The northeast coast road from Taipei threads three geological epochs into a single ribbon of asphalt. Yehliu Geopark occupies a narrow cape where sandstone formations, sculpted by Pacific winds and salt spray over two million years, rise in clusters that resemble mushrooms, candles, and the profile of a Qing Dynasty queen. The park's Queen's Head — a honeycomb-weathered pedestal supporting a slender neck and crown — has become Taiwan's most photographed natural monument, yet geologists estimate its erosion rate will reduce the neck to a stump within two decades. The urgency is unspoken but shared among visitors who queue along the roped viewing line. Twenty-three kilometers inland, Shifen township sits at the confluence of the Keelung River and the railway that once hauled coal from mountain seams to Keelung port. The rail line remains active; trains pass through the old street every hour, close enough that vendors fold their awnings and step back from the tracks. Shifen Waterfall, a curtain-style cascade twenty meters high and forty wide, falls over a basalt ledge in the river valley two kilometers upstream. The path to the observation platforms descends through subtropical forest dense with ferns and camphor trees. The roar of water displaces all other sound. Visitors release sky lanterns from the riverbank below the old suspension bridge, writing wishes in ink on paper panels that lift into the valley's updraft. The practice began in the Qing era as a signal system for bandits; today it constitutes Shifen's primary evening economy. Jiufen clings to the northern slope of Keelung Mountain, a gold-mining settlement established in the 1890s that swelled to house nine thousand workers before the veins depleted in the 1970s. The town's steep alleyways and tiered teahouses retained their structure through decades of abandonment, then found new purpose in the 1990s when Hou Hsiao-hsien filmed scenes evoking wartime nostalgia. Jiufen Old Street now operates as a continuous vendor corridor. Red lanterns hang from eaves along the covered staircases. Sweet-potato cakes, taro balls in shaved ice, and peanut brittle are sold from storefronts no wider than two meters. The northeastern coastline is visible from the upper terraces when the mountain fog lifts. Most northern Taiwan day trip itineraries sequence the three sites in westward or eastward arcs, timing arrival at Jiufen for late afternoon when the lanterns are lit but the tour-bus waves have not yet peaked. The route has been refined by repetition into a single-day loop that deposits travelers back in central Taipei by evening.