Pinglin!

Today we went over to Pinglin, which is a small town/village about an hour bus ride from Taipei. It is famous (wait a minute while I google this) for "Bāozhŏngchá" tea. And I'll admit, that we didn't actually drink any, and that's because it was hot today, as in I-got-a-sunburn hot. And I know, I know, supposedly drinking hot drinks actually cools you down, but as I may have mentioned I didn't really pack any summer clothes - so I'm schlepping around in jeans in the baking sun and hot tea lost to cold water in the battle to get ingested.

It was a really lovely little town, and we rented some bikes and went on a cruise by the river and the tea fields. The town has built this bike/walking path, so it was a perfect. We also had an interesting dining experience which I will post about separately.

Tea fields! There were lots of them, and they had this interesting row pattern that looked like some one had corn-rowed (as in braiding) the hillside. Apparently near the end of March they pick the young tea leaves and it's super good tea.

Kris went for a dip in the river. It was a really clean, clear river and there were all sorts of swimming spots along the way. The temp is pretty summery here - I'm going to guess about 26-28 degrees. PS. There are no water snakes in Taiwan - I checked.

View of the forest and river from our bike ride. It was all jungle-y and lush with this river wandering through. Pretty incredible!

Same view but with Kris and my faces in front of it. My hair is all wind blown because they didn't give us helmets. As you know, I am very pro-helmet so this bike ride was a compromise in beliefs, but I survived! You'll also notice the rosy-cheeked beginning of the first sunburn of the season.

These were our trusty steeds. The guide book told us to walk up this road to this place where they would be for rent - so we walked up this random road for about 10 minutes and then took a chance on this sign at the base of a driveway that lead us to this weird campground, and they had this shed full of bikes. I handed over my driver's license and BAM these sweet bikes were ours for the day.