Day Two: We woke up very early to get onto the bus again for another long trip down south to Tainan city.
Our first stop of the day was Chihkan Tower. The Tower was built by the Dutch to serve as their administrative center, and was originally known as Fort Provintia. The walls were once 453 feet around and 36 feet in height. The walls of this stronghold were made of bricks imported from Java, while the walls of buildings were made from rock-hard bricks of oyster shell lime mixed with sugar water and rice paste.
Here you can see a monument built to represent the Taiwanese gaining control over the dutch building.
After the Taiwanese gained control of this building they changed the outer appearance to make it look like their own building and not the dutch.
Our next stop of the day was General Koxinga's Shrine. A Ming loyalist and the arch commander of the Ming troops on the maritime front for the later monarchs of the withering dynasty, the Koxinga devoted the last 16 years of his life to resisting the conquest of China by the nomadic Manchus. Upon defeating the forces of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) on Formosa in last campaign in 1661-1662, the Koxinga took over the island in order to support his grand campaign against the Manchu-ruled Qing Dynasty.
So basically this scary looking guy was a very famous Taiwanese general. What I found interesting was how he was born. While his mother was at the end of her pregnancy she went on a walk along the coast to encourage him into birth. This worked a little too and Koxinga was born on a small rocky island on which his mother had been walking. Here it is believed that all important people must be born in an unusual way. His dad was also a pirate!
For dinner we stopped by at Taiwan's 3rd largest night market. I LOVE night markets! There a little scary at first with all the people pushing and shoving but they are so much fun. Unlike Courtenay, stores dont begin to open up until about 4-5pm so there is always somthing to do in the evenings. The food is terrible for you but so good and everything is so inexpensive (most likely because its not exactly 100% legal?)
Our first stop of the day was Chihkan Tower. The Tower was built by the Dutch to serve as their administrative center, and was originally known as Fort Provintia. The walls were once 453 feet around and 36 feet in height. The walls of this stronghold were made of bricks imported from Java, while the walls of buildings were made from rock-hard bricks of oyster shell lime mixed with sugar water and rice paste.
Here you can see a monument built to represent the Taiwanese gaining control over the dutch building.
After the Taiwanese gained control of this building they changed the outer appearance to make it look like their own building and not the dutch. 
Our next stop of the day was General Koxinga's Shrine. A Ming loyalist and the arch commander of the Ming troops on the maritime front for the later monarchs of the withering dynasty, the Koxinga devoted the last 16 years of his life to resisting the conquest of China by the nomadic Manchus. Upon defeating the forces of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) on Formosa in last campaign in 1661-1662, the Koxinga took over the island in order to support his grand campaign against the Manchu-ruled Qing Dynasty.
So basically this scary looking guy was a very famous Taiwanese general. What I found interesting was how he was born. While his mother was at the end of her pregnancy she went on a walk along the coast to encourage him into birth. This worked a little too and Koxinga was born on a small rocky island on which his mother had been walking. Here it is believed that all important people must be born in an unusual way. His dad was also a pirate!
For dinner we stopped by at Taiwan's 3rd largest night market. I LOVE night markets! There a little scary at first with all the people pushing and shoving but they are so much fun. Unlike Courtenay, stores dont begin to open up until about 4-5pm so there is always somthing to do in the evenings. The food is terrible for you but so good and everything is so inexpensive (most likely because its not exactly 100% legal?)
No comments:
Post a Comment