by Michael

After 11 months of travel, traditional sightseeing is less appealing than it was at the start of our trip. But we still like a good walk around sights from time to time. In Taiwan, we took walks, bus trips, and metro rides to sites in Tainan, Lukang, and Taipei.

Tainan

As Taiwan’s former capital, Tainan boasts some interesting temples. Most are within a short walk, so we visited several.

One notable temple is to the concubines of Zhu Shugui, who fled mainland China when the Qing Dynansty ousted his family — the Ming Dynasty. Eventually the Qing forces conquered Taiwan, and Zhu committed suicide. His five concubines committed suicide with him. So they have their own temple:

We tried for a second day of sightseeing around Tainan, looking for walking paths in a nearby national park. We ended up at a giant hill of salt instead, with a giant salt owl on it. Definitely not what we planned on, and not really worth the time, but the absurd pictures are worth sharing so that you, reader, can skip it:

We also wandered in search of a recommended scallion pancake shop. We couldn’t find it, but we did find a fluffy dog where it was supposed to be:

Lukang

Lukang is known for its master craftsmen and historic core. We saw some good craft work, though we ended up not buying any. We also saw a sort of procession at a temple, which we didn’t really understand. Fireworks were included.

We visited Lukang as a day trip from Taichung and found that a half-day exploring the historic core of the city was plenty.

Both Tainan and Lukang had sunny weather, which we heard is common this time of year. It was a nice change from frequently rainy and foggy Taipei, which I will cover in Part II of this post.

[This blog post describes our sightseeing in Tainan and Lukang, Taiwan, March 15, 16 & 21, 2017.]