Baby Expat: Trip to Tainan

Weekend before last Maxime, Henri and I headed to Tainan – a city in the southern part of Taiwan. There is a Shangri-La there so we decided to go check it out. We traveled by high speed rail. The hotel was great and we were treated to a tour of some of the sights. I actually really liked what I saw – While it’s still a sizeable city (pop. 750,000 approx.), it definitely felt less jam packed than Taipei.

On the train, headed to Tainan

Anping Tree House: So at first I thought we were actually going to see a house built (intentionally) up in a tree - but instead it was a house that ended up being consumed by a Banyan tree. A Banyan tree is a sort of (strangler) fig tree that always grows from a host - it often consumes it's host but usually that would be another plant or tree - not a house... I've seen lots of these trees here. They have a sort of moss that hangs down and seems kind of creepy to me, and exposed-looking roots. I did a little research on them after reading something interesting on site. In the Phillipines many believe that spirits dwell in them and that you should never point at one as to not anger the spirits that may be residing there. On site I read that they were very unpopular because their wood is too soft for building so they were regarded as "good for nothing" but then since they were allowed to remain they provided much needed shade - so to everything there is a purpose...

This is a trimmed Banyan Tree

Orchids at Anping Tree House: I assume that since there isn't much to see at the tree house they decided to have small exhibitions there - they had some amazing orchids. It's becoming notable that I must have a strange fear of plants because like the banyan tree, I think some orchids are kind of creepy...

The Rest: We also visited a temple, an old (market) street, a Dutch fort and battleship... I became a less enthusiastic photographer as the afternoon (and rain) progressed...