Well, after 2 hours of deep sleep, I am now wide awake at 3:30 am, either due to jet lag or the huge amounts of tea I drank this afternoon. Today, my cousins and I took a gondola up to Maokong, a tea-growing mountainside community just outside Taipei. The little cablecars wind up and down over the lush forests which contain a zoo, temples and tea plantations. We stopped in at the sumptuous Zhinan Temple whose well-maintained golden celestial interiors will convince anyone that this would be the place to honor the deities and make your offerings.
The air was heady with burning incense as tourists and taoists kept out of each other's way. Luckily, my cousins were on hand to explain the taoist rituals of prayers that I saw happening. Then there was some light haggling with a vendor along the path leading to the temple before we made our way to one of the many teahouses in the area.
We ate noodles, chicken, sweet potato leaves and a whole braised fish, and then whiled the rest of the afternoon with tea. Like wine, there is a whole process to Chinese tea, that begins with its cultivation, the blendings, up to how it is served and savoured. Sipped from tiny cups, it is in the end, a social drink much appreciated on a gray and wet afternoon. I enjoyed the two green teas we drank, one of which was grown in the Maokong valley, and needless to say, it was very different from the Tetley tea that normally fills my mug at home.
Then, from this peaceful mountainside teahouse, we made our way back into the city of Taipei, to the Shilin night market, which offered a very different assault on my senses. Bright lights, warm, greasy surfaces, pungent smells, and tightly packed tables are what to expect here. I have come to appreciate that the Taiwanese love to eat and that I just can't keep up. Our large group split up, but I stuck with my two native cousins. I barely had the appetite to sample what they ordered: congee with liver and squid, fried fish scallopini, and oyster omelet with sauce. But then, they introduced me to an ice dessert which has the texture of snow scraped from your car window, sweetened and topped with pieces of fruit. It was unbelievably delicious and refreshing, and we ordered one after another after another. Our group reconvened and we wandered through the shopping part of the night market and found that Nikes and Birkenstocks cost as much here as in Canada.
It was almost midnight when I got back to my cousin's house, my dad still up and patiently waiting to hear all about my day.
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