20 March 2017
The old and the new
The old Hayashi department store
After the excitement of the last 4 days enjoying the city whos name cannot be mentioned, can Tainan possibly maintain the hype? Will it be a huge let down? Will there be footpaths to walk on? Will there be cheap food in foodcourts?
Maybe, no, yes, yes.
The down town area near the station is very very busy, but that was not my destination.
I first headed to the oldest department store in Taiwan, site of the first lift in Taiwan, the very Japanese Hayashi. It was old, touristy, and mostly still authentic, complete as you shall see with a shrine on the roof. Important for you to make peace before you jump.
I then decided to set out on a long walk from the oldest to the newest, hence my really creative title. Tainan now has its own mega mall, getting there was through lots of busy streets, many more than I expected. There were mostly footpaths. There were about 3 million scooters but none ran me over so that was refreshing, but then there was an enormous parking lot and a mostly empty new mall.
Not to worry, the food court was still great, and cheap. So cheap. I enjoy cheap food courts, I think I have mentioned that before.
Then despite my meal being enormous, I am now eating intereting lemonade flavoured jelly beans. Fun times.
I took a different path back from the new quiet mall, which went through a huge number of sports facilities. Undercover tennis courts, a hundred basketball courts, baseball, running tracks, ninja training courses, dog racing and parading grounds, badmington, everything you could think of, and they all had lights and they were all in use. All had a food cart or 2 and in between every one was a bubble tea shop. You can actually play baseball one handed whilst holding your bubble tea apparently.
Now I am back in my hotel room scrolling google maps looking for mountains, of which there are none. Not to worry, my last week in Taiwan in Puli and back in Taipei will feature MANY mountains.
Oh and one more thing, the fighter jets are back with a vengeance. The wikitravel page for Tainan actually complains about them buzzing the city 30 times a day and suggests you dont come here if you suffer from a nervous heart condition. I like them.
Near the old Japanese department store is an actual Jap-a-nees-ee looking shrine.
It is not at all brightly colored and there is no ATM or scrolling LED.
Here is the oldest department store. It is not a huge store, but it is 5 levels high and full of high quality Japanesey looking tourist stuff.
The roof shrine, with steps leading up to a leaping off point. This is where the Japanese occupying forces made their last stand. Those without swords for ritual disembowelment leapt off from here. A bit more history lesson for everyone.
If you climb up and lean out very far and put one leg over the edge whilst balancing your camera with one hand and using an outstretched free arm as a counter balance, you can take this photo of the view.
Worth the risk.
The inside of the store. So ancient.
Tonights random sort of blurry street scene. Actually theres another to come. Mainly because they are colorful.
This was the bank of Japan. Built in the Japanese Roman style.
Another random street scene on my very interesting walk between the old store and the new mall. There were a huge amount of actual restaurants along all these streets. Sit down restaurants with tables AND chairs, where the food is actually cooked in a kitchen rather than in the streets.
Tourist friendly Tainan.
Heres the new mall, and its vast parking lot.
The mall was quiet, it is Monday I guess, but the food court was still awesome. I think I enjoy food courts a little too much. Maybe there is a self help group or website or an app or something. Maybe I should start a kickstarter.
There is also a department store style basement food hall area, despite this place not being a department store to my knowledge.
Heres my amazing dinner. Its a hybrid fusion something. Theres a layer of omelette, with fried rice on top, then some kind of unusual tofu, and then Sichuan red pepper numbing chilli sauce.
As is always the case, I had to go into great detail that I wanted spicy, very spicy, please more spicy. And as often happens, the girl who sold it to me watched intently as I ate it, waiting for me to have some kind of unfortunate chilli related episode.
It was now late, for me, but I still had time to appreciate the carnival of curiosities on the way out. I sat on the pig on the merry go round until security came.
Then I had time to appreciate the bamboo gay rainbow. Taiwan is about to legalise gay marriage, the first place in Asia to do so. They like to remind you of that at every possible opportunity, even though it hasnt happened yet.
This is a giant bowling bowl-a-rama whatever. The photo is here because it has an AMF logo, and I realised I dont know who AMF are, I thought they might even be Australian.
No, they are not, AMF is American Machine and Foundry, and in their heyday, they made not only bowling alley equipment, but nuclear reactors, bicycles, and for a while they even owned Harley-Davidson. So there you go.
I like to educate my readers.
Last pic tonight, this is the largest building in the area. It is a huge Shangri-La hotel joint venture with Far Eastern Shopping Malls, strangely enough called the Far Eastern Shangri-La.
And horror of horror! I saw some white people hanging out front smoking. Hello fellow white people, enjoy your smoking.