Beitou Hot Springs

In Beitou, there are three flavors of sulfur water: white, yellow, and green. I’m pretty sure sulfur is not the lone culprit for the color of the waters, but it does take majority responsibility for the ‘aroma’. The green gray angular marbled tub in our hotel room has a separate tap for white sulphur water directly from the hot spring. We soak once before dinner, once after dinner, once in the morning. The first time I fill the tub I don't mix in enough hot water and I immediately envision myself as a cooked lobster upon entering and carefully climb out. 

Hot Spring Bath Tub

Our hotel in Beitou lies just outside the beginning of one of the major sightseeing foot trails. On the map by the park, there is a table listing the destinations, the number of kCal burned by reaching each destination from the current location, and an estimation of the number of peanuts consumed. We embark along the trail skipping stops where I observe a large tour group going into a building.

Thermal Valley 

Thermal Valley is a 3500 square meter depression formed by a volcano eruption. Members of the public used to cook eggs in this 90 degree Celsius green sulphur water. Soothingly sulphorous steam off of 90 degree water permeates the pores of the skin and nostril membranes. Walking away from the stream and back to the main road breezes is chilling a blanched vegetable.

Thermal Valley
There's water under this steam. 

Beitou from the backyard of someone else's hotel.
There's steam from the other side of the fence. That's the Thermal Valley, about 50 meters below.

Folk Arts Museum

A friend of a good friend once said ‘No planning, go climb a mountain!’ upon departure from Sapporo to Kyoto. Great advice that time. I secretly enacted it walking past the hot springs park, and thermal valley in Beitou, ascending to the Taiwan Folk Arts Museum. The narrow road accommodates one car traveling in each direction and the width of a pedestrian body without a defined sidewalk. The road is well traveled though, bordered with quaint low rise rental apartments and larger yet tranquil resort hotels. Views along the way are calming, inducing further pining for what may be if one follows the road further up the mountain, where the foot trails are ‘dangerous’ (unpaved) and therefore we didn’t go there.

The folks arts museum presents the rise of Beitou as a popular destination beginning with the Japanese rule over Taiwan from 1895 – 1946. Hot spring culture was already well established in Japan, and they established the aesthetic, customs, and etiquette for dispelling exhaustion in the hot spring ambience.  The museum keeps up the low doorways, woven tatami mats and blinds, diaphanous curtains. Necessary details have been carefully attended to, including the omission of unnecessary details. 

Shoes for Adult Women
No photos in the museum, btw.

Japanese Toilet Controls
You can adjust the strength of the stream of washing water, the temperature of the washing water, the temperature of the seat, blow dry with air, the volume and flowing river sounds played while flushing.