Taiwan

Tainan was the old capital and is still the historical centre of Taiwan. Unlike Lukang it very much is a busy city and has been modernised, but it still has an old world charm to it. As you wander the streets you come across a mix of modern and newly renovated buildings, slightly tired looking tiled buildings from many decades past, early 20th century Japanese buildings from the occupied era, and countless temples of varying ages. This gave the effect of being in another era entirely. Many of the buildings in Taiwan are tiled because of the high humidity and rainfall, the tiles are supposed to protect the buildings from decay. These small green tiles along with the ubiquitous pot plants that are everywhere became very unique to Taiwan and specifically Tainan for me. Like Hong Kong, Tainan was the kind of city that I could have wandered around endlessly and never gotten bored.

Aside from general wandering I visited many of the most important Buddhist and Taoist temples in the city. One of the most important is the Confucius Temple, built in 1665 and is probably the first education centre in Taiwan. I visited another temple for Matsu, the goddess of fishermen and the sea, an understandably popular deity in this island nation. There was also the God of War Temple, the Temple of Heaven, the Temple of Hell, and many many more. It was at the Temple of Hell that I came across one of the parades of the gods, or youshen. I had no idea what this was at the time, it was just a lot of music, dancing, mysterious props, and firecrackers. Each part of the parade made sure to show their respect at the temple, and then moved on towards the next one. I only found out what this was later on from a Taiwanese friend. Once a year on the gods "birthday", a representation of the god is carried around the city so that it can revel with the locals and distribute blessings. It really was an assault on the senses but I loved it. Over the following days I saw many of these processions, and they seemed to get bigger and crazier each time, I'm amazed that the locals put up with all of the traffic disruption! You can tell that they're Buddhist.

In addition to Temples there were some 17th century Dutch military structures to see including Chikan Tower and Anping Fort. Tainan is one of the cities with a military air base nearby, so every 20 minutes or so a number of jets fly over head as they practice their defence, which is quite important as China is constantly testing them by flying jets of their own nearby. It's quite an interesting experience visiting 400 year old defence structures as modern defence is taking place right above your head. While I was first alarmed at all of the signs pointing towards safety shelters across Taiwanese cities, it soon became a reassurance.

More interesting than the fort for me was the nearby Anping Treehouse, an old port warehouse that has been completely taken over by sprawling banyan trees. The area has a really eerie feeling as the trees almost seem alive in the way that they have deliberately overtaken almost every surface. Other sites that I enjoyed in Tainan wad the Chin Wen Movie Theatre that still hand paint all of their movie posters. As well as the currently showing posters on the theatre, in the nearby area you can see many old painted posters, painted portraits of some movie stars and characters, and you can even see some posters being painted. And there was also Shennong Street, a well preserved traditional alley lined with boutiques, tea shops, and lanterns.

As always Tainan has a series of night markets that you have to go to for the best street food. I tried a range of food including fish sticks and fried mushrooms, all very good. I did not however try the chicken feet! But who knows, maybe they were better than the century egg that I did try and regretted doing so. Century eggs have been preserved in clay or ash for several weeks to months. The white turns black and translucent, and the yolk turns a dark green with a creamy texture. When you first take a bite it seems ok, but then the ammonia taste hits you. How people eat this I don't know, my body was giving me very strong signals that this was not something that was ok to eat! I felt like I could still taste it for days afterwards. On the other hand the Dan-Tsu noodles, hand pulled noodles in a broth were excellent!Read more