Wandering Around Tainan

After our visit to the Confucius Temple, we strolled around Tainan and I snapped a few photos along the way. Everything was so lush and green and it was in the high 70's. Perfect day! This is a mango tree! I've never seen one before and I didn't know they grew so tall! It is towering above a very high wall.

Even the fire trucks are dress for the holidays!

We ended up at the first department store in Tainan called Hiyashi Department Store. It was opened in 1932 when Taiwan was still under Japanese occupation. It was the tallest structure for many years and it boasts the first elevator in Taiwan.  It became a government building and then a historic site but several years ago it was renovated and became a department store again. 

Tainan has many temples and you bump into them every few minutes. We walked by several of them on our way around the city.

Many streets in Taiwan look like this. There are signs, banners, boards, neon lights and advertisements everywhere. It's a bit visually overwhelming at times, especially when you are looking for something in particular. As you can see, there is little to no English in site.

Outside many temples you will find stands that sell paper "money" to burn in honor of the dead. This "ghost" money or joss paper is burned to ensure that the dead have many good things in the afterlife. The small bundle is 100 NT, which is about $3 USD.

You can see temples peeking out above buildings.

And there's another one squeezed in between two newer buildings. Amazing!

We made our way to the Anping historical district and visited the old fort there.

These are the walls outside of the old Dutch fort in Anping. This fort was built in the early 1600's by the Dutch when Taiwan was called Formosa (which means beautiful island). It was called Fort Zeelandia. The Dutch built the fort on a sandy peninsula so they would have easy access to the ocean. It was a bad idea because there was no fresh water so it had to be shipped in from the mainland.

These banyan trees, surrounding the grounds of the fort, are some of my favorite plants in Taiwan. They are primordial and dramatic!

Bricks from Java, coral, sugar syrup, oyster shells and glutinous rice were used to make the walls outside of the fort.

The Dutch had this fort until 1662 when Koxinga's army brought an end to the Dutch colonial period. This was the beginning of the Ming dynasty influence in this area.