Taking on Tainan

April 1 - 5, 2016

If you missed the post for the first half of this weekend you can check in out here, but I also know everyone is crazy busy and a 14 page long blog post is just not going to get read...so chop it in half I did!

Sunday morning we woke up late at Ariel's aunt's house and had a wonderful home cooked seafood lunch before heading to Kaohsiung, the county before Tainan, for the day. We didn't arrive to Kaohsiung until mid afternoon, but we quickly headed towards our destination {the one thing I had actually planned for our weekend lol}The Lotus Pond and its famous pagodas and pavilions. 

Before moving to Taiwan I associated dragons with Asian culture, but wasn't quite sure if that was how things really were or if it was just a stereotype that many of us place on the Asian art and cultures. Needless to say, I know the answer now for sure, that dragons are very much a part of Asian and Taiwanese culture as noted in the dragon and tiger pagodas that we went to see in Kaohsiung. These 7 story tall pagodas each have a statue in front of them; on the left a dragon and the right a tiger, as well as a winding walkway to reach their entrance. It is believed that if you enter the pagoda through the dragon you will gain good luck while exiting through the tiger will rid you of bad luck...I'm not a superstitious person, but who am I to say no to the possibility of good luck!!

Afterwards we went next door {with tea in hand!} to the spring and autumn pavilions where we spent more time checking the area out {I'm honestly amazed we spent nearly 3 hours at Lotus Pond!}. When we had finished Ariel's cousin picked us up and the 4 of us along with his girlfriend and her friend went out for a delicious Taiwanese dinner and ice cream before heading back to Tainan for the night. Once in Tainan we headed to a small local bar where we were able to relax and unwind from the week while playing a few rousing rounds of heads up!

Monday brought along a whole new set of adventures and beautiful blooms. We slept in again (OK, I can't lie...actually everyone else slept in and my lovely internal alarm clock had me up at the crack of dawn :/ ) and had a popular roast duck dish for lunch at Ariel's aunt house before heading out for the day. Afterwards we stopped at a local park to check out the trees that were in bloom and they were B-E-A-utiful!! Later we went to another abandoned warehouse that has since been taken over by Banyan tree {the same ones from the temples in Cambodia!} known as the Anping Tree House and checked out all the cool growth and the small history museum they had on site. Later in the day we stopped by Anping Fort and the giant local night market before settling in for the night with some Chinese Mahjong lessons. {I'm feeling more and more Taiwanese everyday haha!}

Tuesday brought with it even more food (you'd think I'd look like an elephant by now!), Fort Provintia, gourd tea, and a long train ride back home to a well deserved good nights sleep! Until next time Tainan!