Steeped in History--Peitou

Due to safety considerations, visitors can no longer boil eggs in the scalding pools of Hell Valley, but they can warm their feet in the creek where it flows through Peitou's newly created Waterside Park.

The Japanese-style houses, the faint echo of nagashi singing, the memory of the good-time girls who flocked here in days past. It all seems to open a window onto a world preserved as if in some romantic movie of the black-and-white era. This world begins just across the road from the MRT station at New Peitou, where Peitou Park awaits with its traditional, sturdy-looking stone arched bridge. 

Peitou originally took its name from a plains Aboriginal word meaning "shamaness."Perhaps the original inhabitants were frightened by the sulfurous fumes that permeate the air here, or perhaps their wise medicine women really were drawn to this place for its hot springs. 

When Taiwan was ceded to Japan by Qing dynasty China in 1895, bands of resistance fighters retreated to the hills above Peitou. In the campaign to encircle them, the Japanese discovered the hot springs for themselves. The first Japanese governor of Taiwan promptly ordered the construction of the Garrison Hospital, Peitou Branch for army use, and Japanese soldiers injured in the war with Russia were shipped from the frigid battle-grounds to recuperate amid Peitou's pleasant surroundings. The hospital later be came Taiwan's own Peitou Armed Forces Hospital. In Peitou Park, always known for its pools of gushing water and now the home of the Peitou Hot Springs Museum, the Japanese established a number of public bathing pools, and their legacy can still be seen in a number of beautiful Japanese buildings. These include the perfectly preserved Puchi Temple, with its classical, imposing architecture featuring black roof-tiles, plain white walls and bell-shaped windows. Other structures surviving from that era and now enjoying protected status include the century-old hot spring hotels Yin Sung Ge and Hsing Nai Tang, both still in business, and the Taiwan Folk Arts Museum, where visitors can stop for a soak and enjoy tea served the traditional way. 

Peitou Hot Springs Museum introduces Peitou's history and tells the story of the hot springs. The museum is well worth a visit for hot spring fans.

Peitou is blessed by nature with fine scenery and a range of hot spring waters. The open-air Tang Lung Bathing Pool shown in old photographs, with its natural waterfall, loses nothing by comparison with today's hot spring hotels and their state-of-the-art hydrotherapy facilities. As crown prince, the future Emperor Hirohito once visited Peitou and waded across the Peitou Creek, where a monument was erected to mark the occasion. 

After Taiwan reverted to Chinese rule in 1945 Peitou developed into a popular spa known for its escort services, and hot spring hotels soon blanketed the landscape. Peitou Creek, once such a pleasure to bathe in, became an open sewer filled with rubbish. About five or six years ago, a group of local primary school children and teachers on a field outing came across the dilapidated remains of what turned out to be the original Peitou Hot Spring Public Bathing Pool. With support from local historians they launched a restoration project that garnered widespread community support. This led to the founding of the Peitou Hot Springs Museum and the development of Peitou Creek Waterside Park. It's worth considering, as you sit on the banks of the creek with your feet soaking in the warm current, how Peitou's history and its hopes for regeneration are borne on these waters.
 

Peitou Hot Springs Museum  

2 Chungshan Rd., Peitou.  Tel: (02) 2893-9981  Open 09:00-17:00, Tuesday to Sunday.     How to get there: MRT to New Peitou, or buses 216, 218, 266 to Peitou Elementary School.

If you want something more than just a soak in the hot springs, you'll find that the Peitou Hot Springs Museum is a fine place to learn about Peitou and the story of its development as a spa. 

The structure was built by Taipei Prefecture in 1913 to provide the public with access to high-quality hot spring bathing. Modeled on the baths at Izusan in Japan, it was the largest hot spring facility in Southeast Asia. 

The Japanese were busy absorbing Western influences at the time, and this is reflected in the building's East-West architectural melange. The second floor rooms feature tropical hardwood interiors with tatami-covered floors, but the first floor is more evocative of an English country home: Doric columns frame the front entrance, while the main bathing room is lined with arched windows inset with swan-motif stained glass. 

After Taiwan's return to Chinese control in 1945 the building was renamed Chungshan Hall and underwent a series of identity changes, from a guest house for the Taipei County council, to a police station to a public services center, until at last it fell into neglect. In 1994 the site was rediscovered by a group of children and teachers on a school outing. The local community became involved and obtained Grade 3 historic monument status for the building. In 1998, after renovation, it was reopened as the Peitou Hot Springs Museum. 

There are 11 display areas inside the museum, covering subjects such as the formation of various types of hot spring, the history of Peitou's development as a spa, local industries such as Peitou porcelain and lincao rush weaving, the volcanic geology of the area, hot springs around the world, and most particularly, the mineral known as hokutolite or "Peitou stone." 

Hokutolite is a natural substance produced in the Peitou Creek about 90 meters downstream from the hot spring. As water from the spring flows into the stream it cools, and after a certain distance, when the temperature drops to around 80, the mineral-saturated water forms a crystalline deposit on the gravel bed of the stream. In 1905 a Japanese researcher discovered that the deposit included the element radium, and named the substance hokutolite after the Japanese name for Peitou. Among more than 4000 known minerals in the world, hokutolite is the only one to be named after a place in Taiwan. 

Be sure not to miss the Hot Springs Museum when you visit Peitou, so as to enrich your hot springs excursion with a little learning and culture. 
 

Taiwan Folk Arts Museum

The Taiwan Folk Arts Museum in Peitou, which is itself a listed building, houses an important collection of early artifacts and Aboriginal art.  (note: The museum is closed for refurbishment until 2004.)

The Taiwan Folk Arts Museum is housed in one of Taiwan's largest surviving Japanese-style wooden structures, built around a tree-shaded courtyard. 

It began life in 1921 as a Japanese officers'club, and during World War II became a rest house for members of the kamikaze squadron. After Taiwan reverted to Chinese rule in 1945 the site was taken over by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Renamed the Chiashan Guest House, it served as a retreat for government dignitaries and foreign VIPs. The Provincial Government eventually sold the site and Mr. Chang Chun-ming converted it into the Taiwan Folk Arts Museum. It has three main display zones, covering folk artifacts, Aboriginal art, and costume and textiles. The museum houses one of Taiwan's leading collections of Aboriginal artifacts, including plenty of examples of pottery, ancient glazed beads, clothing and ornaments, carvings and musical instruments.

32 Youya Rd., Peitou  Tel: (02) 2891-2318  Open 10:00-19:00 Tuesday to Friday, 09:00-19:00 Saturday and Sunday.  How to get there: Bus 230 from New Peitou MRT station to Taiwan Folk Arts Museum. By car, take Daye Rd. from Shihlin to New Peitou, then follow Chungshan Rd. to Youya Rd.

Lung Nai Tang Hot Springs

A stroll through the hot springs district of Peitou reveals that there are still many attractive old buildings in the Japanese style, such as the Lung Nai Tang hot spring baths.

In 1896, a Japanese man named Mr. Hirata came to Peitou to recover from illness. Impressed by the area's combination of lovely scenery and hot springs, he built Peitou's first bath-house, the Tengu Cabin, on the opposite bank of the Peitou Creek from the site now occupied by the Peitou Hot Springs Museum. Tengu Cabin was the precursor of today's Lung Nai Tang Hot Springs. 

One hundred years later Peitou Creek is lined with hot spring establishments, but this undistinguished-looking building, which houses men's and women's public pools, is still in business. For many of its regular bathers, Lung Nai Tang has been used by the family for three generations. 

244 Kuangming Rd., Peitou  Tel: (02) 2891-2236  Open 06:30-20:30  How to get there: Five minutes walk from New Peitou MRT Station, along Kuangming Rd. (beside Peitou Park).  Admission: NT$70 per person.

Spa World Spring Resort

The beauty salon at Spa World Spring Resort includes a hydrotherapy installation that directs more than 800 micro-jets of water over the body. The spa facilities are one of the resort's main attractions

The Spa World Spring Resort, Peitou's newest hot spring center, is equipped with a full range of hydrotherapy facilities. The main pool features a 1.5-meter-high cascade along with powerful currents surging from the floor that help bathers stay afloat, and jets of aerated water that provide a soothing massage.

Spa World Spring Resort is equipped with all-new facilities, including powerful water jets for massaging the neck and shoulders.

The open-air pool on the roof is fed from one of Peitou's trademark white sulfur springs. There is also an ultrasound-massage pool, and--most notably--a radium bath installation from Japan. The latter releases minute amounts of radium into the water, which is said to help expel impurities from the body and is considered particularly beneficial for sufferers from neuralgia and rheumatism. 

Health and beauty get twin billing at the Spa World Spring Resort, and the beauty salon includes facilities for seaweed-pack application, sea-salt baths, and all-over nutritional hydrotherapy using more than 800 micro-jets of water. Now you can enjoy an all-out spa experience without having to travel overseas. 

283 Kuangming Rd., Peitou  Tel: (02) 2897-9060  Open 06:00-24:00  How to get there: Ten minutes walk along Kuangming Rd. from New Peitou MRT Station, or buses 217, 218, 266.  Charges: Two hours for NT$600 (NT$300 for children) on weekdays, NT$800 (NT$400) weekends and holidays. Spa use starts at NT$980 for five hours on weekdays and the same price for one hour on holidays and weekends.  Overnight from NT$5,500.

Spring City Resort

Spring City Resort, located on the higher slopes of Peitou, offers unrivalled mountain vistas. (courtesy of Spring City Resort)

Hot spring bathing can be a no-frills experience, or it can be a chance to really pamper yourself. The Spring City Resort, which opened in 1998, is the place to go in Peitou if you want to bathe in style.

Spring City Resort provides an unmistakably five-star setting, from the bright, neo-classical architecture of the lobby to the elegant decorative detail of the guest-rooms, featuring bird-and-insect-pattern bathrobes by fashion designer Hung Li-fen, and ceramic wall-ornaments and soap dishes by ceramicist Tsai Hsiao-fang.

The baths in each of the 90 guest-rooms are tiled with smooth guanyin pebbles. For outdoor bathers, there is a soothing view of the mountains from the hot spring pool in the resort's meticulously laid-out Japanese courtyard, with its bamboo, rocks, and softly gurgling water.

The hotel also arranges excursions for guests to the scenic wonders of Yangmingshan National Park, and provides tours of the cultural attractions of Peitou. 

After you've finished bathing, you might wish to sample some of the Japanese delicacies, such as kaiseki cuisine, on offer at the hotel's Bamboo Grove Pavilion restaurant. Later on, you can admire the nighttime panorama of stars and mountains through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the resort's Starlight Bar, to the sound of live jazz. It's an experience that Peitou's regular hot spring establishments can't match.

18 Youya Rd., Peitou Tel: (02) 2897-5555 Open 24 hours.  Charges: NT$600 per hour for private bathing, NT$400 for children. Overnight from NT$5,800, including use of clubs, swimming pool and gym.

 
Peitou Public Outdoor Pool 

Right behind the Peitou Hot Springs Museum is a conveniently located open-air hot-springs pool. If you find yourself in need of a dip after learning all about the history of Peitou and its hot springs, then the public pool, recently fully renovated and reopened in recent year, is just the ticket. It actually comprises six pools, tiered in progression along the course of the Peitou Creek. Up to 50 bathers are admitted morning and afternoon, and swimming suits are required. 

For those who can't be bothered to change out of their clothes, there is always the newly created Waterside Park in Hell Valley, where visitors can sit on the banks of Peitou Creek and dangle their feet in the warm currernt.
 

6 Chungshan Rd., Peitou Tel: (02) 2894-6196  Open 08:30-11:30, 12:00-15:00, 15:30-18:30 and 19:00-22:00.  How to get there: see "Peitou Hot Springs Museum"  Admission: NT$20 (NT$40 on holidays and weekends)

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