Christmas in Taipei, Part 2

On Christmas Eve, my sister and I went to pick up some wrapping paper and candy for my niece's stocking. I got to see the neighborhood my sister and her family live in. The streets are tiny and the drivers a bit nuts. The scooter drivers are even crazier. It rained all day.

In the afternoon, my sister, my niece and I spent two hours trying to find Wisteria House, a tea house my sister had been wanting to go to. Apparently, this is where Ang Lee's "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman" was filmed.

When we found the right address, it turned out that the place was closed for construction. There was a sign for their temporary location with a phone number (29, Lane 61, Lin-Yi Street, Taipei; telephone: 2321.9089), so my sister put the number in her phone, hailed a cab, dialed the other tea place and had the cabbie talk to them. The cabbie, a woman, got lost in this residential area where the streets were even tinier than the ones I had seen before. We called the tea house again and the cabbie ended up driving backwards several streets to backtrack. We did end up finding this other tea house and it was worth the wait. The menu didn't have any English translations which was unfortunately since none of us can read Chinese so we asked them to recommend some teas. They were very understanding and suggested three different teas. I didn't catch what exactly they were, but the first was a "high mountain" tea (which apparently an indication of excellence) whose aroma reminded me of gardenias, a second that was a bit bitter and a third that was called "Oriental Beauty."

We went to my brother-in-law's work before going to the Grand Hotel for dinner.

When we got back to their apartment, I passed out on their couch while my sister wrapped presents. I woke up at midnight and wrapped my presents before going back to sleep.