Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Visit of Taiwan

I am having some visit from Europe and I went to show them around the island. Of course, we didn't miss the important tea places. See for yourself:

Day 1: Di Hua street for traditional Chinese stuff and a jump in Wang Yo Ji's shop.

Day 2: Hot spring showers in the newly opened Ba-Ian hotel close to Jin Shan. You get free coffee with your room, but we preferred making our own gong-fu cha! The Chinese tourists must have been thinking the world is upside down: we are drinking coffee and the Westerners are enjoying oolong tea!

Day 2: We drove along the coast to eat seafood in Aodi. Then we crossed the mountains to Pinlin, the capital of baozhong and jasmine tea. I even found the store my teacher, Teaparker, recommended and bought a cheap yi-xing teapot (20 USD).

Day 3: Taichung. Excellent Chinese food.

Day 4: We passed LuGu to go to ShiTou recreational park, just a few miles away from ShanLinSi. But I couldn't enjoy the surroundings or the tea... I had gotten sick and slept 24 hours. I must have been exhausted!

Day 5: Visit of Lugu farmer association's museum. I liked their pictures of how tea is processed. They showed each step how it was made in old times and nowadays in parallel. Then back to Taipei. We made a stop in Ying Ge, the ceramics capital of Taiwan, and bought more teaware.

I'm fine again, but the weather is terrible. Rain, rain and rain. Well, we won't be short of water to make tea anytime soon!

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