Night Lanterns at Pingxi

The Chinese New Year celebrations officially end with the Lantern Festival, which occurs 15 days into the new year. It sounds really spectacular, we sadly wouldn't be staying long enough to see it, since this was our last full day in Taiwan.

The good news was that An An and Chian Chian took us to Pingxi, where impressive crowds of people were sending lanterns into the air daily for fun. It was a fantastic and poignant way to mark the end of our Chinese New Year celebrations.

At about noon, we took the MRT (again) to the end of the Muzha line, but this time, instead of riding gondolas, we hopped onto some buses. I've only gotten carsick once in my life, but this bus ride came close to being the second time. Pingxi is in a very mountainous area, and the roads were narrow, winding, and full of traffic. It was a good thing that we took a bus, because they were denying all car traffic (except residents of course) from driving up the mountain in an attempt to control the traffic.

Since it was still early to be lighting night lanterns, we wandered around the little village and took our time looking around. While looking for ways to burn time, we did the single Stupidest Scariest Thing we did all trip. My cousins were delighted that they finally found an activity to scare the shit out of Fearless Jenn. (Yes, apparently I have a reputation for being "fearless", not sure where that comes from...)

So there's an old suspended train track that runs through the village, and as we were strolling around around, we saw people occasionally walking on the tracks overhead with their little kids. Neat, my cousins thought. We should go walk on the train tracks too.

Me: But what if there's a train?
Them: Umm...there's probably no train.
Me: Probably?

Then I think, well those tracks do look pretty rusty and unmaintained. What kind of train could run on that? So we figure out how to get on the train tracks, and started walking along, being careful not to step on rotten wood planks and not to let our feet fall through the gaps.

At some point, we realize that we are really high up. Furthermore, there are people walking the opposite direction, so sometimes you have to stand on the very edge of these splintering planks so that two can people squeeze by each other. No guard rails or anything keeping us from falling. And...OF COURSE. We eventually heard a train clanging warning bells and roaring up behind us.

That was definitely a moment of despair. Apparently my cousins didn't know there was a train either. Somehow I managed to just keep putting one jello-y foot in front of another as quickly as I could and finally made it to someplace where we could jump off safely. (Plus in retrospect I think the train slowed down due to all the people on the tracks, thank goodness.)

Lesson that you could have learned from a cartoon: There's always a train.

Luckily, we found some longxutang (dragon whisker candy) to make me feel better. I ate like five packages.

Lighting the Night Lanterns

The night lanterns at Pingxi are like awesome little hot air balloons that you send into the air with your wishes for the new year. They're made out of colored paper, and people typically write a little message about their hopes for the year before lighting it and watching it fly out of sight. I saw some people who wrote long elaborate thoughtful paragraphs on all four faces of the lantern. I wasn't feeling quite so poetic, but I definitely did have a wish for the year!

There's a circular bamboo ring at the bottom of each lantern to help keep its shape, and there are wires crossing the center of the ring so that you can attach kerosene-soaked stacks of parchment for fuel.

It's a pretty amazing sight to see everyone releasing these lanterns into the air all at the same time, especially since they're representing everyone's hopes and dreams. Here's a video I found (lots more on YouTube):


The best part is how high they fly, because they become tinier and tinier in the sky, until they literally disappear from sight. We never saw one coming back down. (Well except for the ones that went down Hindenburg-style shortly after takeoff. Not sure what to make of the symbolism for those people's hopes and dreams.) My cousins say that eventually, when the fuel runs out, the lantern itself burns up, leaving only the metal wires to fall back to the ground. I was somewhat concerned about the environmental implications of this, but they seemed to think that they would land "in the forest" and not bother anyone. Hrrrm.

But ultimately, what a great way to spend our last evening!

Tea Time in Maokong

Chris and I both enjoy drinking tea, especially since Google has conditioned us to expect "tea time" every afternoon, where multiple flavors of tea and small pastries are served to us at our cubes, off cute little carts. (Sooo nice of them, I love tea time.)

Of course, it's not like we were starved for tea at this point, since tea is served with every meal in Taiwan, but we thought it would be fun to visit a "real" Asian tea house. I was afraid that we would have to venture too far outside of Taipei to find such a place, but it turned out that the nearby suburb of Maokong was well known both for growing tea and for having lots and lots of nice tea houses. Even more compelling was the way to get to Maokong; we definitely wanted to ride in the cool new Maokong Gondolas, which just opened to the public recently.

So Chris and I took the MRT down to the end of the brown (Muzha) line, where we caught a ride on the Maokong Gondolas for $50 TPE, which is like $1.50 US. This seems shockingly cheap for a 25-minute gondola ride over some beautiful mountains with gorgeous views of Taipei City below. I mean, consider what $1.50 buys you on Caltrain. (Answer: Nothing. The cheapest fare is $1.75.)

When we arrived at Maokong, we were somewhat overwhelmed by the number of busy teahouses, street vendors, tour buses, and restaurants immediately outside of the gondola station. So we started walking along the road to see what else was around. Here's Chris with what presumably are some tea bushes on a hillside:

We encountered many hiking trail entrances along the way, which would have been fun to try if we'd had more time. We also saw a temple and lots more tea houses, some of which had funny signs. I think these (ahem) well-meaning people had the "use 'well' instead of 'good'" rule drilled into them too hard:

We finally stopped at a quiet place called Shan Shui Ke (Mountain Water Guest?) where they recommended that we try the Oolong tea, a favorite in Taiwan. They also gifted us with a complimentary bag of tangy/sweet red pickled plums that went very nicely with the tea. We sat outside so we could get a good view of the mountains (though the fog obscured most of Taipei).

You'll note that this looks like a very complicated setup, but here's how it works:

1. First, the waitress brought out the hot pot (the black one in the picture) to get the water boiling.
   
2. Once the water started boiling, the waitress brought out the rest of the kit. She put the tea pot and tea cups into a wide bowl, and poured the steaming water over everything, to demonstrate that it was clean.
3. She then opened our pink cannister of Oolong tea (which we bought earlier at the counter) and scooped enough to fill a quarter of the small teapot-for-two.
4. She poured the hot water into the teapot and then, to our surprise, immediately poured out all the water from the teapot into the metal tray. Apparently the purpose of this is to "wash" the tea leaves, in case they have any residual pesticides or chemicals.
5. She then filled the teapot again. We were told to let it steep for 40 seconds. While it was steeping, she also poured hot water OVER the little teapot (which was still sitting in the bowl), and filled the bowl with hot water in order to keep the teapot (and its contents) warm.
6. At 40 seconds, we expected to finally have some tea poured into our cute tiny cups! But wait. First she poured all of the tea from the teapot into a small ceramic pitcher. She explained that this would prevent the extra tea from getting over-steeped while we drank the first cups. Smart! Plus, we could start steeping the next batch while we were drinking the current one.
   
7. At last, she pours us each some tea from the pitcher. Oolong tea has a very light and refreshing taste, and we were certainly thankful that it was so nice and warm!

Definitely a fun experience. But on the other hand, tea bags and a hot water dispenser are pretty clever too. :-)

Visiting a Starbucks Copycat

Having returned to Taipei, we started the day by grabbing a bite to eat at Dante Coffee Shop. Western-style coffee shops are abundant and in Taipei, but unlike in America, they're not all run by Starbucks. There were a surprising number of strong competing chains, one of which was Dante. My cousins explained that years ago, when Starbucks first entered the Taiwan market, they were the lone dominant coffee shop. But soon, local businessmen copied their successful business model and started offering more local tastes (for instance, bubble tea) at lower prices. (And I do mean "copy" since lots of these competing chains use some form of Starbucks-esque green circle or green lettering on their signs.) Today, it seems to be a point of national pride that Taiwan's local businesses have won back the lion's share of the market.

Not being a coffee drinker, I couldn't evaluate the quality of coffee at Dante, but we did immediately see the shop's appeal. Chris ordered a hot "quesadilla" of sorts, which was filled with delicious finely minced chicken, onions, peppers, cheese, and spices -- all very delicately put together. (As I write this, Chris is saying "I really want another one.") I ordered a curry chicken calzone-thing, which was also great. The bread was soft and fluffy and the filling warm and spicy. Plus we ordered two pots of tea. The best part: all of this cost just $6 (US).


Returning to Eggwater (Danshui)

Danshui is a port city to the north of Taipei. It's apparently a popular place for young people to visit, because of all the little traditional shops and carnival-style arcade games along the street. Couples also like it because it's a lovely place to watch the sunset. We actually visited on Valentine's Day, but there were no couples to be seen, probably due to the cold foggy weather.

My family calls the place "Eggwater" in English because that's how I translated "Danshui" when I was little. I actually got the "water" part right, but "dan" in this context means something like "light" or "dilute". This is where the river meets the ocean, so the water is "lighter" in the sense that it's less salty. Here, I bought a nifty box of wooden chopsticks, and we also tried out some interesting foods.

• Agei - A big fried tofu block served in a bowl. It was stuffed with rice noodles (iirc). Apparently one of my cousins got hooked on this stuff when she was in college.
• Fish ball soup.

There were also some "iron eggs" being sold on the street side, but we weren't brave enough to try them. They looked like small bird eggs of some sort, but Da Ayi explained that they're normal chicken eggs that have somehow been dehydrated to the point where there really tiny and hard. In retrospect, it might have been fun to eat one.

The one food I really wanted, however, was "longxutang" or "dragon whisker candy". It's a candy that you can usually watch them make on the spot, out of a brick of taffy-like sugar. The maker will stretch the brick into a long skinny rope, then fold it over and stretch again. They keep folding and stretching until the threads are so fine and wispy that they do seem like a fine dragon beard (if dragons do indeed have beards). Then they'll cut off little chunks and fold in some sesame powder in the middle, so the candy looks like fluffy white silk worm cocoons (yum). Longxutang are one of my favorite candies in Taiwan, so it was a bummer that the stand was closed.

Later in the evening, Gu Gu treated my entire mom's side of the family to dinner at a fantastic vegetarian restaurant in TianMu.