Sorry about the earthquake-cam, I have an unsteady gait!
The bounty:
The fruit that is not a mango or a peachy juice drink is something you can only find in Taiwan, I think! It's really good.
A good beginning to the COOLEST DAY. Really touristy, but so incredibly much fun. To get to our first activity, we loaded up onto a bus. But would a normal bus be good enough for the coolest day? I think not! No, the only bus deemed awesome enough to transport us around Taiwan was the KARAOKE BUS!
Many rousing choruses of Country Roads, Let It Be and Knock Three Times later, we arrived in Beipu to make some Hakka Tea. The Hakka are a group of people who migrated from the Mainland to Taiwan a few hundred years ago and make up about 20% of the population. Their tea is incredibly famous 'round these parts, so we were naturally pumped about pounding some ourselves. Here's how it went down:
Here we have our ingredients: in big bowl there's peanuts, black and white sesame seeds, dried tea leaves, and pine nuts. The plate is filled with delicious tea-snacks and the cup is filled with ground tea powder. Oh but what is that big stick for?
It's for the best part of making tea, of course! You pound and grind until all of the sesame seeds are invisible, which takes about 10 minutes. Then you add the green powder and crush it some more until it looks like tea I guess. The tea lady seemed impressed, anyway!
The tea is served in little cups with crispy rice in them (for texture). You stir it with a stick I'm pretty sure we weren't supposed to eat and then drink up! It's really more of a tea-soup, very thick and nutrient-rich because the Hakka farmers would drink it out in the fields. We, on the other hand, remained firmly planted on our bums and feasted on mochi.
Full of pounded tea and pounded rice, we hopped back on the K-Bus and took the scenic route to Yingge, ceramics capital of Taiwan. Yeah, I know, ceramics sounds like it has no place in the coolest day but hear me out! Actually let me just show you:
We got to make our own pottery! I use "make" in the absolute loosest sense of the word, I never quite got the hang of that dang wheel. Master potter - another off the prospective job list. But being able to play with the clay and glaze some mugs brought me right back to the days of my childhood and I am just fine with that!
Arms stained with clay residue we hit the streets with a newfound appreciation for the work that goes into ceramics.
This guy was really cool - as soon as we stopped and he finished he proudly showed us pictures of himself in various venues playing the thing that he is playing. Any clever music people want to help me out here?
A good beginning to the COOLEST DAY. Really touristy, but so incredibly much fun. To get to our first activity, we loaded up onto a bus. But would a normal bus be good enough for the coolest day? I think not! No, the only bus deemed awesome enough to transport us around Taiwan was the KARAOKE BUS!
Many rousing choruses of Country Roads, Let It Be and Knock Three Times later, we arrived in Beipu to make some Hakka Tea. The Hakka are a group of people who migrated from the Mainland to Taiwan a few hundred years ago and make up about 20% of the population. Their tea is incredibly famous 'round these parts, so we were naturally pumped about pounding some ourselves. Here's how it went down:
Here we have our ingredients: in big bowl there's peanuts, black and white sesame seeds, dried tea leaves, and pine nuts. The plate is filled with delicious tea-snacks and the cup is filled with ground tea powder. Oh but what is that big stick for?
It's for the best part of making tea, of course! You pound and grind until all of the sesame seeds are invisible, which takes about 10 minutes. Then you add the green powder and crush it some more until it looks like tea I guess. The tea lady seemed impressed, anyway!
The tea is served in little cups with crispy rice in them (for texture). You stir it with a stick I'm pretty sure we weren't supposed to eat and then drink up! It's really more of a tea-soup, very thick and nutrient-rich because the Hakka farmers would drink it out in the fields. We, on the other hand, remained firmly planted on our bums and feasted on mochi.
Full of pounded tea and pounded rice, we hopped back on the K-Bus and took the scenic route to Yingge, ceramics capital of Taiwan. Yeah, I know, ceramics sounds like it has no place in the coolest day but hear me out! Actually let me just show you:
We got to make our own pottery! I use "make" in the absolute loosest sense of the word, I never quite got the hang of that dang wheel. Master potter - another off the prospective job list. But being able to play with the clay and glaze some mugs brought me right back to the days of my childhood and I am just fine with that!Arms stained with clay residue we hit the streets with a newfound appreciation for the work that goes into ceramics.
This guy was really cool - as soon as we stopped and he finished he proudly showed us pictures of himself in various venues playing the thing that he is playing. Any clever music people want to help me out here?
An elementary school! That and the matching electric green uniforms are the makings of the banginest school.As it was getting late we packed up and went back to the hotel to sleep.
JUST KIDDING we went to the night market and had the best time! The temple in the middle of the market had some sort of traditional concert going on with full-on face paint, the authenticity tempered somewhat by a very modern drum beat. Still ridic cool. Here is what I ate:
That's right! A tiny, horribly dessicated pancake screaming in pain! Blueberry was my favorite. That's all the news from Taiwan that's fit to print.
Susi, you make me proud! Out there exploring early in the morning, getting lost, and in the process finding interesting places. Von wem du dass bloss hast?
ReplyDeleteYou are quite the writer. Since pottery is off your list of prospective jobs, maybe travel journalist should be on that list?
Your dad.