Tea, temple and terror

Call me simple, but to me, there’s something rather special about frocking up. And I mean a proper full on frock up. Not just wearing a nice dress, but going full-on ball gown. Ok, if truth be known I don’t actually possess a ball gown, but I do have a variety of evening dresses from our time in Staffordshire so some of them are getting another airing on this trip. Back in the day we seemed to be going to a stack of charity balls and the accompanying dress was almost uniform. That life has moved on but the dresses remain in my wardrobe, so it’s nice to wheel them out again. There’s something, clearly old fashioned about this ritual, but it brings back memories of my parents when they used to go to dinner-dances and mum would put on a creation she had made and she always looked amazing. All of a sudden, her 5 foot 5 inches would turn into seven foot tall. And maybe that memory has stayed with me from my childhood days and now I want to be that person.

So yesterday evening was formal evening and unlike other cruises we’ve been on before, they don’t over do the formal evenings. There are just two within our two week trip. So, effort, we made. We donned our glad-rags and of course, started our evening with a glass of pink pop in Dolce Vita listening to the sultry pianist and singer Anna. Last night was Captain’s welcome evening, so we surmised that most folk would dine early to then attend that event. As we weren’t fussed about such goings on, we ended up opting for Atlantide and a menu that was clearly going to please us both. We had our “sensible” heads on and refused any further drink after our meal as we start our trips in Taiwan the following day.

We sailed into Keelung around 7 this morning. Not exactly the prettiest of port, more Immingham on a rough day. It was already muggy and had recently rained. To be fair, it’s either recently rained, is raining or is about to rain in Keelung from what I understand of the city. It just has that sort of weather system. There was mist on the hills and we’d been warned to take layers and an anorak as it would rain on our trip.

We breakfasted in the room as it’s fair to say that if I’ve had 2 hours sleep, it’s best I don’t try and interact with people…more for their sake than mine. For us we were fairly ahead of the curve as there were cautionings about having to retrieve a copy of our passport on disembarkation and a walk to locate our minibus for our trip. To keep the Taiwanese government happy, we had to carry a copy of our passport at all times off the ship. We passed that particular test and after showing our copies, were waved through immigration. Then dire signs of near death if you bring a variety of food stuffs into the country. Knowing Nick always carries a snack with him, we thought it right to check that was allowed. Thankfully no imprisonment for bringing in a Deliciously Ella cereal bar. Phew, close call.

The area around the port was fairly shabby, but as soon as we set foot outside, although it was down at heal, it was spotless. This appeared to be the case wherever we went on our trip today. No rubbish, plus signs outside telling you not to smoke. There was no pollution and no great hubbub of noise. Ok, this wasn’t what I was expecting. Then our tour guide, the very excitable Olivia Chen, told us it was 228 holiday weekend, also known as Peace Memorial Day. A public holiday in Taiwan for honoring and mourning the victims and families of the February 28 incident in 1947, an anti-government uprising in Taiwan that was violently suppressed by the Kuomintang–led Nationalist government of the Republic of China. Olivia said that most sensible people weren’t up yet. As we drove through Keelung on our way to Taipei we saw a variety of processions celebrating the day.

Facts: Taiwan covers 36,000 square km and has a population of 23 million with Taipei having roughly 25% of its population over 65 years old. Today is January 12th in the Chinese luna new year. There are 268 mountains over 3000 metres on the island.

Our drive from the rainy port of Keelung to our first stop took us through beautiful tropical rain forest but also through Taipei city which is a sprawl of high rise apartments and technology businesses. There seems to be a culture of work, work, work here with many businesses and stalls open 24 hours a day.

Our first stop was a tea house to understand the rituals of the Taiwanese tea ceremony and tea tasting. This was something of a surreal experience. Our experience took place in a room with roughly 35 of us on tables of 3 or 4. We shared our table with a couple from Ireland. There was calming music being played in the background. The scene was set for our tea ceremony experience. All our kit was set out for us on our table and then started the instructions. In Taiwanese. With the instructor wearing a face mask. There was stunned silence…briefly and then utter mayhem while we all tried to follow what he was doing, with Olivia trying rapidly to translate for us.

Within moments chaos reigned, with much hilarity from all tables. This was not the calm, solemn experience we were expecting. There’s a part in the ceremony where the tea port gets turned upside down, with the lid shut, but into a bowl. Right, even looking at what the demonstrator was doing didn’t help and naturally most of us ended up spilling said liquid. So the ceremony went something like this:

Turn kettle on and let it boil

Heat teapot then pour hot water into awaiting tray

Boil kettle again

Take bag of tea leaves and tip into tea pot

Pour sufficient boiling water onto tea leaves to cover the leaves only and leave for 35 to 40 seconds

Pour boiling water over the covered tea pot

Turn teapot upside down into a small waiting vessel

Boil water again

Pour boiling water onto now expanded tea leaves and fill tea pot with water

Pour boiling water over teapot

Wait 4 minutes

Take 2 similar shaped vessels

Strain tea into one vessel and then cover the other vessel over the top

Without spilling any of the liquid, do a magic trick and turn vessel over

Sniff the empty vessel

Drink the liquid from the vessel that you’ve managed to not spill everywhere

Oh and then the demonstrator suddenly spoke perfect English as he explained the variety of foodstuffs that we were to have with our tea, dried guava, monkey nuts, pistachios and sour plums. The latter played havoc with my teeth as they had a strange film and a sensation of fizzing slightly at the end. A bit like a sherbet lemon. We had expected a solemn, cultural experience, but instead got an unexpected amusing one. I certainly hadn’t expected to be laughing so much at this experience.

Next stop was the Zhi nan Taoist temple. Built in 1882 and opened in 1890, it stands 320 metres tall. It was a stunning temple, but I always feel a little uneasy in situations like this where locals are praying and experiencing healing rituals and we’re wandering around being tourists. I guess the same situation happens with our cathedrals and churches, so maybe I shouldn’t be so concerned. The views of Taipei from the temple were utterly stunning with Taipei 101, the 508 metre skyscraper, taking centre stage. Though we were convinced it was leaning slightly.

What goes up must come down and the trip up to the tea house had been a long and winding road up. The journey from the tea house to the temple was only a short trip down, but there was more down to be done and that was in the form of a gondola. The Maokong Gondola ride to be precise. The route is mostly down, with a short up part in the middle and takes you down to Taipei zoo. The experience lasts a terrifying 15 minutes. The gondolas take 6 people and if you are utterly unlucky, you can get one with a glass bottom. This is where I suddenly developed a bad case of Tourette’s. The gondola swayed, rocked, jumped over the pylons with the wind howling through the cabin. Our other guests on the ride were much more adventurous than us, standing up and taking pictures. Thankfully we were facing backwards, but at one point I did get brave so that I could see what we were plummeting down to and it was fairly high. Sadly we didn’t see any monkeys which are in the rain forest below.

Heart firmly back in mouth and back in the minibus, we then received an extensive Chinese lesson from Olivia. She provided us with translation sheets and insisted we repeat after her the various phrases. It was evident we weren’t very good and she finally gave up on us.

We were then given a tour of Keelung which reminded me of places in Vietnam. Bundles of telephone wires on street corners, simple cafes, designer shops, banks all a mish-mash mixed in together. There didn’t feel to be a soul to the place, just a bustle. We decided to go back to the ship as Olivia had quite frankly exhausted us with her excitability. We could also see the evidence of a bank holiday weekend now as the roads and down town Keelung were very busy with traffic and locals.

Just as we returned to the ship, it started to rain. We realised we were in a notoriously rainy district and we’d spent the best part of the day dry.

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