Tainan and Kaohsiung

Tainan is the old capital of Taiwan, and was a last minute addition to our itinerary as we decided that it was a better prospect than returning to Taichung after leaving the mountains. Of course, the weather was much better on our last day in Sun Moon Lake, and we were able to take a walk around the lakeshore and take a cable car ride that turned out to be a lot longer than expected - this resulted in us missing the intended bus by 10 minutes and then being delayed by another hour... We also resolved that we would stop drinking, at least for a few days - not that we had been having a lot, but we wanted to avoid the habit of "one or two" every night. 

The end result was that by the time we got to Tainan and settled in to the hotel, it was about time to go in search of dinner. We had been told that Tainan had the "most authentic" Taiwanese street food and went to the biggest night market - Dadong markets - in search of some. This turned out to be a major disappointment, probably due to the fact we were there on a Monday night. There were very few stalls, with nothing much that appealed to us, so we decided to walk the 2km back to the hotel and look for somewhere to eat along the way. James' need to move in the shortest possible straight line took us into some dark, deserted back streets, causing Gillian a few anxious moments. In the dingiest looking part of the walk, she spotted a sign for a bar, that on closer inspection turned out to be quite a fancy cocktail bar. New resolutions were tossed aside, as the finding of a back-alley hipster bar in the middle of the old capital of Taiwan just couldn't be ignored. There was a fun array of unique cocktails on offer, Gillian had one called a "doner kebab" (it tasted like meat, and was better than you'd think), and James had one with fermented bee pollen. There were a couple more as well, but at least they also had some food to offset the drinks, and make up for the earlier failure. It was the sort of find that we hope for as we randomly wander the streets of any new place. If you ever find yourself in Tainan, look up Bar Alter - it was really great.

The next day we did some wandering through the city, visiting a Confucian temple, which proved to be extremely interesting. There is a strong academic theme to the worship of Confucius, which James could appreciate. There was a lot of information in English explaining everything, that was very enlightening, with some interactive displays that kept us amused. We moved on to visit the Hayashi department store, a cute building on Gillian's wish list, which still shows signs of damage from American air raids in WWII. We wandered through some more market areas, to Shennong street - the oldest street in Tainan, although most of the stores/stalls were closed for the day. We did find some relief from the heat in a tucked away tea store, and walked from there to some of the major temples in Tainan, including the Sacrificial Rites Martial Temple - which is a large complex and pretty famous throughout Taiwan (and well attended).

Kaohsiung was our final destination in Taiwan, and included treating ourselves to a moderately fancy hotel. The city is different again to the others we visited, feeling a lot more modern. This is probably due to a lot of recent development as a result of the expansion of the port activities, which were really kicked off during the Japanese occupation, meaning it is a relatively young city, overall (thanks Kaohsiung History Museum!). There were again a lot of interesting options for food, and we went through the gamut, with a western style coffee shop (with remarkable latte art!), night markets (the best of the trip for food), a street corner restaurant lunch which provided remarkable taste and value, and having a final dinner of dumplings in the hotel restaurant - which were really excellent. 

Along the way we explored the port area, had fun wandering the city and also went to the lotus lake and Old Fongshan City area, learning a reasonable amount about the history of the city as a Dutch outpost, then development of irrigation and the port area during the Japanese era, becoming the most significant port in Taiwan in the modern day. After scratching the surface, we found it's an interesting place to visit in its own right, with a fair bit of its own history and charm.