January 12-14, 2014
So the first stop on our 6-day tour of the west/south of Taiwan was Tainan.

To get to Tainan, we took HSR (High Speed Rail).  For students you can get 50% on certain trains as well as 30% on others.  I strongly urge you to plan your trip on their schedule its a huge money saver.  Considering we saved ~US$70.  The trip take approximately 2 hours which is better than TRA (regular Train) which takes 4 hours and is more expensive than half off of HSR.

After arriving at TRA Tainan Station we went to a Pho place that was the best I have had so far in Taiwan.  However, the table next to us was KTV-ing so it was quite noisy.  However I consider it a cultural experience.  I have never heard Vietnamese KTV before and well it was quite interesting. We walked from there to the bus station and took the 5 bus to M. Hospital to get to Lucky House which was the name of our hostel.

After getting settled in our hostel we ventured off into the streets of Tainan!

Pineapple Bun with Butterand Taro Custard	Coffin Toast	Curry Coffin Toast

The Coffin Toast tasted like Chicken Pot Pie.  (Ahh my mother’s chicken pot pie memories… haha)

We then walked to Matsu Temple.  We walked to the Chikan Towers and fed the fish. We then went to the God of War temple but it was packed due to a festival happening.

Matsu Temple	Chikan Tower	Fish Feeder at Chikan Towers

For the first part of dinner we had Ba-wan or 肉圓 (ròu yuán).  It is a gelatinous substance with meat inside.  It was very tasty!

Ba-Wan

We then walked down the sketchy alley and found Re chao (熱炒). Which is family style food stir-fried foods.  (Sorry no picture.)

The next morning we ate at a place that served the following:

Chicken Dish with Rice, Soup, and Salad

We then took taxi to the Anping Fort.
It was a neat place full of history between the V.O.C., Dutch East Trading Company and Taiwan. After that we walked down the street 10 mins to the Anping Tree House.

Anping Fort	Anping Treehouse

It was a cool place for pictures and full of Taiwan’s History as well.

We then ate dinner, and had shaved ice!

Tainan Strawberry Shaved Ice

The next morning, we went to breakfast at a famous Tainan fish porridge place.

Tainan Famous Fish Porridge

It was interesting! Overall, Tainan was great. One of my favorite things about Tainan was that it was a lot less City like. Lot less people, and a lot quieter in my opinion than Taipei. Then we were off to Kaohsiung!