Text & Photography / Chen Guanxin, MOOK Travel Life Network

Taiwan’s largest crab-producing region—New Taipei City’s Wanli District—is renowned for its famous “Wanli Crabs.” The region’s annual crab catch makes up 80% of the island’s total, with flower crabs, three-spot crabs, and stone crabs being the most common. The best time to enjoy Wanli Crabs is from October to December each year. It would be a pity to visit Wanli and only eat the crabs before heading home. Nearby spots such as the Magu Cultural Museum, the ice plant, the Gugu Houses, and Yuanshan Elementary School are all worth exploring.

Route: Ice Plant & Tugboat Track → Gugu Houses & Magu Cultural Museum → Live Seafood Fishing Village → Yuanshan Elementary School

Recommended Attractions: Ice Plant, Tugboat Track

 

The ice plant at Yuanshan Fishing Port has been around for over 10 years. Its importance to the delicious dishes on diners’ tables is no less than that of the hardworking fishermen and the fishing boats that bring the catch back to shore. Arranged by the Magu Fishing Village Culture Association, visitors can enter the ice plant, where large freezing tanks about the height of a person stand before you. Lin Shunqian, the plant manager, explained that fishing boats need to come to the ice plant to load ice before heading out to sea, ensuring the proper preservation of their catch. Currently, the ice plant produces up to 180 blocks of ice per day, each weighing about 135 kilograms and taking 45–50 hours to make. A fishing boat carrying 70–80 tons of catch typically needs around 50 blocks.. Sincethe ice blocks at Yuanshan Fishing Port’s ice plant are sold at NT$150 each—the cheapest in the area—most nearby fishing boats choose to come here for ice.

Just outside the ice plant, a few wooden-track tugboat tracks serve as an important site for boat maintenance and cleaning. Before operation, the tracks are moved into the water near the shore, and boats are slowly driven onto the tracks. Once the tracks are secured under the boat, steel cables from a nearby machine room pull the tracks—and the attached boat—up onto the shore using a rotating mechanism, allowing for cleaning or repair work.

Recommended Attractions: Gugu Houses, Magu Cultural Museum

 

Walking up the alley next to the Baogong Temple at Yuanshan Fishing Port, the old houses along the way reflect the simple memories of fishing village life. The low, flat-roofed homes allow people to look up beyond the concrete jungle and enjoy the moist, sea-breezy air. At a fork in the road, a century-old house stands quietly, not only captivating with its aged appearance but also with its uneven walls mixed with coral rocks. It turns out that in the early days, the economic conditions of Yuanshan residents were modest, and the building materials available for constructing homes were limited. Thus, using a random-stacking method, locals built these Gugu Houses by layering readily available coral rocks with yellow earth and rough rice husks. This particular Gugu House is one of the few well-preserved examples of such architecture today.