金谷農場 Golden Valley Farm

Golden Valley Farm is a poetic farm with its graceful environment. Golden Valley farm planted a lot of butterfly attracting plants and became habitat of butterfly. Many butterflies fly at the garden during April to November. So you can see different kind of butterflies at Golden Valley Farm almost all the year.

If you come Golden Valley Farm in summer. You can see the endangered insect - unicorn beetle (scientific name: Allomyiina Dichotoma). That’s because Golden valley farm has planted Fraxinus griffithii (光臘树) which the tree snap is food for unicorn beetle. If you are lucky enough, you can see the battle between male unicorn beetles to fight for a spouse.     

Besides butterfly and unicorn beetles, there has another unique feature in Golden valley farm – Southern Cypress (scientific name: Taxodium Distichum (L.) Rich). Southern cypress will change color with different season. Leafing out in spring, green in summer, yellow in autumn and red in winter. You will have the illusion of living in the North Country especially when you come in autumn and winter.

Golden valley farm has playground and a Ming pond that really suitable for family activity. Parents can accompany their children play at playground or feeding fishes at pond. If you feel thirst or hungry, don’t worry! Here has a delicate coffee shop and Hakka food stall, you can have lunch or afternoon tea and indulge yourself in such relaxation environment.

Apart from a recreation farm, Golden valley farm also sell flowers and plants. The master of farm, Mr. Huang has made sure the flowers and plants that sell are beautiful and the price is lower than market price. So, don’t forget to buy some flowers before you leave Golden valley farm. It can be souvenir for friends or decoration for your own garden.

P/S: Hope you all will like the pictures I had took ^.^

埤唐窝生态园区Pi Tang Wo Ecological Park

In the previous articles~ I had mentioned fews spots of Jiu Qiong Lake~ Now, i want to introduced these spots but I will just introduce Pi Tang Wo in this article~ hehee~ 

Pi Tang Wo is an ecological Park which planning well by the Soil and water conservation and residents of Jiu Qiong Lake. Pi Tang Wo is an abandoned farm before develop. The planner transformed this farm by guided the farm’s pond drainage that originally will flow into the river into four artificial ponds that built at the abandoned farm. Each pond has different environment for different aquatic plants. The path of Pi Tang Wo covered by wood chips, you will feel comfortable when you walk on the wood chips path. You will see many kinds of butterflies and birds at Pi Tang Wo. With the effort of well planning, Pi Tang Wo had become a very beautiful and fantastic ecological park that suitable for learning and relaxing. Don’t miss this place when you visit to Jiu Qiong Lake.

This is the plan of Pi Tang Wo:

Let's see the differences before and after develop~

The environment of Pi Tang Wo~ 

P/S: The other spots are coming soon~

Turnip Pudding蘿蔔糕

Turnip pudding is one of the Chinese traditional foods~ Making turnip pudding was a complicated process in the old days. We need to cut white radishes into thin slice, grind rice using the stone grinder to make the rice paste and bla bla bla… Everything was done by hand. It must taken hours of work to make turnip pudding. It is easy to make turnip pudding these days. The food processor shreds the turnips in a few minutes and the rice powder is available in packages.

My neighbor beside my home in Jiuqiong Lake will cook turnip pudding almost everyday~ they cook for sell to tourist who travel to Jiuqiong Lake~ They are using the half traditional way to cook turnip pudding. Why I say so? This is because they didn't use rice flour which buy from market but grind rice by using a machine to make the rice paste. I went to have a look and took some pictures to share with you all, the process how to make turnip pudding~

Ingredients: white radishes, rice, salt, pepper, water

The process:

1. Peel and shred the white radishes

             2. Grinding rice using a machine to make the rice paste

Rice paste~

Smooth~

      3. heat a large wok. Add the white radishes and season with salt and pepper. Cover the pot and cook the white radish on low heat till soft. This takes about half an hour. Give it a stir once in a while.

Add white radishes~

Stir~

Add salt~

Add Pepper~

      

      Note: They didn't use neither animal oil nor vegetable oil when making so that is suitable for vegetarian and healthy ^.^

      

      4. Pour the rice paste slurry into the white radishes. Cook the mixture on low heat. Keep stirring until the paste and turnips are mixed together evenly. Put the pudding into heat proof dishes for steaming.

      I had miss this part~ So I grab this picture from website~~~~

       

      To serve: cut into chunks, steam to heat it and eat with soy sauce or Cut into thick slices and pan fry.

P/S: Try to make it by yourself if you are interested ^.^ I knew how to make turnip pudding after I saw the process but I don’t think I’m able to make it by myself :P