Kaohsiung Day 1: Getting there & our first TW hotpot experience

After two nights in Tainan, off we were for Kaohsiung! Kaohsiung is just one stop away via HSR and the journey takes around half an hour.

As there weren't so many people, we managed to get seated tickets over-the-counter. I cannot remember how much the tickets were but they were definitely not as expensive as the ones from Taipei, which in its defense was a 9-stop ride to get to Tainan.

Also, the Kaohsiung HSR Station is called Zuoying :) I had to check so many websites and ask Mary to confirm, because I did not want to buy tickets to the wrong place lol

Just one stop away!

The Taiwan High Speed Rail (HSR) made traveling within Taiwan really fast and easy

We arrived at Zuoying HSR Station and took the Metro to the famous Formosa Boulevard station (美丽岛捷运站), which was where our Airbnb was located near to. Our Airbnb host, Mr. Jiang, actually came to pick us up from Exit 11 and walked us to our apartment! It was really helpful of him because he made sure we got out at Exit 11- as it had escalators. The other Exits (Exit 1 was the nearest to the apartment) had no escalators or lifts :|

Our Airbnb apartment turned out to be fairly good; location was excellent, although the apartment and the building were a bit worn. The host told us not to throw tissue in the toilet bowl, which is something I really do not like about Taiwan, but apparently back in March 2017, the government has already taken large initiatives to combat that bad behavior, starting with public spaces mostly. Its a long story but back in the day, sewage systems in Taiwan were narrow and not well-built, so they would get stuck very easily when people chucked things in them, and the Taiwanese grew up and got used to NOT throwing tissues in the toilet bowl but in a rubbish bin next to the toilet bowl. There are still rubbish bins in every single public toilet in Taiwan, but people (I hope) are changing their behaviors now and are flushing their waste tissues. If you were wondering-- YES, they did (and some still do) put their Number 2 used toilet paper in the rubbish bin INSTEAD of flushing it. I can't imagine the stench, but I have a habit of holding my breath and breathing through my mouth when I go to any public toilet.

They actually have signs that TELL you to flush your used tissue (!!!):

I have also included the rubbish bin in this picture....

But understandably, the older generation is taking up this new revolution much more slowly and adapting much less, especially in towns and cities outside of Taipei. This toilet etiquette got a lot better when we eventually got to Taipei.

Anyway, moving on, our Airbnb apartment was in a great location because right downstairs was the Liu He Night Market (六合夜市):

Taiwan is famous for their night markets. Everyday at around 6PM, vendors and stall owners will start setting up their stalls selling all kinds of things ranging from street food (better known as 小吃) which roughly translates to small-bites, and is a Taiwanese culture of eating. They are purposely made and sold in small-portions as snacks, which works great because that means you can try more things! Trust me, there are so much food in the night markets of Taiwan that I think we only ate 10% of them because we've such small appetites and we didn't know what they were or didn't know how to order... lol. We spent a lot of time at Liu He Night Market because we literally lived above it. Liu He Night Market happens to be one of the more famous and happening ones in Kaohsiung.

We didn't have dinner at the night market on our first night though! We figured we had many more days there and that we could always go there after dinner, so we went to have our first Taiwanese Hot Pot experience!  You know how they say Taiwan is the home for hotpot, and we do so love our hotpot :)

We checked online and I found the Tripod King (鼎王麻辣鍋) which had a lot of positive reviews, and it was less than 15 minutes walk from where we stayed. I later found out that it is one of the most famous hotpot places in Taiwan, with more than 9 outlets, with 4 in Taipei alone.

We managed to walk in without any reservations- yay! Read online that it is really hard to even get reservations, but perhaps this is the case for Taipei branches? But to be safe, book ahead!

 It was a very spacious and pretty place. Felt a little like a spa!

There are two options for the soup base- the Pickled Cabbage (酸菜汤) and Mala (麻辣汤). As we are less on the wild side of the spicy life, we opted for the Pickled Cabbage soup. The soup itself came with cabbage and pork bits in it- yum!

Ordering was a breeze because the menu had pictures and came in English too.

We always have the prawn paste in Ice Bar Shabu Shabu back in Brunei, so we had to try this fish & shrimp paste!

Beef slices

Hotpot restaurants in Taiwan come with free flow of rice which you can take from the spread laid out on the counter. We didn't know this and that was why I ordered the noodles which you can see from the pictures above O_O

It was a really good first Taiwanese hotpot experience. The ambiance was great, staff were friendly and most importantly, food was really good! I would definitely go back again if I had the chance. Prices were fair, we spent a little less than BND100 for a large portion of food and multiple refills of soup base.

Tripod King Hot Pot Kaohsiung

No. 16, Qixian 2nd Road, Xinxing District, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan 800

+886 7 286 2557

Hayashi Department Store (林百貨) in Tainan

In Tainan, one of the main highlights and must-visits is a department store; the Hayashi Department Store. Before you start wondering why you would wanna go to a department store, of all places, while you're in Tainan, the building was built back in the 1930s by the Japanese and is the first department store in Tainan- ever (second after Kikimoto Department Store in Taipei City). It is locally known ad Lim's Department Store (林百貨 or also the "Five Stories House") so we had quite some fun looking at all the "Lim" merchandise (context: my BF has the surname Lim). The Department Store, back its days was the grandest of its kind, and was the first building to have a lift, so people used to go to Hayashi just to take the lift- even when they couldn't afford anything there. That makes the lift in Hayashi the first ever, and the oldest in Tainan, and is still functioning and open to public! 

With five floors, it was the tallest building in Tainan for a while and it didn't end up well during WWII. It was damaged during air raids. Machine gun bullet holes can still be found on the rooftop structure!

On the rooftop, which still exists today after restoration and reopening in 2013, is a Japanese shrine. 

One of Tainan's rare Japanese Shinto Shrines sits on the rooftop of Hayashi Department Store

Hayashi is a full functioning department store now with the ground floor selling Taiwanese delicacies such as pineapple tarts and herbal soup ingredients, while the other floors sell bags, clothes, trinkets and there are also restaurants and cafes on the higher floors. 

I found an interesting blog article written here back in the 2013 before the building was restored and reopened, with empty spaces here.

Definitely a must-go if you're in Tainan! Give it around 3 hours to fully explore the entire building, you won't regret it. :)

“If you never visited Tainan, you never really visited Taiwan” - Tainan City government

We arrived in Taipei Taoyuan International Airport Terminal 1 at around 9PM, and there was quite a long line at immigration. We only got out at around 10PM.

After immigration, we went to get our Visitor SIMs (again, for research purposes) in the airport from Chunghwa Telecom. They had many options based on how many days and included credit. They all gave "Unlimited" data. It was pretty easy, we were there for 11 days so we opted up for the 15-Day SIM.

There are two 15-day options, which are only different in terms of the included credit (NT$100 vs NT$200).

This was NT700 (roughly BND$33).

You can reserve the SIM or make your purchase at Taoyuan Airport. There are branches in the airport that open for 24 hours.

More information at their website here.

After getting our SIM Cards, we had to take a shuttle to Taipei Main Station to catch the HSR (High Speed Rail) to Tainan.

We were instructed to wait at Stand 12 for Bus 705. We wanted to get tickets at the counter but the lady told us to pay in the bus. I can't remember how much it was, but it was not a lot.

 Our first Taiwan bus experience.. lol

After we got to Taipei Main Station, we queued up to get the tickets for the HSR ride to Tainan. When it got to our turn and we told the counter staff what he wanted, in true TVB fashion, he stood up and told us to RUN! The last HSR for the day was leaving RIGHT NOW!

After a brief questionable second, run we did. We were lucky enough to catch the HSR, but we did not pre-purchase any tickets so we got the unreserved tickets instead. For HSR rides, Unreserved tickets are cheaper than Reserved ones and are usually for late purchases. They are not numbered and you can only sit at Carriages 10-12. If there are no seats, you would have to stand. And that was exactly what we did for our entire trip from Taipei to Tainan! We had to pick tiny corners next to the HSR doors, with our large luggages and lean on the wall for 1.5 hours :(

Hence, advise is to pre-buy your tickets online. I didn't because I wasn't so sure what time we would be done with immigration and be at Taipei main Station, but that is OK because you can change your HSR ticket times.  Also, can someone explain to me why that was the last HSR to Tainan because the website says 11:30PM is the last train, but we were there at around only 10:30PM???????

This was our "ticket" which wasn't really a ticket as we were issued this in the HSR sort of like a consolation thing. It was NT$1150 per person so that was around $55 each.

It was a really uncomfortable ride but we were thankful we got to Tainan that night itself. We reached Tainan station at midnight and back to our hotel (via taxi) at around 12:30AM. We were so worn out after that we almost fell right asleep!

Day 1 in Tainan: Anping (安平) District

We met our friends Mary and Thanis on this trip too! The last time we met them was in Seoul when we went skiing and more :)

Roughly about an hour's taxi ride from where we stayed (around 10 minutes walk from each other), Anping District is a historic town in Tainan and the oldest district in Taiwan. Back in the 17th century when Tainan was known as "Dayuan", has been occupied by the Dutch, Koxinga period, Qing administration and Japanese during the colonial era. Housing multiple historic sites and attractions such as the Anping Fort, Eternal Golden Castle, Anping Tree House and the Old Street, Anping district makes a great day trip!

First things first, our taxi driver dropped us off at this restaurant for their beef soup. She said that it was one of the most popular ones in the area.

Writings on the wall~

Thanis did most of the ordering so I wasn't sure what these below were but I can tell you they were delicious! #notafoodblogger

Beef balls

Tofu

Beef tongue, beef brisket and beef soup #beefbeefbeef

This one I know lah: lu rou fan (Braised Pork Rice) 滷肉飯 :9

closer look at the beef tongue. very tender and juicy!

The restaurant. I reckon you can give it a try if you're big on beef and are visiting Tainan :) The ordering is through a piece of paper with all the dishes (IN CHINESE), and you use a pencil to jot down how many quantities you want. The uncle working in the shop was quite friendly and informed us that some stuff we wanted like noodles weren't available as they were only in the lunch menu.

After our brunch, we went to the first historic site on our Anping Day out:

the 1) Anping Tree House

Purchasing tickets at the ticket booth

We got the 5-site pass for NT 150 (approximately BND $7) each. The 5-site pass allowed us access to the Anping Tree House, Chihkan Tower, Anping Fort, Eternal Golden Castle and Navy Destroyer Museum. It was a pretty good deal because we did cover all 5 of those sites in that one day!

We got coffee at the Tree House Cafe the moment we got in. Frankly I didn't read up about Tainan before going so I didn't know what to expect.

I thought that this banyan tree was it LOL #fail

But no, the Anping Tree House, is originally the warehouse of Tait & Co.

During the Japanese Occupation, it was used as the office and warehouse of the Salt Association of Japan, with the Taiwan Salt Company assuming control after World War II in 1945. Later, the salt industry in Anping declined, and the warehouse was abandoned. Today, the aerial roots and branches of banyan trees wrapped around the building, combined with the ruined red bricks, create an unusual and beautiful sight. Foreigners were barred from trading in Taiwan for most of the Qing dynasty, but the 1858 Treaty of Tianjin forced open four harbors in Taiwan to foreign traders. Anping was one of them. There were five big foreign trading companies in Anping in that era, of which only the buildings of Tait & Co. and Julius Mannich & Co. remain.
-excerpt from taiwannews

After that, wewent to the
2) Tower (Fort Provintia)

The Chihkan Tower, also known as Fort Provintia was a Dutch outpost built in 1653 during the Dutch colonization of Taiwan used as the administration centre. Its original name was Provintia which means “eternity” in Dutch.

More info here

Next up:
3) Anping Old Fort (Old Fort Zeelandia)

Again built by the Dutch during the Dutch Occupation, the Fort has seen many exchange of ownership from the Dutch to the Koxinga and then to the Japanese. Due to that, the Fort isn't really exactly a fort anymore as there have been many attempts to rebuild it. The one existing now was rebuilt by the Kuomintang as a tourist site. There is an observation tower, a statue of Koxinga, remnants of two bastions and 70-metre long stretches of both the north and south outer walls of the original Fort.

The entrance to the Old Fort

View from the top of the observation tower

Statue of Koxinga (know more about the legendary man here)

We did a lot of walking in Anping as the sites were all walk-able from each other. Here are some Anping Old Street pictures:

I absolutely adored bubble tea in Taiwan. Any random stall would serve good bubble tea!

Fried wantan and prawn fritters 

The restaurant had 胡瓜 on the wall, don't mess!

My BF absolutely detested the smell of the Smelly Tofu 😂 

Smelly tofu is a type of fermented tofu with a strong odor which is apparently "hard on the nose, but easy on the tongue". You can normally smell the stench of it from afar as they're usually sold in stalls like the above out in the open in Taiwan. It is a cherished delicacy in Taiwan but we avoided it like plague LOL

Forgot what this is called, but it is yam with pork, and something sweet on top which my BF said his grandmother used to make. I didn't like it. Haha I am not adventurous with food at all. Anyone can tell what this is called?

Super random but we walked by this temple and saw Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, and took photos with him (with a small voluntary donation).

For this next stop, I remember cabbing it because it was a bit further off from where we wandered off to:

4) Navy Destroyer Museum (德陽軍艦博物館)

The Deyang Destroyer (ship) served the Taiwanese Navy for 28 years and was decommissioned in 2005. It was then remodeled and opened to visitors in 2011 as a museum ship. The Gearing-class destroyer under the United States navy was also involved in the Vietnam War (which I got to learn a lot about from our last trip to Saigon)  and was renamed as Deyang when it was sold to Taiwan in 1977. The museum was pretty awesome because you could enter almost every nook and cranny of the ship.

You can go to the top and take a photo of the other person on the helipad. We didn't do it because there were so many people but Mary & Thanis managed to get a good shot.

Aye aye, sir!

Video from the top!

Moving on:

5) Eternal Golden Castle (億載金城)

Not long before Taiwan was taken over by the Japanese, the Taiwanese built this fortress as an attempt to keep the Japanese out. Famously (or infamously?) known for taking bricks from the Fort Zeelandia to build, the Eternal Golden Castle was the first modern-era fort built in Taiwan. There is a large central field which was used as practice ground and the fortress was equipped with British "armstrong" cannons which were posted on each bastion along the sea-facing wall.

When the Japanese took over Tainan, the Fortress was abandoned and eventually saw to the cannons being sold off for funding the war in the north. A fortress with no cannons is like a stove without fire (apologies for such an uncool pun, must be hungry- already). In 1976, the government repaired the fort and was renamed as a first-class historic site only in 1983. 

Frankly, the Eternal Golden Castle was the least impressive site we visited that day. Again, with no pre-research on Anping before going (mistake on my part- been slumped at work :(), we didn't know what to expect and were a bit disappointed as it looked like a big empty piece of land with a few cannons to just walk around in. There was a singing competition that was happening the night we were there, so there were a lot of people there having rehearsals, and lots of videographers with fancy cameras walking around.

After that, we took a taxi back. We spent a whole day there from morning to late afternoon and I liked it, particularly from the fact that it is so historic. If I had to pick a favorite site, I would pick the Navy Destroyer Museum because it was pretty interactive how you could go almost everywhere and it was hardly restricted (that I could see, anyway). Definitely worth a day trip!

Til next time, xx