Second part: Shuinandong
This area was part of the “extra” itinerary stops that I signed up for. The main stuff are in Yehliu, Shifen and Juifen. But I guess, as this was extra, I wasn’t that surprised when it got treated like extra.
Our tour bus rode out of Yehliu and after a short while, we were in the Shuinandong area, where two sights could be seen at one observing deck: the “Yin-Yang Sea”, and the old Shuinandong refinery plant/smelter. We went up on the deck near the bus parking lot to see both of them. The Yin-Yang Sea in particular was somewhat cool to see, as there were two “colors” visible, the normal blue outside and a dull yellow-brown hue near the coast.
Unfortunately, the sun decided to finally show up a bit as the clouds thinned up. So I brought out my umbrella to at least give me some shade.
We were there for a good 20 minutes or so. Take shots, look at it a bit more, then go down. The sun made the decision easy for us all. We didn’t even stay the full 20 – people like me got the nice photos in, and went back to the bus. The bus, old as it may seem, never skimped on the AC. Refreshingly cold.
So when everybody got back on, the driver then left the parking lot, and went up on the mountain road to the right. And a short distance later on the way to Jiufen, the last item in our extra area sightseeing: the Golden Waterfall.
This is where we spent a good 20-30 more minutes, as legitimately it looked more impressive for the social media photos. People just took their sweet time getting their poses right.
The Golden Waterfall got its name from the color of the water, which is a natural occurence as the soil and the water that it runs off from contains a shitload of minerals (in particular, copper ore) that gave the water its “golden” color. This water runs down the mountain into the Shuinandong coast, which lent the “brown” color of its Yin-Yang Sea that I saw earlier. Oh, also due to those minerals, the water’s toxic as well. There were signs nearby warning people of that. The rocks nearby (including some small streams I saw on the way up) had a distinct brown-yellowish color due to the waters’ arsenic and other minerals.
So… for this “extra” set of sights? Well, it depends on personal taste, but for me, it’s money well-spent. I might not see these set of sights again, so I’d rather pay up the paltry 10 SGD extra for the privilege of a few minutes to see them and get the obligatory selfies and shots in, rather than spend years thinking “what if”.
Once everyone on the tour got their fill of the shots, our driver continued the long trek up the mountain to our next main destination. It’s near lunch anyway, time to have a bite.
Briathrail // Albert 2MNG 
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