When strolling down Yungkang Street, most people stop and turn back when they reach the intersection with Chinhua Street. But if you keep going toward the tail end the street, you'll find an area secreted away down there with its own unique character.

Nestled in the midst of a quiet residential area, the southern end of Yungkang Street is dominated by low-rise buildings, with a few pubs and eateries dotted around. If you walk down to the end of the street, which has preserved the feeling of an old-fashioned community, your eyes will suddenly be met by a market; this market, Chaoheting, is home to over a dozen stores specializing in antiques and other old relics.

Chaoheting originated as a market called Lung-an Market, run by the Taipei City Government, which was full of stalls selling all manner of meat, fish, and fowl. With the rise of supermarkets, the food traders, their business declining, began leaving Lung-an Market, and today only one chicken seller remains.

A few entrepreneurs in the antiques and curios business spotted all those empty stalls with their low rents, and with Yungkang Street's location offering easy access to the well-off middle class, they decided to move in. Over almost three years these businesspeople set up shop there, changing the name of the market back to a Japanese-era name, Chaoheting (or in Japanese, Showa-cho).

While there's no shortage of places selling old-fashioned goods in the more bustling initial part of Yungkang Street, the majority of them are focused on ancient Chinese things, while the occupants of Chaoheting are more concerned with items from the Japanese era and later, right up to about ten years ago. In the stores of Chaoheting one can find all manner of old Taiwanese curios.

Amongst the things available are a collection of Japanese textbooks for students of the time, administrative maps from when the Japanese started their rule of Taiwan, vinyl records from the time when American troops were stationed in Taiwan, all kinds of "Tatung Baby" dolls, and the comics of Shinpei Shiro. Unlike traditional places in the same industry, which focus on historical value or rarity, the retailers of Chaoheting are more concerned with how interesting the curios are. Chin Cheng-te, owner of Spring Grass Arts Academy and producer of a series of nostalgic postcards, is a regular customer.

Most of the treasure hunters who come to Chaoheting are in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. Upon rediscovering the long-lost toys and knickknacks of their youth, they pull out their wallets and get a chance to return to childhood once more.

One of the retailers, known as Ta-hsien, says that as well as the old regulars, quite a few people find Chaoheting by accident, wandering past Chinhua Street unthinkingly and stumbling upon the market. And in recent years Chaoheting has started to appear in a number of travel guides in Japan, meaning an increasing number of Japanese tourists have been making their way in.

In the Yungkang Street of yesterday and today, we can see traces of the growth of Taipei City, and the marks the residents of different periods have left on the city's history. And these invaluable relics of Taiwan's past, like fossils, are ready for the discovering amongst the wealth of curios in Chaoheting, providing a nostalgic time warp for anyone who finds them.