Tea for two

Tea served in two very different ways, both found in Taichung:

 Green tea served in heavy cups along with rice and hot pot

English black tea served with milk and sugar in delicate tea cups

 along with crust-less sandwiches and scones

Hualien trip through an iphone

We just got back from a few day trip to Hualien on the east coast of Taiwan.  We were warned not to travel during Chinese New Year because of traffic but in fact had no trouble.  The highlight of the trip was seeing Taroko Gorge, but until I edit those photos here are some others from our phones:

 Tea and dessert

 Citrus tree - popular at Chinese New Year

Market food - candied tomatoes and strawberries 

Rice served wrapped in a leaf

7-11 character dressed for the year of the rabbit

Art from Irawaddy restaurant serving food from Myanmar 

(good food, but not very true to Myanmar dishes says our friend who lived there) 

Chili flavored ice cream - so spicy!  

(found at a "chili world" rest stop between Hualien and Taipei)

Tea-licious

Wonderful things can be done with green tea, here are a few of our recent discoveries:

Green tea flavored ice cream - wasn't J's favorite, I love it.

Green tea black sesame frappuccino - we both love this!

Green tea kit kats found in Japan 

(photo from here because I ate mine before remembering to take a photo)

big snow mountain hike

last weekend we made the 90 minute drive from taichung up to big snow mountain forest recreational area, also known as dasyueshan (see more info at luca's taiwan travel guide).  we picked up our friend (who speaks chinese) and then headed up around 7:30.  it should be noted that i told allison the hike would take "roughly five and a half hours round trip," but in reality, our friend had told me five and a half hours one way, which means i made up the round trip part.  after passing quite a few birdwatchers (i mean, hardcore birdwatchers with huge telescopes out and multiple cameras around their necks), we made it to the information center/trail head around 9:00, got ready, and started out on our hike.  we'd heard how great the views were going to be from our friend, but as we started hiking, we noticed it was going to be a pretty foggy day.

fortunately for us, this hiking path wasn't made of lincoln logs like our other hike closer to us.  we enjoyed walking on real dirt, steps, through grass fields, lots of forests, and in the end, up a small paved road.  the entire hike up the the mountain was just over 9 km (about 6 mi for most of our readers) and i think our elevation peaked at around 2,600 meters (8,500 ft).  although the name seemed to promise a mountain that was big and covered in snow, most of our views consisted of the peaks of smaller mountains poking their peaks through the clouds.

although we were snacking on nuts and berries the whole way up (gatherers, no hunters over here), we were pretty hungry once we reached the top around 1:30pm.  our friend busted out his portable little tea making contraption and we feasted on peanut butter sandwiches and jasmine green tea.  after about an hour of resting and picture taking, we decided to go try and find some to give us a ride down.  this is where the trip gets fun.  as we're walking down, we notice there are no more than three cars in the parking lot and they belong to large groups of people.  by now, allison has realized it isn't a five and a half hour hike up/down, but more of an 11 hour hike up/down and we had a 15 km walk down the road back to our car if we didn't get a ride.  it's about 3:15pm when we decide to start walking down the road, hoping to grab a lift.  fortunately, we saw a car coming after about a half hour.  unfortunately, their car was full.  after another half hour, saw a van coming down, so we stopped them, told them our story, and then smiled and said (in chinese), "sorry, we have our bed down in the back and don't want to put it up."  that made allison happy.  i thought she was just going to dive in and make them drive us down.  our third strike came when a police jeep went flying by us, not even stopping to check if we were alright, which is surprising because we were waving at him as if one of us was having a heart attack.

after 7 km, we ended up at the hotel area and hoped that we'd be able to get a ride down the rest of the way.  no luck.  eek.  it's pretty dark now, the nice views are gone, it's getting colder, and we're starting to realize we might not make it down for the indian food feast that i'd been thinking about the whole time.  as we're walking away from the deserted hotel, policeman comes flying back up the hill and allison and i start waving our hands again.  he stops, and the reoccurring  "ni hao no chinese" conversation ensues as he continues to talk 40 words a second at us and he takes off.  our chinese speaking friend comes running up (he was at the hotel looking for help) and we apologize for being ignorant americans and for not being able to make the police officer wait thirty more seconds.  so... we decide we'll keep on truckin' down the hill, but fortunately the policeman came back down the hill and our friend was able to ask him for a ride, which he reluctantly agreed to.  now, i've never been in a race car, but i always imagined that when/if i did drive in one, it'd be on a race track, not a winding road heading down a mountain, in the dark, with cliffs, and the ever present threat of death around every turn.  i'm pretty sure the policeman thought we had to make it down in a hurry because i thought we were going to plummet to our death a few times (though he was thoughtful enough to say that we should let him know if we felt like we were going to throw up so he could pull over).  we probably topped out at 90 mph (ok, maybe 60.  alright, i'm lying.  closer to 30), but it definitely was fast.  i think i closed my eyes a few times, so i'm not sure if allison passed out or not.  we made it safe and sound, hoped in our car and i sped off (and by sped off, i mean about 5 mph) through the denses fog i've ever been in with two passengers making sure i noticed the turns on the way down.

and in case you're wondering.  we did make it down for our indian food feast.  and it was glorious.

Guguan

Last Sunday, after spending Saturday in Yingge, we drove over to the hot-springs town of Guguan for another day of exploring with Brett. After orienting ourselves at the visitor center we went on a hike on the Siaolai (I also saw it spelled Shaolai) trail. The hike was short, and pretty steep, but we were rewarded at the top when we were invited (maybe we invited ourselves?) to sit with three men and share their tea and snacks.

After our fill of tea and peanuts we headed down to find some hot springs. There are many hotels with public access to their hot spring bathing pools; we chose Four Seasons after our new tea friends told us it was one of the cheapest (though still too expensive in their minds at $350NT). Swim caps are required in Taiwan so most of the other people had their own from home. Many of the women even had swim caps that matched their suits. We were not that prepared. "Luckily" the hotel gave us shower caps so we could enter the pools, as if we didn't stick out enough already. The pool area had multiple pools of varying temperatures. One man motioned that Jeremiah should follow him to another pool. We watched the man jump in, so Jeremiah did the same. The pool was freezing compared to the pool we had just come from and the man got a good chuckle to see Jeremiah's face as he popped out of the water.

I didn't take my camera into the pool area, but found the below shots from this site.

This pool had tiny fish that nibble the dead skin on your feet - gross but of course we tried it

We had a great meal and then headed back home, about a 1.5 to 2 hour drive to Taichung. Now that we have gotten out of the city a bit, we are looking forward to doing more exploring of Taiwan. And I'm sure we will find our way back to Guguan sometime soon.

Tea-tastic in Yingge

I recently wrote about tea and the abundance of it in Taiwan. This weekend we expanded our horizons with a friend from Seattle who loves and knows tea. Brett of Black Dragon Tea Bar invited us to spend the day in Yingge with him on a search for really great tea. Before Saturday I thought I knew how to make tea. Boil water, steep, drink. Optional: add milk and/or sugar (I always drank black english tea, never green, hence the milk and sugar). In our house growing up we had a timer that 90% of the time was used to ensure tea was steeped for 5 minutes, because you can't just drop the tea in and start drinking right away.

In Yingge I learned that it can be so much more than that. Tea is poured into cups to rinse and warm them, then it is poured out. Tea leaves are steeped in a pot (the host decides how long), poured into another pot then served in cups to drink. In addition to drinking the tea you smell the leaves and the cups - Brett can pick up all sorts of differences and nuances, I cannot until it's pointed out. Tea overflows at every transfer between teapots and cups but the tray it is made on is meant to handle this and drains the excess. Because the teapots and cups are small there is a constant cycle of water and tea being boiled, steeped, poured by the host to keep everyone's cup full. I felt out of my league at our first tea-tasting stop and glad to have a pro sitting next to me. We sat with three different people for these tea tastings while in Yingge and all of them were helpful and friendly.

Steeping tea, ready to be spooned into the cup to the right and will then be served into our individual tea cups

Tea from two different elevations in the high mountains of Taiwan

Tea number 1

On to tea number 3

At another shop tasting 3 more types of tea

Yingge is a quaint little town well known for their ceramics; pottery making started here in 1804 with one man and has grown to be the number one producer of ceramics in Taiwan with over 800 pottery-based businesses in the area. Walking down the streets you see everything from useful day-to-day items such as teapots, bowls and plates to beautiful pieces of art. There is a museum in town that I have read is worthwhile, but with all our tea tasting and shopping "Old Street" we ran out of time for the museum. It was a fun day; Jeremiah and I have a new appreciation for Taiwan's hot tea and will sit more confidently next time we are served tea.

Sun Moon Lake

Today we went on a group trip to Sun Moon Lake. Before exploring the lake we had high tea at a pretty swanky hotel on the lake. Not too unlike tea-time in England, accompanying tea was plates of small cookies, sandwiches, fruit, and something you'd never see at tea in the UK: various jello-like substances (we've had this in a few different places now, it's growing on me).



After tea we walked up to Wenwu Temple. To get up to the temple we walked the "Year of Steps" that replaced the stairs that long ago, before a road led up to the temple, used to be called the "stairway to heaven." Each step represents a day of the year and visitors can place wind chimes near their birthday to ask for blessings.





Just inside the temple are two large stone lions, which we have read are the biggest lions in Taiwan.


Inside the three buildings of the temple there are many places for different types of worship - incense, candles, praying.



From the top of the temple there is a great view of the lake, though the day was so hazy and the sun was on it's way down, so it was hard to see very far.



After we looked around the temple we went for a walk around part of the lake.





It was a nice day all around, and we enjoyed getting out of the city and seeing a bit more of Taiwan.

Tea - it does the body good

My favorite day of the work week, aside from Friday of course, is Thursday, because we get tea. I am by no means a tea expert (though this guy is) but I'm also no novice. My mom drinks a lot of tea, and when Jeremiah and I lived in London for a study abroad and I had a lot of tea, but Taiwan tea is not your grandma's tea. First there are a lot of tea to-go stands around. And when I say a lot, I mean on our block there are 3. The tea shops have big cups of cold tea with all sorts of options for amounts of sugar and ice and probably a lot of things I don't even know because I can barely pronounce "green tea" in chinese, let alone understand any of the signs they point to. Luckily for what I like, lemon green tea, there doesn't seem to be a lot of complications and Jeremiah has mastered ordering his green tea. There are also many variations on bubble tea which was created here in Taiwan, but that's not exactly, well, my cup of tea (I just couldn't resist). So far we have had very little warm tea though as the weather cools I'm sure it will surface more.

From the shop right near our house - Ching Shin. Tea always comes with the top sealed; you poke your straw through the plastic.

níng méng chá (lemon green tea - not sure if that is correct?)

My favorite tea stand name because it's fun to say. Go ahead, try saying it out loud.

And in case plain ol' green tea isn't your thing, you can try beer flavor