a saturday bike ride & best-ever 仙草

my sweetie and i took a bike ride from dazhi to danshui on saturday. it was much hotter and sunnier than we expected but we had a great time. we even ran into some of my beloved's long lost friends on the trail!

didn't take too many photos on the way there, but this is one i snapped in guan-du.it was ridiculously crowded in danshui. guess that's what happens on the first sunny day after a week straight of rain! needless to say, given our low tolerance for megacrowds, we didn't stay in danshui too long at all. :)

that evening, after showering and resting a little bit, we treated ourselves to the best 仙草 (grass jelly) ever! if you've never had 仙草 before, you are seriously missing out. even though i've been here six years, i didn't try it until about two years ago, and i've been hooked ever since. grass jelly is the new ice cream, friends! short of mangoes, i seriously think it's the best dessert in taiwan.

for those of you who don't know, grass jelly is made from a leaf of the mint family, and though it might look gross when you first see it, trust me, it's sooo good -- and good for you! it has a unique herbal flavor that's just a bit sweet. it comes in all kinds of varieties (even in drinks; it's great in green tea), but my favorite is what you see below: served cold with sweet potato and taro balls, with a little bit of cream.

and what's great about the place we went on saturday, called 鮮竽仙, is that instead of serving it on regular ice, they serve it over frozen 仙草, so even when the "ice" melts, the grass jelly flavor is still retained, instead of watered-down! reminds me of the coffee shop where i worked in chapel hill; we used coffee ice cubes in our iced coffee. :) anyway, it was so good that now i know why the place always has a line out the door and around the corner!