Day 18 ~ Keelung (Taipai)

Rough morning at sea, but arrive into Keelung and looking forward to the "Tea at the Chiufen Village". We were really looking forward to this excursion but had perhaps misread the description as it was nothing that we expected. First, from the moment we went through ship security, and stepped outside, it was raining - rather nasty actually. I should have turned around right then and asked for an umbrella (they have a big barrel of them for guests at the point of disembarkation) AND, since I'd just changed bags, I hadn't added mine... drat! Good news is that I had on my raincoat, with a hood and my pink Boston Red Sox hat... and both were needed, it was somewhat raw, chilly and wet all day.

The drive to Chiufen took about an hour, thru picturesque countryside, or would have been picturesque if we could have seen it, but we did catch glimpses thru the mist. Up into the mountains, with our guide happily disgorging all the statistics imaginable regarding Taiwan; population, GDP, housing, lifestyles... and of course, the delightful story of Chiufen Village; Chiufen means 9 portions in Chinese.  Under Japanese occupation, Gold was discovered in Chiufen and the village went from 9 families to over 2000. We passed a "silent city" with monuments raised to the dead which was fascinating and beautiful, a number of temples colorfully painted and be-dragoned with the distinctive, now recognizable, orange tiled roof, and in the countryside, quite poor looking areas.

We arrived and were lectured on NOT stopping for shopping on the way to the tea house. There would be plenty of time to explore, saunter and wander about after tea - little did we know!

Taiwanese tea ceremony

It was a wet, drippy walk down a narrow, sometimes steep walkway about 4 people wide. The little shops and flashy stores chocked full of tempting wares lined the way to the tea shop. I'd share a picture of the tea house with you as we were all given post cards, but I can't find any semblance in the postcard to the reality. We'd been climbing & descending steps for well over 10 minutes when we arrived at the Tea Room - somehow we had expected tea in a private home - and the group of us continued up the stairs...  three levels, before we were shown into a large room with 5 tables for 8, the guide bustling about, the servers making sure we didn't sit on the silk chair covers with anything wet, distributing sealed packets of damp, cleaning tissues, for our hands - now I'm not germaphopic , but with all the buses we'd been on, and the dirty handles behind each seat, I made sure I had some antiseptic wipes with me, and used them often -  so I didn't hesitate to use this little cloth to  "wash" my hands and follow suit when the waitress tossed hers into a bowl in the center of the table. Come to find out, it was to act as your napkin... jumped the gun again! JM took photos of each stage of the ceremony, the large pot holding a wicked kerosene lamp, over that sat a large kettle of hot water, that  quickly came to a boil, the waitress had loose, dried tea in to a small tea pot, followed by the boiling water. There were 8 saucers, 8 tiny teacups and 8 what looked like sake glasses, made from ceramic. Almost immediately after the hot water was pored over the lose tea leaves the waitress poured the tea into the "sake glasses" and inverted the tea cup over each "glass" and turned over the entire cup. You were to lift the sake glass, so the tea emptied into the tea cup and enjoy the scent of the tea left in the empty glass before you began to drink any tea. We were drinking Oolong Green tea picked from the mountains, and I was fascinated to see that the small teapot that she had poured no more than a teaspoon of loose, dried tea, was now filling the pot with whole tea leaves. The waitress brought eight green bean curd cakes, picked plums, black and white sesame wafers, and gelatin squares dusted with peanut powder (kind of like eating a funny tasting jellyfish)  all very traditional with tea. We were advised to sip the green tea like red wine (a stretch) and savor each sip. I'm sure we were all abject failures when it came to the Chinese Tea Ceremony. We ate way to fast, drank way to fast and those who wanted, had the left overs of those that didn't. We were advised to meet at the 7-11 at 5:15 pm and our guide after a careful  count, would call for the bus... there were those that would have preferred to return to the bus right away and take a nap, but we were told that the bus was parked a distance away and would be available at 5:15. We had two hours to wile away in the rain, checking out the "Taiwanese treasures" in the market place. Now to their credit, much of the market was covered by various jury-rigged tarps, to give you the illusion of being covered, but occasionally one big drip, or perhaps two would make it's way down the back of your jacket or coat, so that you were pretty much damp and miserable within 15 minutes. We sauntered thru the market, making our way toward 7-11 making a few purchases, a bag tag for our new bag, Hello Kitty bag tag and playing cards for a gift, and a "Diamond Block" Yoda for a grandson. With a lot of food stands, containing mostly unrecognizable foods, and a slow paced ascent to 7-11, we were still over an hour early for the bus. Not a happy situation in the rain!

Wow! Assorted whisky with Shots of B-52's
and Tequila Sunrise...all at a 7-Eleven!!

We next assaulted 7-11 and found some very interesting food options. I could have purchased assorted bottles of whiskey,  packaged shots of of B-52's or Tequila Sunrise, beer, or Starbucks in bottles. I opted for the Starbucks Latte and a big bag of "Black Imperial Peanuts". John and I, after 20 minutes or so of standing inside and then outside of 7-11, moved to a covered pavilion across the street. There were two dry spots on a wooden bench where we made ourselves at home, opened the bag of peanuts and enjoyed our rainy picnic.

5:15 arrived none too soon. And we were on our way down the mountain, grumbling all the way. Back to the ship and really ready for a warm sweater and champagne.

A lovely evening at the Italian Restaurant, Sette Mare, for great Osso Buco and red wine!