Taiwan Trip 2015 (台灣30天環島記) - Day 17: Tainan 台南 (Tainan Public Hall 吳園, Chikan Tower Fort Provintia 赤崁樓, Chih-Kan Peddler's Noodle 赤崁擔仔麵, Anping Historic Street 安平老街, Anping Treehouse 安平樹屋, Anping Old Fort 安平古堡)
Today I left the luxury of being chauffeured around and went on with my solo travelling again. My main destination today was to explore the older side of Tainan - Anping (安平), which is also another very historically rich place in Taiwan. But before that, there were some sights in Tainan city that I did not cover the day before and will visit them today instead. Mind you all these places were within walking distance from my hostel so it was really convenient. Since I was headed to Chiayi on the night, I dragged all my luggage to the Storage Room next to the Tainan Train Station and dumped my stuff there for safekeeping (NTD 30 for the luggage storage).
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| Glimpse of Tainan city |
First stop of the day was Wu Garden (吳園) which was dubbed as the Four Great Gardens of Taiwan. In a nutshell the original owner was a really rich guy and had built this place to stay. There is a hall purposely built to house meetings during the Japanese occupation (since there isn't a place to do meetings during those days) and a really fancy garden at the back. The place is now served as a public hall where people can watch an occasional performance from time to time.
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| Nice garden to chill and take a stroll |
Next stop was Chikan Tower Fort Provintia (赤崁樓). Originally one of the Dutch's forts during the 1960's. Another nice place to roam around whilst absorbing all the history as this place had gone through several masters from the Dutch, to Ming, Qing, Japanese and lastly to the Kuomintang.
As I made my way back to the train station I stopped by at Chih-Kan Peddler's Noodle (赤崁擔仔麵) for lunch. This dish was simply noodles with pork broth and minced meat. At NTD 50 for such a tiny bowl the price was pretty steep. Apart from the noodles the shop also sells many other dishes to try.
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| Dai Zai Noodles |
There is a bus station opposite the Tainan train station where I boarded the bus and heading the Anping. The whole journey took almost one hour despite being only 6 km away. A bit tired of public transport at this time haha. If I had a motorcycle licence I might have just rented one and rode there instead. The cool thing about the bus is that they provide USB charging ports and I made full use of it.
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| Random teddy bear passenger on the bus |
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| USB ports on a bus! |
The bus dropped us off at the main area nearby Anping Old Street ( 安平老街). There is a huge map showing tourists where exactly are the attractions located so you could plan your journey accordingly. Most of them are within walking distance if it's in Anping township. As you wander about there were many stone lion masks with swords in their mouth. It is the symbol of Anping as they were once used as a charm to protect the house against evil.
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For lunch I headed to this really fancy restaurant called 伯龍坊 located along the Old Street which seemed to be really popular with all the newspaper cuttings and celebrities photos placed on the walls. The interiors of the shop seemed pretty nice with all the antique tables and chairs being used. They are probably made out of expensive wood and jade from the looks of it.
I ordered their two signature dishes: oyster omelette and taufufa (豆花). For the fried oyster, instead of cooking the egg and starch together, this shop fried them separately. The chef first fried the starch layer until it was really crispy and then only added the egg as well as the oysters on top of it. The oysters served here were huge but doesn't taste really fresh to me. I still prefer the Malaysian way of cooking this fish haha. As for the taufufa, err, it was decent but nothing really to shout about.
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| Oyster Omellete & Taufufa (NTD85) |
I then dropped by briefly at the Anping Oyster Shell Cement museum. It was interesting to note that oyster shells were once used to make cements for house building and other construction stuff. The exhibits in the museum very clearly depicted on how the shells were harvested (those none producing pearls oysters were used obviously) and then processed. Quite cool.
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| Oysters on display |
And finally, Anping's most famous landmark: Anping Tree House (安平樹屋)! At first when I heard the name I was expecting to see house being built on the tree, but in actual fact it was the tree that grew out from the house instead!
Entrance fees: NTD150
It was said that the guy who previously lived at this house did not want to destroy the banyan tree (榕树) growing through his house. A couple of years later the tree then outgrew the house. Feels like a good time to sing ‘路边一棵，榕树下～～～' whilst visiting the area.
There are many stairways built around to fully allow tourists to fully immerse themselves into the surroundings and enjoy the view from various angles. There was even a couple here shooting their pre-wedding photos. Certainly a nice place to do photoshoots, when there are no huge swarm of tourists lugging nearby.
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| Tiny pond beside the house to chill |
Over here I learned how similar the history that was shared by Taiwan and Malaysia. Both countries were inhabited by colonists although it is somewhat a slightly reversed case for both countries. For Taiwan, the Spanish and the Dutch first arrived to establish their base here before being ousted by Zheng Chenggong who used Taiwan as a base to fight against the Manchu forces back in China. The Qing forces managed to regain the island back before losing it to the Japanese for the next 50 years from 1845-1945, which is at the end of World War 2. This was why there is such a huge Japanese influence over Taiwan and they share very similar designs in terms of architecture and city planning. The Japanese have played a huge part in Taiwan's economic development as they build banks, schools, laid down major train tracks across the country. When the KMT took over Taiwan from the Japanese, the country that time was already very well developed, at least along the west coast and hence why Taiwan is such a developed nation today.
In contrast to Malaysia, after the formation Malayan union the British were only interested to plunder all our resources back to their own country to fund their Industrial Revolution, leaving little development towards Tanah Melayu at that time. Most resources were channeled towards their regional base in Singapore which also explains why they have a head start of at least 20 years compared to Malaysia after Merdeka. Malaysia, or Kuala Lumpur,
Of course there are so much more details to the history of the aforementioned countries but this has really opened my eyes when I compare the economic progression of Malaysia compared to other developed nations. Many people just love to bash Malaysia for it's incompetence compared to her neighbours but barring political fiascos, it is really no brainer that how countries ended up to what they are to this day. Japan was a major powerhouse, no argument about that. And then we have Taiwan, which was Japan's most important base. Hong Kong and Singapore, British's coveted base when they ruled over Asia. And then there's Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the rest of the poorer Asean countries.
However, the cost of being a developed nation, is that cost of goods and taxes will definitely increase, especially if you are living in big cities. This is a simple theory that many people can't seem to fathom. Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Melbourne, New York, all have crazy sky high cost of living. I am quite sure many people have no idea the cost of living in Taipei is at least 2 times higher than living in Kuala Lumpur and fresh graduates over there earn the same average salary (about the equivalent of RM2500-2800) as us. Now that is truly unaffordable living. And we don't even have to worry about typhoons, freezing winters, scorching summer suns etc.
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TLDR version: As for someone in the 20s now, living in Malaysia is a much better option and I won't give up on this country. =3
Anyway to end my post, I finally tried the famous Pearl Milk Tea from Cha Tang Hui (茶湯會), or also known as Chun Shui Tang (春水堂), which is said to be the founder of bubble tea. Personally, it's decent but not a must try haha. There is one shop just opposite the Tainan Train Station. With that, I then boarded the next train and headed up north towards Chiayi (嘉義)!
-Day 17 end-
Comments
It's less than NTD20 if i remember correctly.