Day 2: Being MaoKong-ed Part 4

As the sun started to set in earnest, my wife and I made a quick stop at the local tea leaves shop called Maokong Teahouse. They do have a teahouse and have set aside a little corner to sell their own brand of tea and tea cups.

Other than the regular oo-long, jasmine and tiekuanyin teas, I had to try out their very own maokong tea. I believe that the maokong tea is being produced in a small quantity and thus, overseas sales are very limited.

All that we have purchased so far are perishables. In order to keep a part of Taiwan as a momento, I saw these lovely tea cups. I was intrigued by its colour and the label tells me that its covered in the 50s design. I so had to buy it. Anyway for keepsake, I was willing to part with my NT400.

By now, it was starting to get dark. It was the weekend, so we had expected a queue and all in, we waited for about 45 minutes. It was drizzling a little and I was praying for the rain to be kept at bay. One point to note: Always bring along a small umbrella as the eather can get quite erratic. Thank God that the drizzled stopped after about 10 minutes.

One other thing we had to note was that the Maokong Station is not opened on a Monday. There are buses up to Maokong though I think it will not offer you that lovely panoramic view. 

Day 2: Being MaoKong-ed Part 3

Walking along, we then came to the second tea house called Ah Mei Si DaChaShi. One thing that I thought will be tough for a number of foreigners is that the teahouses in MaoKong bear no English signs. Even the menu is in Chinese. 

The teahouse is perched precariously (I'm very sure the building is on solid ground) at the edge of the mountain and it truly gives diners such a wonderful view. In clearer weather, you can even see Taipei 101.

Looking at the menu, we scratched our heads in trying to figure out what to order. In truth, we barely understood what is listed in the menu as its written in traditional chinese. So when all else fails, go for the set menu. They can give us anything but what I was eyeing at was the pot of hot soup that every table seemed to have.

We were served with a plate of tea leaves fried rice. Never had I had tea leaves in my fried rice. Next came the carrots, vegetables and mushrooms, followed by my CHICKEN AND MUSHROOM SOUP HOT POT. Mmmmmmm. Some cold vegetable dish and prawns completed the set meal.

After all that feasting, what better way than to end it with a hot cup of chinese tea.

Day 2: Being MaoKong-ed Part 2

When we arrived at MaoKong, my wife and I were like deers in the spotlight. We stood there not knowing where we should head towards. It was a Y shaped road that pointed us to three different directions. So which should we take. The "Follow the crowd" mentality rear its head once again.

We turned left and moved with the crowd along Zhongnan Road. Soon, we had little food stalls on our left and a food centre of sorts on our right. As its still the early parts of our MaoKong's exploration, we continued our walk. We passed by some tombstones on the hill before arriving at this very beautiful and picturistic tea house and its small tea plantation.

I'd thought the pink flowers were cherry blossoms. In reality, they were flowers from the apricot trees, displaying red, pink and white flowers. Still has lovely.

The very first tea house that we arrived at was called HongMuShi. We did not stop to have tea at this teahouse but the lady owner was quite an interesting character. She called out from the 2nd level to get customers to patronise her teahouse.

On the right was a shop that sells tea. We walked on. After two more bends on the road, we came across on the left a cafe that serves coffee and tea from a modified van. The dispensing area does not look too cool, but the view of the mountains was to die for.

Day 2: Being Maokong-ed Part 1

Today, it was clear blue skies. Today, I'm off to the mountains. I'm getting more localised now. Why? I don't really need to tread cautiously to see if we have boarded the train. We are one-day old Taiwanese MRT traveller by now.

On the right of the picture, I can see Park Taipei Hotel peeking out from the rest of the other buildings. So cheeky! The train took us southwards towards Taipei Zoo.

Once you pass the turnstiles of the MRT station, take the escalator down and look for signs that lead you towards the Maokong Gondola. Then turn left make your way to the station. It was a pretty long walk and the sun was out, making it a rather warm day. You'd need to pass by MacDonalds and other buildings seemingly related to the Taipei Zoo.

Well, buying the tickets is the easy part. you'd just need to give the counter person NT100 (This is totally worth the money) and she'll pass you two tickets for a return trip. There're two stations that you can alight at - the Taipei Zoo station and the Zhinan Temple station. I skipped both these stations as I'd really wanted to see only Maokong.

As it was a weekend, it was a moderately long wait of 30 minutes. I'm quite sure that if we'd visited on a weekday, it would have been less crowded. We had other plans for the other days. Also the Gondolas are closed on Mondays. You can still make it up via their bus services, but I really wanted to try the gondola. So Maokong on a weekend it was.

The 25 minutes ride up in the gondola gave our legs some respite after the moderately long wait at the gondola station. The scenes that you get on a clear day are just gorgeous. Other than a chatty set of grandparents and their grandchildren, the ride up was a thrill. You'll get to see the landscape of Taipei, tea plantations, temples being built at the edge of cliffs, and Taipei 101 in the distant.