With the weather finally warming up, we decided to take a day trip out of Taipei to the town of Yingge. Only 30 minutes outside of Taipei on a local train its an easy trip (with some careful navigation of the Main train station and the mostly Chinese ticket machines). This town has a 200+ year history in making pottery and ceramics and today it is basically fly paper for tourists.

The Yingge street is beautifully cobblestoned, packed with ceramics shops, and lined with lovely palm trees. Although as historic as it looks, it’s apparently a fairly new development designed to increase tourism.

And it works well. The town is packed, and we walked away with far more purchases than planned. I think we may have single handedly boosted the local economy. Tea pots, dinner plates, pots for plants, there is a lot on offer.

And of course, plenty of tea.