Chinese Chic　中華風　中華チック　: Taiwan Round-Island Trip Jan '09 (Part 2)...台湾环岛之旅09年(2)...台湾ラウンドアイランドトリップ(2)...

Tainan:

This is the historical city of Taiwan, akin to Japan's Kyoto. It has the most historical grade one monuments of any place in Taiwan and is where most of Taiwan's historical architecture lies. It is also renowned for its traditional Taiwanese cuisine,being supposedly the best in Taiwan.

Above: Hand-painted movie posters...haven't seen these in awhile hey? Can u recognise the one for Cape NO.7, the hugely successful Taiwanese movie of last yr??

Above and Below: The National Museum of Taiwanese Literature...worth a visit definitely!!!!

Above and Below: Tainan Railway Station...

Of course, as i said previously, the architecture and historical monuments in Taiwan is really not that majestic if you've seen the ones in Japan and China, and i'd ask visitors to skip them if u've not had alot of time whilst in Tainan. What i'd suggest is eating! The nightmarket called Huayuen Nightmarket is apparently the largest in Taiwan and i'd say it is definitely possible! It's huge and was windy when i was there but they sell all kinds of goodies there, from bread(please if u wanna get money-for-value bread/cakes, get them from nightmarkets in Taiwan..they often only cost NT$10 per piece when bought in sets..) to sushi which cost NT$10 to indian milktea to clothes to designer caps to the usual taiwanese streetfare...i LOVED this market...it's SO GREAT:-) Beware though, its only open on certain nights of the week, not everynight unlike many other taiwanese nightmarkets so check beforehand going...You can even get the Japanese yakitori sticks there but at only 1/4 the price of the same stuff at a japanese restaurant..!

Another worthy visit is the fantastic Museum of National Taiwanese Literature which blew me away as i wasn't expecting much from Taiwan's museums initially (i was dead wrong!)..its a great place and you learn so much from it...they even had videos of movie clips of movies adapted from well known taiwanese literature such as the gay-themed 'Niezhi' Crystal boys and classify it under themes such as women's social advancement in taiwan or gay rights movement in taiwan,etc...well worth a visit!

The Matzu Temple area is also well worth the visit as well as the other temples of Tainan..they're really interesting...they actually have deities for 'marriage' and 'child-birth' and 'good academics' which i only heard about but never saw before...

Also, on weekends, there are often performances such as free music, singers,etc at the historical places of Tainan which is interesting...cos it may be modern performances set amidst the historical architecture...

Stay clear of the Du Xiao Yue Dantze Mian Shop though which is very famous with even the former Presidents having visited it as its NOT worth it at all..i think the english name of the shop is something like Slack Noodles or something...the portions are so small, the price so expensive, and overall so highly overrated, i dun recommend it at all...

Definitely, do visit Tainan if given the chance as i actually grew to like Tainan much more than i expected to....i like the historical atmosphere, the small-town feel, and the wonderful Museum of National Taiwanese Literature and other equally wonderful architecture which Tainan city possesses...

Meinong:

Above and Below: Luscious Lavender(?) fields beside the Meinong Folk Village...

Above: I doubt Malaysia would have these kind of facilities in rural areas such as Meinong..another indication of Taiwan's social advancement in terms of human services...

Above: Chengching Lake in Meinong...peaceful and relaxing....

Above: On the expressway back to Kaohsiung from Meinong as the sun sets...

This is Taiwan's most famous 'Hakka Village'...apparently 90% of its original inhabitants are Hakka...you can hear ppl speaking Hakka here unlike in other places around Taiwan where Mandarin or Hokkien is the common lingua franca of the streets....its an interesting place to visit and one should try the Hakka Cultural Museum...however, transportation would be a problem as you need a car to drive there...it really is a village n i dun think trains stop close enough...Taiwan is a very industrialised country similar to Japan and even many towns look like cities (basically just smaller versions of cities!) but Meinong is definitely a village, i think its the most rural part of Taiwan i've visited!!

Kaohsiung:

Kaohsiung is where my Kaohsiung Aunt lives. She was kind enough to allow me to stay at her place in the newly developed Zuoying District which is near the HSR Station. Her apartment i've been stayed before in previous yrs but whats different is that Kaohsiung's MRT system has just commenced running and i could just use it to her apartment. Its really very convenient as the MRT station and HSR station are combined and so i only had to get off and change to MRT and go to her station which is really a mere few stops away.

I like the view from my aunt Kaohsiung's place as its quite tall and you can see the apartment blocks which are all relatively new, being the newer part of town so to speak..security was tight at her place...

Recommended places to visit are the Lian Tsi Place, Xingjuejiang area and definitely visit the Zhongyang Gongyuan MRT Station and the Meilidao MRT Station, they're really amazing and have combined public art with public infrastructure...these two stations are one of the prettiest stations i've ever seen anywhere (in my albeit limited travelling experience)...actually all the HSR stations are sparkling high-tech and edgy too....

If i complained that Taipei has not developed or changed in the past 4 years..then Kaohsiung has CERTAINLY changed...no, actually transformed in the previous 4 yrs...in fact, Kaohsiung has changed alot in the past decade or so according to my Aunt's experience living here. She had moved here along with her husband in the 80's from Taipei and bck then, Kaohsiung was such an undeveloped backwater city compared to Taipei that she had to forsake many conveniences in life and become adapted to life here...well, not anymore, Kaohsiung really left me impressed with its many recent developments such as the newly opened Kaohsiung Arena and Hanshin Dept' store, the myriad of public art installations around town, the 'S' bridge, the Love River promenade, the newly built world's largest solar-powered Kaoshiung World Games Stadium designed by the famous Japanese architect Toyo Ito and the list goes on..

In fact, many places in Kaohsiung really looks like Japan! 10 years ago, no one would think anywhere in Kaohsiung looks like Japan but on my recent trip bck, many places in Taiwan remind me of places in Japan...and parts of Kaohsiung now look similar to Japan...i personally like the Central Park area..its like Taipei's Daan Forest Park or New York's Central Park, being Kaohsiung's main park right in the centre of the city...i love the feeling there, and one should really go on weekend nights as there's a light display/cafe spot in one corner of the park whereby there are little cafes/restaurants with performances/singers singing at night whilst u enjoy ur meal in the open with the bustling streets on one side and the relaxing greenery of the park on the other end..

After Kaohsiung, I went to the Kaohsiung Main Station and bought a ticket to Taitung. Whilst waiting for the train, i rushed to change money and also went to a bookstore nearby to buy a book as i knew buying chinese books in taipei was a must with the wide selection and cheap price. I took the Taiwan Railway to Taitung. I had initially planned to stop over in Taitung which is a small town on the relatively undeveloped east coast of Taiwan but decided to head home and so sat right back to Taipei. It was kinda cool as i passed through many stations along the way...the train attendant thought i had made a round island train trip in one day! I assured him that i was from Kaohsiung and did not make such a trip!

I liked the feeling of taking the Taiwan Railway train as its older and not new like the MRT in Taipei and Kaohsiung...they serve inter-suburb as well as inter-city routes which was crucial during the days when Taiwan did not yet have the efficient and modern MRT and HSR systems which it has now nor the highways it has now...similar to Malaysia's situation now, with the KTM trains serving intercity and intersuburban areas.

However, this was also the first time i saw another side to Taiwan, the poorer side. As i had previously been taking the MRT in both Kaohsiung and Taipei as well as took the more expensive HSR during all my time on the West Coast (eg. Taichung,Kaohsiung,Chiayi, Changhua,etc) i never had the chance to encounter the poorer people...but taking TR allowed me to see the occasional few faces of rural people and they looked like my images of what poor farmers from shaanxi province in rural China would look like! I was like omg, in modern taiwan, with its MRT, shinkansen,etc...were there ppl like this still existing?? It kinda surprised me greatly..i didn't expect to see them...

Above: Cape No.7 Fever still apparent in Taiwan...even in the bookstore...haha...

Above: Public Art inside the Kaohsiung MRT...

Above: Cheap bread at the nightmarket...

Above and Below: Hanshin Kaohsiung Arena Store...

Above: Taiwanese bread is by far the BEST bread in the WHOLE world...i love Taiwanese style bread...so much tastier than the Australian varieties and Malaysian ones (well, actually now Malaysian bakeries have copied much of Taiwanese bakeries..so...)

Above and Below: Colourful potpans at Hanshin Department Store and omurice below~~~~~i miss this from Japan!!!!!

Above:Another nightmarket...a staple of Taiwan's night scene...

Above: Kaohsiung Street Scene at night...

Above: The Dusk Wetmarkets which cater for working women off from work to buy some food bck home...Taiwan is an amazingly convenient country, similar to Japan, where the convenience stores allow you to send stuff acting like a postoffice, including laptops, boxes of items,etc as well as pay bills, and wetmarkets which operate at dusk for working women, being but just some of the examples of the conveniences of living in Taiwan..