Tainan

Tainan

台南

The other weekend marked my friend Tyler's last day in Taiwan, and we decided to take the opportunity to finally have a much postponed trip to the city of Tainan on the Southern end of the island. Tainan is the oldest city in Taiwan, and originally served as the capital of the country. Accordingly, Tainan is notable amongst locals and tourists for its wealth of historical sites and buildings. Furthermore, though no longer the capital of the country, many people consider Tainan to be the culinary capital of Taiwan, with many of the country's more popular dishes originating from the city.

We caught the bullet train after I finished work on Friday, arriving at our hostel by 10 and ensuring that we'd have a full day of exploring on Saturday.

On Saturday, we headed a little bit out of the city to an area known as AnPing, which is home to an old Dutch fort from the 1600's as well as numerous old streets selling food and local wares.

The fort was cool to look around, with many of its walls crumbling and covered in plants and vines. Unfortunately, it was pouring with rain on the day we visited and the area definitely felt like a place that would be really pleasant to walk around in the sunshine (for which the south of Taiwan is notable for in contrast to Taipei). When I'd checked the weather forecast before leaving Taipei, I read to expect sunny days and 29 degrees temperatures. Accordingly, I had only brought shorts and T-shirts with me to Tainan, and didn't even have a sweater or jacket, which definitely did not help. Nevertheless, there was a small indoor museum on the history of the fort and the short-lived Dutch occupation of Taiwan before their expulsion and a variety of artefacts left over from both the Dutch and the Taiwanese of the time.

You could climb to the top of the building in the middle to get a good view of the city.

Replicas of Dutch cannons.

In the area surrounding AnPing fort, there is a wealth of old streets and interesting shops and restaurants which we walked around. Again, the terrible weather definitely brought a downer on the experience but it was still a fun place!

One of the more brightly coloured lion statues I've seen.

We stopped for lunch at a small restaurant selling Dan Zai Noodles, one of the most popular dishes in Tainan which consists of shrimp broth, coriander, an egg, garlic and a shrimp on top. It was really delicious!

I'm not sure what these circular signs are, but we saw them all around the area.

While walking around, we also made an obligatory stop at one of the many temples in Tainan, which was pretty intricately decorated inside and out.

Due to its proximity to the coast, seafood plays an integral role in Tainanese cuisine. At one point while walking along road, the air suddenly became filled with a very strong fishy smell. We quickly identified the origin of this when we discovered this shop which had a bunch of people sitting outside surrounded by piles of shells which they were preparing. These mounds of shells were piled all around the street, spreading their delightful aroma!

There were many streets like this with stands set up selling food and other goods.

Eventually the rain became too much for us and we headed back to the hostel to try off a little. That evening, we decided to check out Tainan's Flower Night Market.

We started with some very inexpensive grilled steak which involved the chef holding a huge flame to the meat in order to brown the outsides. The steak was great, especially considering it's low price and very tasty.

We also stopped at a Shawarma stall.

We tried this strange desert known as QQ, which was this very strange gelatinous substance that was scooped in balls and rolled into different powders. We got 2 peanut, 2 sesame and 2 chocolate. They had a really strange texture and constituency (texture plays an important role in Chinese cuisine), but were interesting to try at least!

We also ate some delicious sesame chicken, some slightly disappointing Beijing Duck and some candied guavas before heading out.

The next morning, the sun was finally out and the weather had warmed up considerably! We decided to explore the actual city of Tainan a little more and after eating breakfast at a small panini cafe, headed to Tainan's Confucius Temple, originally built in the 1665. The temple itself was in a big grass complex which was very pretty to walk around in the sunshine!

Facing onto the temple was an Old Street which was full of small food stalls and restaurants as well as various little shops.

The entrance to the Old Street.


The Old Street was pretty to walk along and had a nice relaxed feel to it!


A food stall on the old street.

After looking round the temple, we decided to explore the city, taking advantage of the easy accessibility around it on foot.

A statue of Koxinga-a Chinese military leader who sailed to Taiwan and expelled the Dutch East India Company.

A friendly reminder of the draught in Taiwan...

At one point while walking around the streets, we suddenly heard the familiar loud bang of firecrackers and soon discovered its origin. There was a procession of people heading toward a temple, with a variety of people dancing while the cacophony of traditional Chinese music played in the background.

One man seemed to have been given fire duty, and he was continually pulling out firecrackers and fireworks and setting them off with his blowtorch.

Then a large pile of prayer (?) cards were put into a pile, which the fire guy set alight. The man pictured below in the colourful clothes danced around the burning papers, occasionally hitting his back with the spiked red stick in his left hand. I've seen processions heading towards temples in Taipei before, but this was certainly the most bizarre as well as the loudest!

After watching all this unfold for about ten minutes or so, we turned our back on the temple and headed to a street known as GuoHua Street, which had been recommended to us by a Taiwanese guy the night before.

 The street was crowded with people, street stalls and restaurants and had various streets coming off to them which led to pedestrianised areas with stalls, second hand clothing racks and busy open restaurants. The whole place had a great atmosphere and managed to feel simultaneously lively and relaxed and was a lot of fun to wander around on. I got an especially good crepe filled with ice cream, kiwis and mango (which is back in season!) along the way and my friend Tyler was extremely excited to see a food stall selling Dr Pepper, Cuban Sandwiches and Grilled Cheese (I tried their brownie which was great!).

After GuoHua street, we started to make our way back to the hostel to pick up our bags and catch the bus back to Taipei. Along the way, I stopped at a small restaurant selling Ba Wan, known as a Taiwanese meatball. It consisted of bamboo shoots and pork wrapped in a sticky dough, which is often steamed, but in this case was deep fried. It tasted awesome, although I did fail to recognise the huge pile of garlic in front of the bun, attempting to eat it in one mouthful before realising what it was...

After this, we collected our bags from the hostel and headed to the station area to catch our bus home.