randyland

Went to Tainan yesterday. Got up nice and early around 5 am. Tainan is a historical city in the southern part of the island. I took the high speed rail (THSR). It was quite fast, quiet and clean.
As I said I took the THSR to the city took a free shuttle to the main train station, where they have a tourist info place, where....they speak ENGLISH!!! Go figure!!...In 6 years on the island this is the first time on the main island that they had a tourist info place period. Yea Tainan!!!
While on the bus I evaluated the driving situation....its seemed less busy than Taoyuan and more room on the roads. So I decided to try and rent a scooter.

So I got a tip earlier from a student of mine to go behind the train station and rent a scooter from those guys. They were quite a bit cheaper, although absolute idiots as far as customer service, being polite, and non racist. The first guy with the English sign which said, "We rent scooters!" But he didn't rent out scooters...and pointed me to the guy next door. The second guy also said no, and pointed me to the front of the train station...the more expensive guys.

Then I stood where and asked why should I go there....didn't he want to make money...he asked if I had a license, I said yes, and his tone changed... a little...then he slowly go off his butt and helped me out.
Once again simply say no rather than being bothered to deal with a foreigner. Too bad.

Anyway it was cheap about NT 250 for 1/2 day. Thats all I needed.


Cruising around I went to the Bad Monkey Fortress (億載金城 Yì Zài Jīnchéng), a 19th century coastal fortress.

Then Anping Fort (安平古堡 Ānpíng Gǔbǎo), originally called Fort Zeelandia, was built in 1620 by the Dutch.

Then a few temples including the Taiwan Confucian Temple built in 1665 (Chinese: 台灣孔廟; also called Tainan Confucian Temple, 台南孔廟 or 台南孔子廟; or Quan Tai Shou Xue, 全台首學)(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tainan_Confucian_Temple).

And toured the whole city in general.

I got myself back to the scooter shop, back on the shuttle bus, and back home via the THSR.

Home around 10pm.

(more coming soon)