20 December 2011
Juifen is well known for the old street with the many delicious food stalls. This is also a good place to enjoy great views, have tea in one of the tea houses besides enjoying the wonderful street food.
It was still drizzling when we arrived at about 1.45 PM. As usual, Mr Xi dropped us off at the entrance of the Old Street and arranged to meet up later at a given time. As we wanted to visit the Gold Ecological Park (GEP), he told us to be back latest by 3.30 PM since the last entry to the Benshan Fifth tunnel at the GEP is 4.30 PM.
The narrow street is crowded, despite the rain. Stalls selling all sorts of food on both sides. We chomped our way through. The following were the food we tried and liked - Grilled wild boar sausages, ice-cream with grounded peanuts wrapped in popiah skin, grilled mushrooms.
We saw some stalls selling Juifen dumpling so we bought one to try. This one is not to our liking.
At one point, we went up a flight of steps to a high point where there was a shop selling the famous Taro balls dessert. We ordered a bowl of the dessert to share and went to the sitting area of the shop. Every table was occupied. This place would offer a nice view of the region but it was raining and misty. So it was “finish your dessert and let’s go”. No lingering.
We continued down the old street. Once we had our fill of the various street food, we decided to have tea at one of the tea houses. We picked the Juifen Old Tea house and was ushered into a private tea drinking area.
The balcony seats were all occupied. Else, these would be the view from there.
We sat indoor at a cosy little room instead. We ordered some “High Mountain Tea” and a cake from the host and shortly later, she returned to the room with our tea leaves and a set of Chinese tea drinking apparatus.
The tea lady gave us an detailed explanation of the process and art of drinking Chinese tea. Quite an educational experience.
Drinking hot, fragrant Chinese tea in a quaint tea room, on a wet, misty day like today was heavenly. This old tea house has a small gallery at the basement. To get there, we had to go down a flight of stairs, pass a indoor koi pond with a nice water feature made of stacked old mill stones.
We sat at the tea house until it was time to meet up with Mr Xi again. So, it was back to the entrance of the old street. Along the way back, we bought another round of the BBQ pork sausages and ice cream in spring roll skin. We eat as we walked to the rendezvous point.
This dog is eyeing our snack while we waited for Mr Xi to pick us up. Like all other dogs we met on this trip so far, this dog was rather well behaved.
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