Taiwan Travelogue 2 – Wu Fen Pu 五分埔 and Raohe Night Market 饒河街觀光夜市
I bet many of you have heard of the shopping paradise at Wu Fen Pu 五分埔.
It’s actually like a Taiwan’s version of Chatuchak (in bangkok), if not, it’s basically a place for getting wholesale clothes, shoes and bags. In other words, a shopping heaven!
Directions to Wu Fen Pu is relatively easy too! Take the MRT to 台北後山埤 Hou Shan Pi MRT station and you’ll see this sign:
Take the exit using this direction board and you should leave by this exit (photo below)
After which, there may be no more direction signs. But you can always ask passers-by because Wu Fen Pu 五分埔 is only 5 minutes walk away!
Tadaaaa! THIS, is your Wu Fen Pu 五分埔 !
Lots of people isn’t it? What’s more, I came on monday!
You may be getting excited when I say Wu Fen Pu seems like Bangkok’s chatuchak where all items are sold pretty cheap.
Well, that was what I’ve been thinking too. I read reviews, blogger’s experience etc etc and I was really expecting prices to be something like those at Bangkok’s chatuchak.
But boy was I disappointed.
Being a person who can really dig treasures from sales rack (most of my items from bkk trip don’t exceed $10 a piece), I myself find it difficult to do so here! That’s really surprising because most of the items cost about SGD15.
“S$15 for a piece of clothing, very cheap what!”, that’s probably surfacing in your mind now. But this is also the price found at Singapore’s bugis street, so why are you still here in Taiwan Wu Fen Pu?
TIP: To buy really cheap items, go to all the sales rack! There are really some treasures hidden within but be prepared to be disappointed because some items are really horrendous.
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| NT100 = SGD$4! |
Enough of Wu Fen Pu 五分埔, a street selling all the local food is just another 10minutes walk away!
And it’s none other than the Raohe Night Market 饒河街觀光夜市.
Follow the chinese lanterns and you’ll see this large sign board!
Raohe Night Market 饒河街觀光夜市 is another night market selling many different type of Taiwanese street food at quite an affordable price and small bite sizes. But as it’s very popular as well, it gets really really crowded and cramped. Queues for famous delicacies is undoubtedly long, but I assure you it’s worth the wait!
For example, this 胡椒饼 Black Pepper Pastry is one that receives huge patronage. My brother actually queued for 20 minutes for this! Look at the crowd on the left side of the photo, that is the queue.
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| Smelly Tofu which wasn’t really smelly at all. |
Another popular takeaway is this 起士马铃薯 Cheese Baked Potato. Even locals are patronizing this stall. Well of course I gave them a try!
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| All prices in NT. |
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| They have a lot of toppings for you to choose to top your potato. You can choose everything too. |
Well I must say it looks decent, but the taste was another story. I’ll probably say the cheese doesn’t really taste like cheese. In fact, it has a tinge of sourness in it. The only best part about this is the baked potato! It’s soft yet not too soggy, and it taste sweet by itself too. Perhaps too much of a topping isn’t really a good idea.
I love street food!! Can you see the smile on my face!? *Smiles widely*
Oh yes the weather is pretty alright (chilly) when I was there, so it explains why I am still wearing my cardigan in such a crowded night market.
BBQ OYSTERS!!!
If not because of the crowd and my family with me, I would have snatched and grabbed a chair and sat down, gobbling down all the oysters! A plate of oysters only cost NT100 (S$4)!! That. is. plain. insane. They smell superbly fragrant too!
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| BBQ Corn on a cob |
Another street food that receives either lots of love or lots of hate is the BBQ corn on a cob. As a corn lover, I personally didn’t like the hardness of the corn. How should I phrase this? It’s not really that tough, but it definitely contains less moisture because the corn probably has lost all the water content in it, leaving the flesh of the corn only.
They coated a special sauce over the corn while BBQ-ing, which is the main reason why this is still nice even though it’s not as soft as a normal corn.
So yes that’s mostly about it for Wu Fen Pu 五分埔 and Raohe Night Market 饒河街觀光夜市!
Next post up: Jiu Fen 九份老街, another street selling many good food!
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Hope you find this travelogue useful and informative!
View taiwan travelogue part 1: Xi Men Ding
Love,
Celine Chiam
