Tea Country

Today I went to Pinglin, a tea growing mountain town outside of Taipei with some of the Gloria teachers from the north. I met them at the train station, and we made our way to Pinglin.

Outside the metro station on the way to the bus, we saw a big group of people gathered. Half the people were sitting down, and the other people were standing there beating them repeatedly in one spot with little sticks. Some people were working on a shoulder, others the back, and some the foot. And this wasn't just a light tap on the skin, these people had big red welts and looked like they were in some serious pain. There was even a man walking circles around the group banging his elbows together. Everyone else was walking by like this was completely normal.

As tempting as it was to join this party, we made our way around to the bus and headed to Pinglin. When we first arrived in Pinglin we wandered around for a bit and explored this cool little temple on the top of a hill. There was a thick fog, which I'm starting to learn is common in Taiwan. It was surrounded by gorgeous mountains covered in tea fields.

Here you can see a close up of some of the tea bushes that were terraced into the hillsides.

It was a very scenic town with a river flowing through the mountains.

After we explored the temple we walked through the old town which was a little market road. Surprisingly it was pretty empty and we had the town to ourselves.

All of the street lights were in the shape of tea kettles!

Some woman was selling these treats on the side of the road. I still have no idea what it was, but she somehow convinced us all to buy one and try them. It was an impressive sale as she spoke no English and we collectively spoke very little Chinese. It looked like a big wet booger, and didn't taste much better.

At one of the shops they had this old grandma version of the Asian farmer hat. Could be a good style for me.

We also went into the tea museum, and I learned everything there is to know about tea: how it is grown, picked, processed, the correct way to serve and drink it, and I even learned where tea originally came from...
My favorite sign of the day...