After while we decided to take a cab to 安平古堡. The taxi driver was confused with our instructions and ferried us to the navy. Thankfully he was kind enough to charged us a discount when we finally reached. At 安平, there is the old Fort Zeelandia which was built in 1620 by the Dutch. Like Sentosa, it had many fake cannons which attracted a lot of sua gu tourists like us and some school children. They even had a free photography-cum-insurance card session where a free photo was taken and made into a card. It was essentially an insurance card so if we fall sick in Tainan, we re insured. If not, then it is a souvenir gift. Very very thoughtful!
After this, we went to Zhou's famous prawn roll which the taxi driver say die die must try. So we went in for lunch and then after that continued to tour the area a bit, ending up in a "tree house" which we thought was a house on a tree, but no, it means - a tree on a house (i.e. the roots grow around the house). We decided not to see the old trading establishments, preferring instead to return to Tainan city centre where we went to Confucius Temple next.
There we took some pics for facebook and then started walking to other areas passing by the old gate:
And moving on, we reached the five-concubines temple. Accordingly, when the last Ming emperor died in Taiwan (by way of suicide), his five concubines demonstrated their loyalty by ending their lives. Such was the devotness that the temple is also a site for their tombs. Passing by many other exquisite temples, we ended up in a shrine (鄭成功祖廟)devoted to Koxinga (or 鄭成功) who tried to restore the Ming dynasty but failed.
Inside the 鄭成功祖廟.
Nevertheless, he was revered for driving out the Dutch. The name Koxinga is a Dutch's bastardization of guo xing ye, a title conferred to 鄭成功. Interestingly, 鄭成功 was born to a Chinese pirate father and a Japanese mother.
With our tired legs, we decided that we should start looking for a place to sit. So we ended up in this cafe where we ordered a set of coffee and toast (with egg). There was this boy beside us with an English Grammer book and we were thinking whether he might just turn his head to us and asked us a few questions since he was glancing at us when we conversed in English earlier!
As the guidebook said this meatball in glutinous rice is a must try, we walked across the road to try it. They were only so so, and SL LLG quickly lamented how ang moh's fascination of Asian countries really leaves much to be desired. We continued out food pilmigrage to Slack Season's 擔仔麵 which we eventually found.
At least the interior was picturesque as the man made the noodles on the spot upon request.
Determined not to let the previous failed attempt of 花園夜市 search where we walked for at least an hour, we made sure that it was opened by asking the lady in the 擔仔麵 shop. It was a horrible walk the day before so we decided to cab there today. But since we were still too early, we walked for a bit and then passed by a shoe shop. There was 50% discount so we got ourselves a pair. Realising that we had quite a bit of stuffs with us, we returned to the hotel first to put our stuffs down. After watching a TV programme showing how the first Ming dynasty emperor came to power (SL LLG said it is a potential National Education video for the Taiwanese/Chinese), we left for the 花園夜市.
At 花園夜市, I had my first chance of 臭豆腐 which is not for the faint-hearted including SL LLG who refused outright to try.
I love them with the pickled cabbages!
We also ate some other 小吃 including duck wrap and oyster omelette with SL LLG. Soon we were just too full and our cab returned us to the hotel. We spent some time trying to figure out which bus stop was the most appropriate to take the bus to the train station for tomorrow. To which, SL LLG had to ask this jewellery shop auntie, but she was kind enough to offer.
Unlike yesterday where we had drinks at the Japanese outlet, we decided to miss night drinking a miss.
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