Tainan, Taiwan

After what has seemed like a week of endless rain and dreary weather, we arrived in the southern city of Tainan to a sunny clear day with endless possibilities! I never realized what an impression the weather makes when you first see a city. So far Tainan has been our favorite town in Taiwan and I'm not sure if it's because of the friendly people, interesting history, the beautiful weather, or all three!

We had a delicious burger and beer lunch at a craft brewery called Taihu Tainan. This was my first -- and probably last -- time tasting Gingko-flavored lager. Not my favorite. (Kevin's beer was great, though!) From there we walked over to a small artsy craft village called Blueprint Culture and Creative Park. This place used to be the old Judicial Dormitory (which I'm guessing means that it was a temporary jailhouse or something) but now its a collection of unique little shops and cafes, with fun murals and art installations along the pathways.

We only scheduled two days for this town and we were so grateful to have nice weather for both of them! I managed to injure my knee with all the walking in Taipei and the many stairs of Fenchihu and Alishan, so we were also very grateful for Uber, which was so easy to use here! Our hotel is in the West Central District of the city but most of the historic sites are concentrated near the waterfront Anping Harbor, so we Ubered over there on Thursday morning to check it out. The Anping district was Taiwan's earliest center of international trade. The Dutch were the first to establish a fort and trading post here but other European countries soon followed. Our driver dropped us off at the Anping Tree House. This interesting building used to be a warehouse for a British trading company in the late 1860s. After that, the warehouse was used by the colonial Japanese to store salt. The building was abandoned in the 1980s and was quickly taken over by banyan trees and their thick sprawling root networks. See if you can spot Kevin in the photo below!

Fort Zeelandia is just a short walk away from the treehouse. It's mostly a reconstruction of the fortress built here by the Dutch in the 1630s although some parts are original. Taiwanese archaeologists have found many historical artifacts here, from the Dutch period right up through the Japanese colonial period. Surprisingly, there weren't too many Western tourists on the day we went. Instead, the fort was inundated by hundreds of Taiwanese gradeschoolers on a field trip. Each class-sized group wore matching outfits and they were pretty high-spirited, enjoying their fun day away from school. At one point we were walking along the cannon deck; a large group of kids was perched on a parapet above us and I waved up at a few of them as I walked by. When they saw Kevin shooting video, there was a little commotion and then they all shouted in unison (and in perfect English): "WELCOME TO TAIWAN!!!". It was very sweet!

After Koxinga (a Chinese general) kicked out the Dutch in the late 1600s, Taiwan built its first Confucian temple of learning to reinforce ties to China, to foster the Chinese education and bureaucratic system, and to promote the social values of moral virtue, social harmony and piety that were integral to the Qing dynasty. The temple complex has several buildings enclosed within it. Wenchang Pavilion pagoda is interesting because the first floor is square-shaped, the second is round, and the third one is octagonal. It's dedicated to the gods of Literature and Examinations, and students come here to pray for success in their exams.

Traditional ceremonies and cultural events are still held at the main temple, including music and dancing rituals and a larger celebration of Confucius's birthday every September. The interior of the Confucian Temple is a bit sparse compared to the Taoist temples that we've been seeing. This is partly because Confucianism isn't really a religion where deities are worshipped, it's more of a philosophical belief in restraint and moral focus. Instead of decorations and statues, the interior of the temple displays a handful of large historical wooden placards written in Chinese that are basically endorsements of the Confucian philosophy by various Qing Emperors. Kind of similar to a "like" or a "share" on Facebook -- "Emperor Yongzheng liked this".

Okay, that's enough philosophy for one day! After the temple we walked over to the Hayashi Department store to worship at the altar of consumerism. This was one of Taiwan's first modern department stores when it was built in the 1930s. At that time it was the tallest building in Tainan (at a whopping five stories high) and it had one of the first elevators in all of Taiwan. 

We took the elevator to the rooftop, where we saw evidence of an Allied air-raid on Tainan during World War II that took place in early March 1945 (remember -- Taiwan was a colony of Japan at that time). When the building was restored in the early 2000s some parts of the rooftop facade were left as-is to show the damage marks and bullet holes from the raid.

Nowadays the store is a unique shopping experience. There are tons of locally made high-quality products, including tailored clothing, custom-made shoes, adorable wooden and cloth souvenirs, and some cute but uncomfortable bun-themed seats in front of the fancy cafe on the roof. (At least I thought they were seats. It's entirely possible that this was some kind of art installation with all kinds of "please don't touch" warnings written only in Chinese, and if so then Taiwan has my sincerest apologies.)

Tainan has no shortage of great spots for restaurants and cafes. Kevin found us a true gem for dinner -- a Japanese izakaya where we had the most delicious meal (udon noodles, karaage chicken, sauteed shiitake mushrooms, and savory fried rice). I left stuffed but wish I could've eaten more!

After dinner we walked along the very scenic Shennong Street. Paper lanterns lined the shops and everything looked inviting, even though it was kind of early on a Thursday night.

Kevin found us a speakeasy where you needed to enter the specific code in the phone keypad to get the hidden door to open.

We had some interestingly named cocktails (a 40% Egg Tart for me and a Papaya Sweet Soup for Kevin) and we enjoyed watching the bartender mix up these tasty concoctions.

I was a little sad at the end of the night, realizing that we'd only booked two nights here in this interesting and fun town. We had several really nice and heartfelt interactions with the people here (we even had a chatty conversation with one of our Uber drivers where we both just used the the speaker function on Google Translate to talk to each other). But it's time to move on to Kaohsiung -- the final city of our Taiwan tour before we head to Japan. Xiè xiè, Tainan -- thanks for the wonderful memories!