26. Taiwan @ Tainan

Then next stop on our journey back to Taipei where we had our flight to The Philippines was Tainan.



We took the normal train this time.

Tainan was initially established by the Dutch as a ruling and trading base under the period of Dutch rule. The city is the oldest in Taiwan and was the capital from year 1661 to 1683.

Today Tainan has about 800.000 inhabitants and the city claims to have the most Buddhist and Taoist temples in Taiwan.

We went to see the old town of Tainan. Anping dates back to the 17th century when the Dutch occupied the area.

We went to see Anping Tree House, which used to be a warehouse under the Japanese colonization.

The old brick wall building has been abandoned for many years.

Today there is a gigantic Banyan tree which has "taken over" the old building and forming an extraordinary scene.

Roots and trunks is today part of the architecture.

The gate of the Tianhou temple in Anping.

The temple was originally built by the Ching Dynasty in 1668 and dedicated to Matsu.

The temple has a tragic and bloody history.
During the colonization wars the Japanese killed many soldier in the temple and buried them inside. Until the temple was rebuilt in year 1966 the temple and its ghosts were feared by the locals.

Fort Zeelandia was a fortress built over 10 years from year 1624 to 1634 by the Dutch in the town of Anping.

The view from the tower of the fort.

Street view of

Anping district.

Guanziling Hot Spring is reputed for its mud hot spring.

The hot spring has been here more than 100 years.

As the spring water contains mud, minerals and salts, the water has a dark color. Which is the reason for the nickname "dark hot spring".

Since the water contains a large amount of minerals and salts, the hot water is great for the skin and offers the most natural skincare nourishment.

Our view from the hot springs water.

Chihkan Tower was a Dutch fort built in year 1653.

Mickey Mouse is also in Taiwan, or maybe his cousin Tom...

Evening lights in Tainan.

25. Taiwan @ Kaohsiung

Next stop was Kaohsiung.



We got to Kaohsiung City by high speed train. The trains maximum speed was 300 km/hour. It did not feel fast, but later when we took the normal trains and saw a high speed train we could easily see the difference. The whole journey only took about 2 hours (6-8 hours with normal train), but was also twice the price of the normal train.

Kaohsiung city has close to 3 million inhabitants and has high concentration of heavy industry which contributes to a relatively big problem with air pollution.

We did not do much in Kaohsiung. But we visited the beautiful Lotus lake.

The pond is man-made and opened in year 1951. It is famous for the many lotus plants in the lake and the many temples surrounding the lake.

Some of the temples have been built out onto the lake like this beautiful Chinese pagoda and

this taoist god statue of emperor Bei-Ji Shien-tien.

Dragon and Tiger Pagoda. They are 7 stores tall. We could not go up in the towers, but out to the towers entering the dragons mouth and ending the tigers mouth. Which means good luck. To get out to the pagodas you need to walk a bridge with 9 bends.

We went to see the pagodas when it was dark.

We also saw the Spring and Autumn Pavilions. They are part of a taoist temple complex built in 1953. Each of these pagodas are 4 stores and octagonal. They communicate with each other by a 9 bend bridge.

Confucius was a Chinese teacher, editor, politician and philosopher. Confucius's thoughts received official sanction and were further developed into a system known as Confucianism.

Now we know that there is a Confucius temple in every bigger city.

The Confucius Temple is situated around the Lotus lake.

The original Kaohsiung Confucius Temple was built in year 1684. The main palace of the Confucius Temple complex, Ta Cheng  Palace, is today a building that mimics the emperor palace - the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Beijing Imperial Palaces.

Again we went to a night market. And we both agree that it was the best night market in Taiwan.

Here we saw grilled Squids on sticks.

They were selling small fried eggs.

and cake dildos.

This is a picture of Kaohsiung and the 85 tower.

We went to the top of the 347,5 meter high or 85 levels tower.

It was a very disappointing experience.

The town is so polluted that we could not see a thing from the top.

But we had a great breakfast afterwards.
Most of the time we ate in 7/11. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. We simply could not communicate with the Taiwanese people and they often do not use pictures in the small street restaurants. We actually enjoyed most food we had for the 7/11s in Taiwan do has the best food we ever tasted from a 7/11.

24. Taiwan @ Taipei

We also spend a day in the Taipei zoo and in the Maokong area.

The Zoo in Taipei is the largest in Asia and a leader in research, conservation and education.

We normally do not go to Zoo's, but we went here because we wanted to see the Panda Bears. We ended up spending many hours in the Zoo and we both had an experience, that was really good.

This is the entrance to the African animals, which we  both liked the most together with the Panda Bears.

We saw White Rhinos

and the were fighting...

Or maybe just playing...

They were big, but cool..... :)

We also saw Mountain Gorillas.

Here is a huge silver back male.

We saw a nice Bongo antelope.

Of course we saw giraffes...

There ere a couple of elephants, but the best were the...

Giant Panda Bears...

Here we saw the 3 panda bears who live in Taipei Zoo.

The 7th of July 2013 was the 3rd Giant Panda Bear born.

The Panda's were incredibly cute, but hard to take pictures of because they were behind glass.

The Maokong area used to be the biggest tea growing area of Taipei. Maokong still produces some tea and the many restaurants in the area offer both good food and good tea.

This is the Maokong Gondola. We went up to the mountains in these cable cars.

In the weekends many local people go to these mountains to hike and climb plus having a picnic in the nature.

A combination of traditional tea culture, food  and scenery are the main reasons why this area has become a tourist destination.

While we were up in the mountains we visited some Chinese temples.

Zhinan temple on Maokong mountain in Taipei.

This is a taoist temple which was founded in year 1882.

On the way to the temple.

The gate to the temple.

They also have a lot of beautiful orchids in Taiwan.

The main deity is Lü Dongbin who is a Chinese scholar and a poet.

Next stop will be the city of Kaohsiung in the south of Taiwan.