Taiwan Tea Guy

 

Dragon Boat Festival was June 8th.  I hadn’t realized it was so early, so I wasn’t really prepared for it. Also, because it fell on a Sunday, there wasn’t a 3-day weekend to look forward to, so it was mostly just another Sunday for us. I took Keith down to Bitan, a recreation area on a river at the bottom of our mountain, to watch some races and take a look around.

 Dragon Boat Festival is one of the 3 major holidays on the Chinese calendar, the other 2  being September’s Moon Festival and Chinese New Year. For more information on the history and details of the holiday, click HERE.

 

 The dragon boats are long wooden boats, usually rowed by crews of up to 40 per boat. A drummer keeps time for the oarsmen, and the race is won when the ‘lookout’ on the front of the boat grabs the flag from it’s buoy at the finish line. The Bitan races aren’t generally as serious as some others around Taiwan, where international teams compete for top prizes. We saw many boats that were short a few rowers, or had co-ed rowing teams. The main point seemed to be to enjoy the water and the weather (hot and muggy that day – oh, wait - June is always hot and muggy in Taiwan!).

 

 

   

There wasn’t much in the way of shoreside activities this year, partly because they’ve torn down all the shops and cafes at Bitan to put in a new park, and they’re only half done with the work.  There were a few interesting things to see, one of which was these basset hounds, which I took for pet pigs at first glance. Seeing them makes me feel better about my own dogs’ diet!

 

 

 

 

There were also the usual arts & crafts available, as well as a guy from Pinling (see Baojong Tea Festival) who had his kids selling tea for him. Doesn’t that look familiar? . . . .(click HERE)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We finished up with an ice cream, then headed back across the footbridge to our motorcycle. On the way back, I took this photo of the Bitan Tea House, which sits on a large cliff overlooking the lake. It’s a good vantage point to watch the races, and I probably would have been up there having tea if I’d had more time to spend. At any rate, it’s a ‘bare bones’ tea house – for a flat fee per person, you get teaware, water, and a choice of several lower-end teas. Fortunately, they are OK with people bringing their own teas, but the fee is the same either way.

 

 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 5:30 pm and is filed under Life in Taiwan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.