Going down...south.

It was Tomb Sweeping weekend and we had a few days off so we decided to head down south to explore some new territory. First we took a nice comfy bus ride down to Taichung where it sucked ass. Besides a really big and cheap night market, there was really not much going on. Everytime we asked for directions, someone would always put us in a cab and we'd end up in bumblefuck. I swear it's karma from all those times we sent tourists on a path train to New Jersey when they wanted to go to Times Square.

After the night, we booked outta there asap and took a crappier bus ride down to Tainan and to our relief, they welcomed us with open arms!

It was the weekend of Mazu Festival - when they celebrate the exit of one God and celebrate the arrival of the next. I think they have a few Gods in which they rotate over the course of a lunar year to watch over the people. It was a parade a minute with firecrackers at every turn of a corner, and fireworks at night. And this took place BOTH days we were there. Muy festive! And then we happened upon their form of traffic control, which we found to be quite amusing....

At least s/he gets the job done. There were also billions of temples, amongst them is the famous Confucius Temple, Chi Kan Temple, Temple of the 5 Concubines, etc.

Some ancient artifacts preserved from the first days of the Confucius temple. Tells us a great deal about how they lived back then.



















Then we tried some different foods that Tainan are well known for - like Wha Gwei. I actually have no idea what it is. I told my local Taiwanese friends that I tried that and they said, "Oh yes! I know what that! It's really good!" I still have no idea what that was.



A stroll in the park right before our 6 hour ride on the train SITTING ON THE FLOOR. Spontaneity just doesn't work well when it comes to a holiday weekend in Taiwan. Both train and bus stations were packed with people trying to get back home. Nobody spoke english so the closest we got was a ticket machine - except they had translations like "Fu Zing" and "Chu Lin" which means absolutely nothing to us! 6 hours. On the floor. It was a nightmare.