Why Korean Tourists Swarm Jiufen: 7 Differences I Spotted Over 3 Afternoons

Saturday, 17:40, on Shuqi Road in Jiufen.

I was standing on the stone steps directly across from A-Mei Teahouse. Around me was a crowd holding up cameras, speaking more Korean than Chinese. A young woman next to me was coaching her friend on how to pose: hands in pockets, eyes toward the ocean, heels half a step up on the third stair. She was directing in heavy Seoul-accented Korean, and I stood behind her listening for a solid 5 minutes.

This was not a coincidence. I staked out three different afternoons across March and April, and every time the conclusion was the same: after sunset on Shuqi Road, the density of Korean visitors gets high enough that you forget you're in Taiwan.

Early in 2025, Taipei's tourism bureau released a number: Korea had the highest growth rate among all source markets for Korean visitors to Taipei that year, and the Tourism Administration ranks Korea among the top three source markets for inbound travel to Taiwan, with the full-year total hitting roughly 880,000 Korean visitors in 2024. This piece isn't about statistics. It's about something I got wrong for a long time: I assumed Korean travelers walked the same Jiufen route we do, and then I realized they really don't. At all.

Across those three afternoons plus cross-referencing with naver blog posts, Korean variety show screen grabs, and the itineraries I've built for Korean friends myself, I boiled it down to 7 differences. Once you see them, you'll realize Jiufen actually has two versions running in parallel: one that locals do, and one that goes viral on Instagram.

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Why are Korean tourists suddenly this into Jiufen?

Some context first. This Korean wave didn't start yesterday, but 2024-2025 volume is genuinely new.

A few reasons stack up:

• The Spirited Away halo (the shadow, really). Miyazaki himself has denied it, but the "Jiufen equals the bathhouse" line has become urban-legend-level consensus in Japanese and Korean online communities. Koreans argue about which Kyoto or Kanazawa spot inspired the bathhouse; for Jiufen they just accept it wholesale.
• Korean variety show exposure. Reverse versions of "Welcome, First Time in Korea," multiple Running Man episodes, and several Battle Trip shoots have filmed in Jiufen. Every airing triggers another wave of naver blog searches.
• Short flights + visa-free + cheap TWD. Seoul to Taipei is 2 hours 40 minutes, Busan to Taipei is about 2 hours 15. Feels more "overseas" than flying to Jeju, and NT$2,000 gets you a better time than one dinner in Gangnam.
• Koreans call it "Ji-ok-pen" — literally "Hell-Jiufen" — because the crowds get that bad, yet they still go. That meme turned into a pull rather than a push: if you haven't survived "Hell-Jiufen" you haven't really been to Taiwan.

Last time I had dinner at a Seoul friend's place, 6 people were at the table, 4 had been to Jiufen, and 2 were booking for later that year. The ratio is absurd.

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Difference 1: They arrive in the afternoon, we arrive in the morning

Our typical Jiufen day looks like this: leave Taipei around 9-10am, take the train to Ruifang, transfer to the bus, and by 11-something you're already on the old street buying cao-zai-guo (herbal rice cakes). Last time I took my parents and friends, we made sure to get there before noon.

Koreans do the opposite. Across my three afternoons I counted crowd density at the entrance to the old street at 13:00, 16:00, and 18:00 (rough count, but enough to see the pattern). 13:00 has the lowest Korean density, 16:00 visibly climbs, and after 18:00 the count explodes.

The reason is simple: they want "the view after the red lanterns light up." Counting backward, they leave Taipei around 3pm on a Klook or KKday package tour, arrive in Jiufen past 4pm, shoot photos until 7pm, then race back to Taipei for 9pm night market. That 4-hour block has its own name on Korean travel blogs: "Jiufen Golden Hour."

In plain terms: we arrive in the morning to walk the old street, eat local snacks, and see the view; they arrive in the afternoon specifically to capture the one Instagram shot. Different goals, different clocks.

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Difference 2: They take tour buses, we drive or take the train

Local go-to transport combo: Taiwan Railway (Tze-Chiang or regional train) to Ruifang, then bus 848 or a taxi, one-way around NT$100-130. Or drive via National Freeway 3 + Expressway 62, 40 minutes, parking is a pain but you have options.

90%+ of Korean visitors book a Korean or English-guided 1-day tour. The most popular package is "Jiufen + Shifen + Yehliu" three-point combo. On the KKday Friday Taiwan 7% off promotion (KKTW95EX), a single tour with van + guide runs NT$1,500-1,800, so four people hit the NT$8,000 threshold and save the most there.

Why not take Taiwan Rail themselves? A few reasons:

1. Language. Ruifang Station on weekends gets crushed to the point that even locals can't figure out which platform is correct, never mind with zero Korean or Japanese signage.
2. Schedule control. Going solo, you can easily get stuck waiting for the next train. Package tours drive you door-to-door with a hard meet-up time.
3. Three-stops-one-line efficiency. Shifen sky lanterns + Yehliu Queen's Head + Jiufen sunset — if you tried to DIY it, you'd juggle four transport modes with three transfers. Nobody has the patience.

Local-side trivia most people don't notice: Korean visitors book Jiufen tours on Klook at higher volumes than they book the Taipei 101 observation deck. You can walk to Taipei 101; Jiufen you cannot.

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Difference 3: They stop for 4 hours, we drag it out all day

This is the biggest gap.

Looking at the top 30 naver blog posts tagged "Jiufen review," median stay runs 3.5 to 4.5 hours, most commonly 16:00 arrival to 20:00 departure. Add the round-trip drive from Taipei, and "Jiufen" fills the back half of their day 2 or day 3 in Taipei.

We play it completely differently. When I brought friends, we got there at 10am, did the old street, Jinguashi, Gold Museum, Golden Waterfall, the Jiufen Elementary School rooftop, Ah-Gan's taro balls, and back to the old street for sunset. Left at 8:30pm. Total: 10.5 hours. I checked my step counter later: 14,000+ steps.

There's an information gap behind this: Korean visitors mostly don't know Jinguashi exists next door. Standard naver blog itineraries write "Jiufen + Shifen" or "Jiufen + Yehliu," and the Gold Museum rarely shows up. But Jinguashi is the one part of the whole Jiufen area most worth adding 2 hours for. If you mention it to a Korean friend, they usually ask: "What's there?"

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Difference 4: They all squeeze onto one set of steps, we spread out across the old street

This one took me two days of observation to fully see. On Shuqi Road, the exact stone steps directly in front of A-Mei Teahouse are the single highest-density Korean photo spot in Jiufen. Not marginally higher. Overwhelmingly higher. Almost every Korean tour group photographs in the same 3x3 meter zone, and the stance, the angle, even where the toes point are nearly copy-pasted across groups.

Why? The top 10 naver blog guides all use the same composition, and tour guides lead clients straight to that exact step. Instagram then recommends similar compositions, and the cycle reinforces itself.

Local visitors scatter: someone shoots Ah-Gan's taro-ball queue, someone else shoots the Jishan Street crowd, others hike up to Shengping Theater, some head to the Jiufen Elementary School courtyard for the ocean view. "Jiufen photos" for locals means 15+ different angles; for Korean visitors it's 200 variations of one step.

This isn't a taste difference. It's an information-source difference.

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Difference 5: We don't sit at A-Mei Teahouse, they order the full set

This one hit me hard.

A-Mei Teahouse afternoon tea for one runs NT$300-400 and up, including tea pot, snacks, and water service charge. Almost no local friends in my circle have ever sat down at A-Mei Teahouse for the full tea set. We shoot photos outside, grab a soft-serve or a bowl of tofu pudding, and move on.

Korean visitors do the exact opposite. Tour itineraries often bundle the A-Mei afternoon tea experience into the base price, and even when they don't, customers add it on themselves. A friend at KKday Korea told me the teahouse add-on conversion rate on their Jiufen tour sits around 40%. Local-market Jiufen tours rarely even offer it as an option.

Two layers of reason:

1. For Korean visitors, this is part of the Spirited Away experience. Tea room + red lanterns + ocean view — lose one and the set is incomplete.
2. For us, NT$300-400 buys a generous seafood thick-soup meal on Ruifang Old Street. The value math doesn't add up.

Neither side is wrong. The value priorities are just different.

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Difference 6: They buy packaged goods, we eat hot food

Walk Jishan Street and watch hands. Korean visitors are carrying things they can eat back at the hotel or bring home as gifts: pineapple cake boxes, suncakes, packaged taro balls, tea, vacuum-packed nougat (with ice packs).

What's in our hands? Hot food. Taro ball soup, fish ball soup, sake-marinated chicken, cao-zai-guo, squid balls, ox-tongue biscuits. Eat it standing up on the side of the road.

This ties back to time density. Korean visitors have 90 minutes to 2 hours on the old street (after subtracting teahouse time from the 4-hour block), so no time to sit and eat slowly. Grab packaged, carry it, done. Our 10-hour itinerary treats eating as a core activity.

One thing I learned the hard way: Korean tolerance for taro balls splits down the middle. Half call it life-changing dessert; the other half, because Korean sweet soups are almost always cold, can't get into warm sweet soup and reject it. Japanese visitors are the opposite, nearly all love it.

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Difference 7: They day-trip from Taipei, we stay in Jiufen B&Bs

Our advanced Jiufen play is staying overnight at a Jiufen B&B. The ones near Ah-Gan's, along Qingbian Road, or behind Jiufen Elementary School with ocean views run NT$3,500-6,000 for a weekend night. What you're buying is "after 8pm when the tourists clear out, the whole old street is just you and the cats."

Korean visitors almost never stay in Jiufen. Searching "Jiufen accommodation" on naver blog, 40+ out of the top 50 results are "don't stay in Jiufen, day-trip is better." Reasons:

• Luggage logistics are a hassle (Korean tourists shop hard in Taiwan, bags get heavy).
• Low rate of English/Korean reception at Jiufen B&Bs.
• Their Day 3/Day 4 itineraries already cover central Taipei, Ximending, Shilin night market. Jiufen overnight breaks the flow.

They'd rather stay at a nicer hotel in central Taipei. That's exactly why Trip.com's Korean-market Taipei hotel bookings have blown up the past two years. If you have Korean friends coming, what they actually need is Trip.com Taipei hotels 7% off (Mega Bank MEGA26H) or KKday overseas hotel 12% off (BLOGHOTEL88), not a Jiufen B&B recommendation.

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One-page comparison

Category	Korean tourists	Local visitors
Arrival time	14:00-16:00 (for the night view)	09:00-11:00 (for old street walking)
Transport	Klook/KKday Korean-guide package	Taiwan Rail + Bus 848, or self-drive
Stay duration	3.5-4.5 hours	6-10 hours
Main photo spot	One stone step at A-Mei Teahouse (single point)	Scattered across 10+ spots
Teahouse spend	Full afternoon tea NT$300-400 (high rate)	Takeaway or no purchase (low rate)
Food style	Packaged gifts	Hot street food, eaten standing
Lodging	Day-trip, stay in central Taipei	Some stay overnight at Jiufen B&B
Extended stops	Shifen + Yehliu package	Jinguashi + Gold Museum

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If you're taking a Korean friend to Jiufen, how should you structure it?

Honestly, if you're escorting someone visiting from Seoul, there are 4 moves that make your version noticeably better than the standard tour package:

1. Leave at 2pm instead of after 3pm. That extra hour lets you add Jinguashi Gold Museum, which is the hidden win no naver blog writes about but every Korean visitor who has been raves about.
2. Don't shoot at A-Mei Teahouse from directly in front. Walk 20 steps up to the outdoor platform. You get the full ocean view, and nobody else is there.
3. For cao-zai-guo, pick A-Lan, not Wang Jia. Wang Jia is the tourist-brand name, A-Lan is where Jiufen locals actually eat. NT$60 for a scallion version, 100x more memorable than a random 7-11 pineapple cake.
4. For tickets, route through Klook App first purchase 10% off — if your friend has never used Klook (only new users get APP10TW), remind them to install the app, place the order, and enter the code. Max NT$100 off the first purchase; not huge, but on already-cheap tickets the 10% is free money.

If you're joining the trip as a local, credit card stacking saves more. Four people booking on a Wednesday with E.SUN card on Klook triggers E.SUN Wednesday NT$333 off on NT$4,000+ (ESUN333260107), averaging NT$83 off per person; or use CTBC all-site 4% off (CTBC2696) stacked with the Friday 7% Taiwan promo for about 11-13% off a single ticket.

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FAQ

Q1: Why don't Korean visitors add Jinguashi to Jiufen? Because mainstream naver blog guides don't include it. Korean information flows through three aggregators — KKday Korea, Tripstore, and Trip.com Korean site — and all three ship "Jiufen + Shifen" or "Jiufen + Yehliu" as the standard loadout. Jinguashi got left out and never recovered. If you take a friend there, the reaction is usually: "This is better than Jiufen."

Q2: Are weekdays actually less crowded? Yes. Tuesday 16:00, I counted 6 people on the steps and open seating at A-Mei Teahouse. Saturday same time has roughly 40 people jammed into the same spot. Monday to Thursday afternoon is the optimal window. Friday evening onward tips into "Hell-Jiufen" mode.

Q3: What food do Korean visitors most commonly dislike? Taro balls split the room (already mentioned); sausage tastes weirdly sweet to them; stinky tofu most won't even try. The hits: lu-wei braised snacks (salty-sweet balance close to Korean jjimdak), ox-tongue biscuits (crispy, zero risk), and pineapple cake boxes (perfect gift format). If you're hosting, start with these three.

Q4: Where do Korean tour buses typically depart from? Main pickup points are near MRT Zhongxiao Fuxing or City Hall, at Klook/KKday-designated stops. Premium tours pick up directly from hotels. If your friend is on a bus tour, cross-check the written description against Google Maps before departure; I've been burned where the text said one corner and the actual stop was one block over.

Q5: What time do the lanterns light up? Not officially announced. In practice, they start ticking on about 20 minutes before full darkness, fully lit around 18:30-19:00 in spring/summer and 17:30-18:00 in fall/winter. Naver blogs often mis-report "they light at 17:00" — showing up at 17:00 you'll be disappointed, they're not all on yet.

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Sources

• Tourism Administration Taiwan: inbound visitor statistics database — 2024 inbound visitors by country
• Taipei City DOIT: Korean variety shows drive Korean visitor growth to Taipei, highest among all markets
• KKday Korea Jiufen guide (Korean)
• Tripstore: Taiwan Jiufen travel, avoiding Hell-Jiufen for the best 3D4N trip
• Klook Jiufen + Shifen + Yehliu day tour (Korean guide)
• A-Mei Teahouse official site
• On-the-ground observation: March-April 2026, three separate afternoon visits to Shuqi Road, Jishan Street, and the area around A-Mei Teahouse

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