City of Tainan

Sunday, March 20th, a group of exchange students, along with some Taiwanese students, took a trip to the city of Tainan. It is located about an hour and a half outside Kaohsiung, and is one of Taiwan's older cities. 

First we went to the Anping Tree House, where an entire house that was originally used as a harbour house, to monitor the river. After WWII, it was used to deposit crude salt. After this, it was abandoned for 60 years. In this time the banyan trees gradually climbed up the walls and brought down the roof. There now are banyan trees in and around the entire house. It is now part of the Anping Harbour National Historic Park, and is a very popular tourist destination. 

After this, we went to a restaurant to enjoy some local food. Tainan is known all over Taiwan for its abundance of delicious food. There may be a slight difference to what Taiwanese consider "delicious", and what my opinion is on the matter. We were served seafood soup with flat noodles, oysters with eggs and bean sprouts, a pie like dish made from a starchy vegetable, pork and shrimp slimy dumplings, and fish balls in a thick clear liquid. I did try almost everything, and some of it was tasty. It was an interesting experience. 

Next, we spent a couple hours walking around the street markets. In Kaohsiung it is more common to have busy night markets that are not open during the day. In Tainan, it is the opposite. We got to sample some local candy, freshly made cranberry juice, and some specialty sausages. I bought a hat and some sunglasses, for dirt cheap. In this time, we also found a beautiful temple. It's crazy in Taiwan, how temples can be found in virtually around every corner. 

The last thing we did was visit a museum in Tainan. This museum was strange in the sense that there was no real theme or area of specialization. There were numerous exhibits, all completely unrelated. Some of the exhibits include: art, furniture, musical instruments, weapons from Japan, China, and Taiwan, and a vast number of animal representations. 


After a long day in the sun, we were all ready to go home. It's supposed to be cold this week, so better enjoy the sunshine while I can :)


Chantal
xo