Ying Ge

I read up on some other Taiwan blogs and one of them mentioned an easy day trip to YingGe. So, I went there a month ago to check it out. There are tons of pottery shops and lots of street food. There are a few DIY (do it yourself) shops as well. We went to the one next to the German sausage guy. I had a beautiful bowl within 10 seconds of starting - but it seemed too soon, so I kept playing and ended up ruining it. The owner helped me start over and I tried to recreate what I had done before, but to no avail - in fact, I ruined the clay completely again. The boss got me started again and I decided to stop as soon as I had something half decent. The boss took a look at it and made it bigger and we called it done. After, I carved my name into it - to give it a little character.



We went back 2 weeks later to pick it up (the delivery fee is something like 200 NT and the train fee is about 60NT round trip). We were surprised to see how much it had shrunk! The second time we tried a different DIY shop in a back alley. The lady wouldn't take her hands off my bowl and kept telling me I was doing it wrong. She was also frustrated that I didn't know Chinese and couldn't understand what she was saying. Basically, I was applying too much pressure and not building high enough before making it wider. I wasn't pleased with her customer service. We decided to have the piece delivered - this shop takes 4 weeks to deliver (the first one only took 2 weeks).

Both shops glaze your pieces for you - your bowl is pretty much left to chance what color and pattern it will be. They show you samples of what it might look like - inevitably, they show you the most beautiful ones.

Overall, Yingge is a fun day trip. It can be tiring browsing all the stores to purchase stuff - after a while they all start to blend together.