Tuesday (February 10) was the first
day I got to sleep in (besides Saturday, which didn’t count because my body had
not completely adjusted to the new time schedule). Kristina made pancakes for breakfast that
morning, and then we headed out to take the train to Tainan to meet Jenny and
Zitta (Taiwanese teachers at the Chaiyi CEI campus). In order to get to the train station we had
to walk a long way to the BRT bus stop (and I nearly got blisters, since my feet
were not used to walking that fast and that far in my boots). The local bus (which has a stop next to the
sugar factory and which we took the previous two mornings to get to the
bus/train station) does not run at that time of day. The BRT bus stop is located near the government
offices and nice houses.
When
we arrived in Tainan we had a few minutes to kill before Jenny and Zitta came
to pick us up in Jenny’s car, so we went to 7 Eleven for Kristina to add
minutes to her phone, and then to an 85 Café to get some tea and baked
goodies. By the time we finished that
Jenny and Zitta were at the train station.
After meeting them, they took us to a famous restaurant to eat lunch,
the first of many “famous” places in Tainan. Since all the “famous” restaurants we were
taken to in Tainan were full and/or had lines, we decided any place with a crowd
(versus the places with very few people) must be famous. Our famous lunch consisted of fried chicken
(either sandwiches or tenders) and a side of Taiwanese soup (a type of soup
only found in the southern part of Taiwan).
After
lunch we went to a fort located in the Anping district. It was originally built in the 1600’s by the
Dutch, later taken over by the Chinese government, and then used by the
Japanese. Anping Fort was turned into a
tourist attraction in 1975.
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| Some famous person |
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| One of the remaining original walls of the fort |
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| Tower |
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| View from the tower |
After
visiting the fort we went to the Anping Tree House – an old building that used
to be a warehouse that now has large banyan trees intertwined with its walls
and ceiling.
Another building in the
same area was an old British trading house, which is now a museum.
A third building displayed traditional arts
and crafts. It provided opportunities for people to stamp designs on thin
paper, or practice writing Chinese with water on stone slabs using a particular
kind of brush. After visiting all these
interesting places we went to eat more famous food.
As
mentioned before, the famous places (or places with really good food
reputations) all seem to have long lines.
We got in line for some kind of fried bread. While we waited in line with Zitta for our
fried bread (one lady had a really large order, and then something was wrong
with it that made her unhappy, so they let other people buy the items instead;
all the food was cooked at the time of order), Jenny went to pick up red bean
jelly. I assume it has soy in it,
because she did not get any for Kristina (who has a spy allergy).
It was very bland in flavor and kind of like yogurt in consistency and
appearance, with red “pearls” on top (those were the only flavorful part in the
whole jelly, and tasted the best). Of
the fried breads, one was good, but the other had too much onion flavor for my
liking, so I let those who like onion enjoy it. |
| Sunset |
After
eating we went to a place with salt – they had colored salt for each day of the
year that they call birthday salt. Mine
could have been a prettier color, but it was a bland green. That place also had flavored salt for tasting, and
a place outside where people could wash their hands with salt (I declined, as
it was cold by that time).
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| My birthday salt |
After
visiting the salt place we went to the night market. A night market is very similar to an American
fair, except it has no rides and it runs all year long (with a night or two off
every week). Everything else though (the
crowds, food vendors, sellers, and games) is very similar to what you would
find at a fair. The Tainan night market
was more crowded than the one in Chaiyi, especially the food section. The crowd in the food section was literally shoulder to shoulder,
and before we entered Zitta warned us, “Hold onto your wallets.” We got our supper from the night market; I
had seasoned and grilled pork on a stick, and also tried some fried sweet
potato balls and lemon chicken. While we
were there Jenny and Zitta also looked for “clothes” (cases or skins) for their
phones. People in Taiwan, with their
love of cute things, take phone cases/skins to the extreme. It seemed about every third vendor was
selling phone cases, some of which were ridiculously larger than they had to
be, all because of the “cute” design on them.
After
our tour of the night market we headed to the train station. We made it there around 8:00 p.m. and soon
after boarded a local train to Zitta’s house.
Since I was not allowed to spend more than three consecutive nights at
the CEI Campus (campus regulations) Kristina made arrangements for us to stay
with Zitta’s family Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
Zitta’s
family has what I guess is a typical Taiwanese house (for those that don’t live
in apartments). It is tall and narrow –
one room wide and approximately three rooms long – has hard wood or tile
floors, steps up into the bedrooms and bathroom (you don’t want to miss the
step in the dark – it hurts!), and drains in the bathroom floor with the shower
being in one corner (with no curtains or walls to keep the water contained –
Kristina has the same type of bathroom).
The bed is not on a frame, but the mattress sits directly on the
floor. It, along with the pillows, was a
lot harder than I am used to.
From
what I could tell, the room we stayed in connected to the other rooms, and was
just divided by wooden partitions and a large closet/wardrobe. I am pretty sure my theory is correct,
because I clearly heard snoring during the night, and it was definitely not
me or Kristina. At the top of the wall on
the hall side is an opaque, flowered glass window that runs the length of the
hall (it lets in the hall light at night, and confused me at four something
Wednesday morning because I thought it was a window to the outside; the hall
light had not been on when we went to bed).
In
Taiwanese culture, shoes are left outside the door, and only slippers or socks
are worn inside the house. Slippers
clicking on the tile floors let us know when other people were stirring
(especially since Zitta slept a lot later than we did on Wednesday). Another interesting feature in the house was
the downstairs doors leading from the family room to the room with the stairs,
and from the room with the stairs to the kitchen. Both doors are swinging doors, with neither
latches nor knobs, and can be pushed open either way, and won’t slam when you
let them go. There may also have been
other unique features to the house which I did not see.
Another
thing that is Taiwanese (or rather, is common in cities everywhere) is riding
buses, trains, other buses, or HSR (high speed rail – but only for longer
trips). Walking is also another thing
they do a lot. Finding all the right
stops, stations, stores, routes, etc. seems like it would all be confusing and
take a long time to learn, but Kristina handles it all beautifully, getting
everywhere she needs to go without any trouble at all. I have a hard enough time navigating downtown
Athens, but she has no problems navigating what seems like downtown Chaiyi City.
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