There was an aquatic theme to today, as we went for lunch to renowned old seafood place (founded in 1940, so before the white army retreat into Taiwan) where we had the set menu for two. It began with mullet roe and squid, a crab soup and shrimp rolls, the centrepiece was mud crab on […]
Northern district
This morning we went for an American brunch. It was not bad, nothing to our meal yesterday. Run by a Taiwanese-American and with plenty of other Taiwanese-Americans filling the tables, and the decor and feel was also very American. The GF had a French toast with hash browns, salad and an egg; I had a […]
Third time lucky
Today, our third attempt was successful. The first two had been during the week in which I absconded, to go to a tiny Japanese restaurant with 10 seats, which we had heard was very good but didn’t take bookings. The first time, we arrived before it opened and found it shut. Instead, we found another […]
Week of silence
No particular reason – I had plenty of time, plenty of interesting things happened, wasn’t feeling particularly loathe to engage with the world (at least after I decided to stop reading MetaTalk), I just… didn’t. We have finally made our plans for our next destination in August. East and SE Asia are not really opening […]
Buddha vs stegosaur
This morning we hired a car and driver and went to Fo Guang Shan, a large monastery and Buddhist site outside Kaohsiung and home of the world’s largest seated Buddha, as well as (it turned out) a menagerie of animatronic animals including a mooing stegosaurus. The place itself is immense, set on a hillside overlooking […]
Sporting excursion
This evening, we decided to go to a baseball match. Tainan’s own Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions were playing the Fubon Guardians, so we strolled down to the stadium and bought a pair of tickets for the home side. It was a warm evening, relatively few spectators, though the home side gradually filled up as time went […]
Past the inland sea
The western end of Tainan is Anping, which was once a bar of land or sand enclosing wetlands and lagoons. Yesterday we took a taxi there (I fear my resolve to take buses has been broken by the heat), stopping for a terrible lunch. The GF didn’t think it was as bad as I did, […]
Myth and history
Yesterday we went down to the Koxinga shrine and museum, a fascinating place full of history and religion. Koxinga was a half-Japanese half-Chinese Ming loyalist who fought the Manchu and the Dutch and established a short-lived kingdom in Taiwan. Like Dr Sun Yat Sen he seems to be celebrated everywhere (except by the Dutch) and […]
City gods
Yesterday we went first for lunch to perhaps Tainan’s most famous export, the home of slack season noodles, Du Hsiao Yueh. Quite tasty, and they had some very nice fresh bamboo served simply with a bit of mayonnaise. This is in one of the two historic centres of Tainan, about a 10 minute walk from […]
Stinktown
Tainan is, well, not a pleasant smelling city, at least on its larger roads. The stink is varied too: drains, rotting vegetables, mould, vermin, stale food and oil, other forms of filth. I felt a bit ill last night as we went for a post-dinner stroll, our first real exploration of the town. We went […]