Songboling Visitor Center

from Travel in Taiwan(NO.116 2023 3/4)

TAIWAN EVERYTHING

This expansive center is in Songboling town’s south on Route 139B, which doubles as the town’s main thoroughfare. It fills up the main level of a large four-story building.

Just outside the entrance is a garden area in which the Tea Tree (melaleuca alternifolia), native to Australia/Southeast Asia, is on show. English signage explains how its aromatic-oil needle leaves have long been used to make Melaleuca/Tea Tree oil, used as an insect repellent, traditional herbal medicine, etc.

Stepping inside, directly before you is a sample of the exquisitely carved wooden latticework doors found at traditional countryside sanheyuan (three-sided courtyard houses). An antique-style low wooden table topped with the tea paraphernalia needed to welcome guests sits before it.

Among the most compelling of the other varied eduattractions: a large 3D topographical map of the Bagua Plateau region with tourist spots marked; a selection of traditional farm machinery and implements; a section on Songboling’s history and tea varieties; and a section on Taiwan’s scented teas and the fruits, flowers, and herbs used to make them. There is good and abundant English.