Jiufen Old Street is a historic hillside street in Jiufen, a seaside mountain town near Ruifang, New Taipei City, in Taiwan.
The Old Street has been known for its traditional architecture and nostalgic scenery, which have attracted lots of visitors from around the world. Many buildings on the sides of the Old Street were built during the Japanese era, and some are built in traditional Chinese style.
Today the Old Street is even better known for its similarity to the fictional town depicted in the Japanese animated film Spirited Away. The stairways, houses, lanterns, and many other features of the Old Street all somewhat visually appear like out from the town in the film.
For this reason, many Japanese and the fans of the film from other countries are attracted to Jiufen. There are even souvenir stores sell stuffs based on the film.
The Jiufen town is very accessible from Taipei, it’s only about 30 km away from the city, on some clear days it can even be seen from the observation deck on the top of Taipei 101. However, since the town is not directly connected by a railway to the major cities, it’s still not that easy to figure out a best way to get there without taking multiple attempts of different routes or vehicles. But don’t worry, you don’t need to try them yourself, this article will list the best ways to get to Jiufen from Taipei.
Taking a Train to Jiufen
Jiufen itself doesn’t have a railway station, but its nearby towns have, so you can first taking a train from Taipei to the train station nearest to it (in Ruifang), then complete the rest of the trip by taking a bus. This method can still save you much time compared to taking a bus from Taipei, because trains travel faster, and waiting in the queue for the Jiufen bus in Taipei usually takes a long time. In general, taking a train then a bus will take 45 to 75 minutes (depends on the type of train) in total, while directly taking a bus will take at least 80 minutes, plus a long queuing time. So let’s see how to take a train to get to Jiufen.
First go to the Taipei Main Station (also simply called Taipei Station, or “臺北車站” in Traditional Chinese), to get on a train to Ruifang, a district in eastern New Taipei City and is the nearest train station to Jiufen.
If you are far from Taipei Main Station, you can go to a train station near you, it can be Banqiao, Wanhua, Songshan, or Nangang station.
There are three types of trains you can choose from, which are Regional (on the line of Fuxing / Shuttle, or “復興/區間” in Chinese), Regional Fast (on the line of Chu-Kuang Express, or “莒光號” in Chinese), and Fast (on the line of Tze-Chiang Limited Express, or “自強號” in Chinese). “Regional” is slowest and “Fast” is fastest and most time-saving. Depends on the type you choose, it costs 49, 59, or 76 NTD respectively and the journey takes 32-60 minutes (assuming you start from Taipei Main Station. The price and time spent will be slightly different if you start from other stations).
There are two ways to pay for the train rides, buying a ticket or using an EasyCard, which is a kind of smartcard that can be used to pay for the tickets for trains, metro, and buses in Taiwan, and can also be used in convenience stores and supermarkets, EasyCard can be purchased by clicking here.
It’s recommended to use an EasyCard, as it’s easy to use and you will pay less, while buying a ticket requires you to find a ticket machine, which is not easy to be found and also a little difficult to use.
With an EasyCard you only need to swipe it when you enter and exit the train stations.
Once you entered Taipei Main Station, head to the Platform 4, from where all the northbound trains depart.
The trains come every 15-50 minutes, the last departure is at 10:30 pm. You can check their schedule on the Taiwan Railway website.
Get on the train and when it has been 30-50 minutes or so from departure, remember to check the electronic board above the train door to see if you arrived at Ruifang Station, alternatively you can use Google Maps on your phone with location service enabled to see if you are approaching the destination Ruifang.
After arrived in Ruifang, you need to take a bus to Jiufen, which takes about 10-15 minutes. The bus stop is not the one right outside the train station, that one is for bus to Taipei, to find the bus to Jiufen you need to take a 3-minute walk: once you get out of the Ruifang train station, you will see a public square in front of the station, and over the square is a road called Mingdeng Road, on which you can see a Wellcome supermarket facing you.
Walk across the square to that road then turn left (east), and walk about 200 meters down the road until you get past Ruifang Police Station (a 5-story building with red bricks, Chinese name is “新北市政府警察局瑞芳分局”, which is shown on Google Maps) on your right, then you will see a bus stop on your right, which is located next to the police station across Minquan Street.
You can take the bus 788, 965, 825, 827, or 1062, to get to Jiufen. The bus ride will cost 15 NTD, you can pay cash, or simply pay using the EasyCard which you used to pay for the train ride, just swipe the card when you get on the bus, and don’t forget to swipe again when you get off.
The stop to get off is simply called Jiufen Old Street, almost everyone will get off there, so you don’t need to worry about missing it.
After you get off, walk on the road uphill for about 80 meters, you will be at the entrance to the Jiufen Old Street, which is next to a 7-Eleven store. Then you can start to explore the Old Street!
Taking a bus to Jiufen from Taipei
If you don’t want to take a train, you can directly take a bus from Taipei to Jiufen. This option seems more convenient, but takes significantly more time, and more expensive.
There are two choices for bus to Jiufen from Taipei: 1062 and 965. The more popular one is 1062, operated by Keelung Bus Company, starts from Zhongxiao Fuxing MRT station (忠孝復興站), and costs 110 NTD to Jiufen, you can pay with an EasyCard or cash. You can get on the 1062 bus at any one of its bus stops in the city, but since it will be a long trip, you’d better to get on at the first stop (Zhongxiao Fuxing MRT station) so you will get a seat.
To find this bus stop, you first take the metro to Zhongxiao Fuxing MRT station, and get out the station via Exit 2, you will see Fuxing South Road (復興南路), a road that has the elevated MRT line running above it, then take the road and walk about 50 meters to south, you will be at the bus stop. Usually the queue of people waiting for the bus to Jiufen is very long, as too many people visit Jiufen and everyone will have a seat, you have to wait for one, two or more buses to pass before your turn to get on, so you might have to wait for 15-45 minutes for the bus, given that the buses come every 15 minutes or so. One way to avoid the long line of people is to get there in the early morning before 8:00 am, or it will be better for you to take a train instead. The details of timetable and route map of bus 1062 can be found at here on the website of Taiwan Bus.
The other choice for bus from Taipei to Jiufen is bus 965, operated by Taipei Bus company, starts from a bus stop near Fuzhong MRT station, if you are far from this station, you can also get on the bus from the stops at Banqiao Bus Station, Wanhua Railway Station, Ximen MRT station, or Beimen MRT station, but you might can’t get a seat. The buses depart every 30 minutes, it takes 1 hour 50 minutes to get to Jiufen from the first stop, and 1 hour 15 minutes from the stop in Beimen, the bus ride costs 90 NTD no matters which stop in Taipei you get on.
Taking a Taxi
Taking a taxi is the fastest way to get to Jiufen, it usually takes no more than 50 minutes, that’s even a little faster than taking a train, but it’s also the most expensive option, the price is about NTD 1000-1400 a trip. If you can’t afford it, you can hire a taxi together with other passengers, so you only need to pay about 300-400 NTD. A popular place to hire taxi to Jiufen is in Zhongxiao Fuxing, the area around the bus stop of bus 1062, because some people trying to get to Jiufen by bus will give up waiting in the line for that long time.
To make sure the taxi is taking you to the correct place, show the driver the name of Jiufen Old Street in Chinese characters: “九份老街”.
How to return to Taipei from Jiufen
You can take the same bus and train to get back to Taipei, just be aware that the bus stops for returning to Taipei is in slightly different locations.
So when you exit to the entrance to the Old Street, don’t go downhill to the bus stop where you got off the bus when you come to Jiufen, instead you should walk about 100 meters uphill on the same road to get to the bus stop for Jiufen to Taipei. You can take 1062 or 965 all the way back to Taipei. If you want to be faster, then you can take a bus (1062, 965, 788, 825, 827) back to Ruifang train station first, this time you will not get off at the bus stop next to that police station, but at the bus stop right outside of the train station, so you don’t need to walk that much again, just walk across that public square and you will get into the train station, then catch a train to Taipei.