Shennong Street, Chikan Tower, Tainan Wu Garden, Blueprint Culture & Creative Park, Tainan Park
I left Taipei and spent a couple of uneventful days in Taichung. I was still feeling unwell at the time, and on the second day I was there it also started raining quite heavily, so the thought of going out to explore the city was not particularly alluring. Instead of sticking around to see if things will improve, I got on a bus and made my way over to Tainan, the ancient capital of Taiwan.
This was going to be a more relaxed part of my adventure in Taiwan, just walking around and doing some sightseeing. My first stop was Shennong Street. In the old days it was quite significant, but now it seems a bit different. The old street was decorated with lanterns, and certainly felt a bit different than the rest of the streets around it, but not much more than that. And early on in the day many of the stores appeared to be closed, so there wasn’t a whole lot to look at. On the bright side, there was barely anyone there, so I could have a better look at the street while it was relatively empty and quiet.
From there I made my way over to Chikan Tower. On the way over there I stopped by Grand Mazu Temple. It seemed quite big and impressive, at least from the outside. Although it looked a bit interesting, I decided to not go inside and instead keep walking around the city until I made it to Chikan Tower.
The tower was built by the Dutch, was later used by the Qing dynasty, and then the Japanese made it into an army hospital until it was finally turned into a museum. At the entrance to the tower there was a nice garden with places to sit down, have something to eat, and enjoy the sunny day.
In order to get to the main area, I went over a bridge that crossed a narrow canal full of fish and after passing an old gate I could see the tower, or what was left of it. The old entrance to Chikan Tower, or Fort Provintia, was still there, although it was blocked, so there wasn’t much to see in that part. In the yard in front of the main building there ere a few steles, as well as a horse statue that used to be guarding the tomb of a general named Zheng Qi-ren.
After taking a quick look around I went up the stairs into Haishen Temple, the main building of this area. There was a decent amount of exhibits on both the first and second floor of the structure, but without much explanation in English I wasn’t able to understand much of it. On the second floor there was a balcony that went all around the temple and provided a view from the top, although other than the garden there was much to look at.
There were a few more sections to the grounds, at least according to the leaflet, but it seemed they were not accessible due to renovations.
A little while later, I arrived at Tainan Wu Garden. It was smaller than I expected, and there wasn’t much there. Grass, a few places to sit down, and a small pond with some fish. It was a nice place to stop and relax for a little bit, but without much to do there I didn’t see a reason to stick around for long. It is apparently one of the great four gardens of Taiwan (according to Wikipedia), but great is not a word I would use to describe it.
And then I tried to go to Taijiang National Park. After walking around for a few minutes I found myself in front of a stone sign telling me that I am indeed at the national park, and there were cars parked in the parking lot, but not much else. I found myself walking along a road next to the river, so I had a view of the water and the boats, but I could figure out where the starting point was. Google was of no help, the few signs along the way were of no help, and soon enough I gave up on trying to do a boat tour along the river.
I’m not sure if I gave Google the wrong input, if it was simply me not doing enough research or if something else was wrong, but I left the place quite unhappy.
Hoping to end my time in Tainan on a high note, I went back to the city and stopped at the Blueprint Culture & Creative Park. It is, as far as I can tell, a small area with a few shops in it and a couple of benches. The streets were painted and decorated with sculptures, and some of the shops had interesting designs to them. I did feel like I’m missing something, as I didn’t know anything about the park, its history, or the significance of it.
In order to see something that I do understand, I made my way to Tainan Park, the final stop in this city. There were trees and grass, benches and paved roads, things that I’ve seen in many parks before and probably will see in many other parks that I’ll visit on other adventures. But that is not a bad thing, it is something that I could understand, and enjoy.
There was also a pond in the park, and in the middle of it a nice pagoda. There was a bridge connecting the pagoda to the rest of the park, so I could walk over there and stand in the center, enjoying the afternoon sun and not doing much other than that.
I didn’t feel like I’ve seen anything particularly impressive in Tainan. Each of those things by itself was not very noteworthy, but putting all those different activities together made quite a nice time in this city.