CK Go Places Search Engine

Saturday 14 December 2013

The Gold Rush

Further uphill from Golden Waterfall (黃金瀑布) is where the Gold Museum is located. It is still within the Gold Ecological Park of the mountainous Jin Gua Shi (金瓜石) town.

Taiwan_215

On the way uphill to the Gold Museum is the official residence of the Crown Prince of Japan during his visit to Taiwan. It is really a great place to have a traditional Japanese house as the surrounding is very much like the mountainous region of Japan. Furthermore, the Taiwanese culture is very much influenced by the Japanese.

Taiwan_216

Along the track up to the Gold Museum is the railroad track for the carts transporting in the workers and channel out the gold ores.

Taiwan_217

The Gold Building is the most valuable part of the Gold Museum as it houses a very big gold brick and the other ornaments made of gold.

Taiwan_218

The tools for processing gold from gold ores in the olden days are also on display inside the Gold Building. We were quite surprised to find out that the workers at the goldmine were mostly the prisoners of war during World War II when Taiwan was under the Japanese occupation.

Taiwan_219

Gold ornaments are compulsory items during the Chinese wedding. Therefore, most gold ornaments are made for the occasion.

Taiwan_220

The most precious item on display inside the Gold Building has got to be this gold brick that weighs 220.3 kilogrammes. With the current gold price, it is worth about 30 million Ringgit! Wow! That is almost 10 million US dollars! I wish I can have it, but I could only touch it. It is said that touching this gold brick can bring fortune, so I did.

Taiwan_221

The Gold Building is actually a restored building that fits the objectives of the Gold Ecological Park, i.e., heritage preservation, sustainable development; old buildings reuse as well as localised operations aimed at promoting regional development.

Taiwan_222

Tuesday 10 December 2013

The Waterfall Made of Gold

Jin Gua Shi (金瓜石) was a goldmine and it is now an ecological park. Not far from the Yinyang Sea (陰陽海) is a stream with 'golden' rocks. Our taxi driver told us that these rocks are coated with gold brought by the stream water from the goldmine upstream, but the truth is, these rocks are golden brown due to the stream water that is full of iron hydroxide leached from the geological formation of this region. If these rocks were really coated with gold, I don't think we had the chance to see these rocks!

Taiwan_211

Further upstream of these golden rocks is the Golden Waterfall (黃金瀑布). The rocks are golden brown in colour due to the iron hydroxide-rich stream water as well, similar to those golden rocks downstream.

Taiwan_212

Although it was a rainy day, there were still some photographers having a photo outing with a female model. I presume that this place will be packed with photographers and models during good weather, as it is an easy access; just by the roadside, literally.

Taiwan_213

Taiwan_214

Recent Posts

Powered by Blogger Widgets

Recent Comments

Powered by Blogger Widgets