and continued on to Taipei where I spend the balance of my time in Taiwan.
Side note: Chromecast stopped working :(
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