The other day Ryan and I went to Hangzhou to explore the tea fields. After all, I am a tea lover, a tea drinker and a tea reviewer, yet I’ve never seen tea actually growing in a field. To be honest, I didn’t even know what a tea plant (bush? tree?) even looked like.
Well, we chose the perfect day to go. The sun was shining, pollution was at a minimum, and all around us was glorious vistas of mountains and fields and native people. Absolutely gorgeous. It was a perfect day to take pictures. The only problem? We forgot our camera.
But I took a lot of pictures in my mind and I thought it would be selfish if I didn’t share them with you. So here are the captions of some of the best “pictures” I took.
Here is Ryan riding his rented bike between a bright green and orderly tea field and a giant tour bus. These roads are tiny, it’s amazing we didn’t get run over:
Here is an old weathered Chinese man picking some tea leaves from what seems to be his private crop. Around the area we bicycled there seemed to be tea plants everywhere, even in empty lots and fields. He is gently putting his leaves in a small, cheesecloth type sack:
This photo was taken outside the Tea Museum. The Tea Museum isn’t exactly a museum per say, though it does have a small building with historical exhibits, but rather it is a giant complex devoted to tea houses, tea fields and pretty little rivers, bridges and green spaces.:
Here is a little Chinese boy playing in the small river we were sitting at. He didn’t interact with us at all, in fact he didn’t even look at us, but he sat so close and hovered about we knew he was dying to say a few words in English. When he slipped on a rock Ryan caught his arm and he murmured a “Thank You.”
The vistas were amazing. In the background of this picture notice the rising and falling mountains in shades of green and blue that get lighter and lighter the further away they are. The closest mountain, you can see, is covered in bamboo and gives it that real classical Chinese look. In the foreground are more rows of tea plants and some local farmers in triangular straw hats picking leaves.
Here is a picture of Ryan diving into his Subway sandwich. Now, before you judge let me just say this was our first real sandwich and our first real western food since we’ve been here. (Okay, I had KFC once, but the KFC here is different then America so I don’t think that counts.) And as much as I love Chinese food, that sandwich really hit the spot. (I had a 6-inch tuna and Ryan had a 6-inch Subway Club) Notice the big glob of mayonnaise on Ryan’ cheek. What a messy eater! It’s like 2 months outside of America and he forgets all about eating a sandwich:
So there you go, some of the best mind pictures I took. Of course we’ll be going back again, maybe even next weekend, and this time we are bringing the actual camera. So if we get some pictures share them with you too, but really, I think my mind pictures came out so much better.
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