From Jiufen Old Street take bus to JinGuShi just 15 minutes .
The hike starts at the JinGuShi Gold Museum. We parked in a small parking lot on a hill just above the main entrance. Parking is free and the parking spaces were motorbike sized so our car took up three of them. Walk downhill from the parking lot into the museum.
If you are relying on public transportation however you need to start with a walk through Jingushi's Gold Museum (黃金博物館) and follow the markers that indicate where the mountain trail starts.
There is no entrance fee (as of 2015) for the museum (or the hike). The museum is an outdoor park containing exhibits, restaurants, and an old mining railroad. Walk towards the back of the museum and up the steps towards the Gold Building. Follow the train tracks to the very back of the park. There are toilets here for a final pitstop before starting the hike.
This is the view up to Teapot Mountain and Banpingshan from the Jinguashi Gold Ecological Museum.
Once you've arrived at the trailhead it isn't a very long hike up to the "Teapot" and most people have no trouble arriving in less than 30 minutes. The trail consists of a set of well-constructed stairs that lead you up to the peak of the mountain and then from there, further on to Banping Mountain(半屏山) if you're doing the full hike. The hike isn't a steep one and there is a very gradual incline making it easy for anyone to complete.
After a short time of hiking and enjoying the amazing scenery, you'll arrive at a rest stop that overlooks a beautiful cliff on one side and the teapot on the other. For some people, the rest stop acts as the "peak" of the mountain as they can see the scenery on the North Coast and they are close-enough to the teapot to say that they were there.
If you've lived in Taiwan long enough, you might have noticed that Taiwanese people are really gifted at looking at rocks and seeing images in them. In most cases I shake my head and say "Umm okay", but in the case of the "Teapot", it actually does look like one! The mountain is called "無耳茶壺山" which translates as "Earless Teapot Mountain" and refers to the fact that the tip of the mountain looks like a teapot, without an "ear" or a handle.
