Since my trip to Taiwan was mainly for my mother, I thought I would keep the itinerary simple, with little effort required to move around. Still, I wanted to add a twist, so I decided to spend one night in the port city of Keelung near Jiufen, and another night in Taipei. This way, we could complete our trip within northern Taiwan and see cities other than Taipei.
I am now not sure if it actually made sense in the end, but in order to avoid crowds, we had decided to stay in Jiufen on a weekday, which meant we would go there on Friday as we arrived in Taiwan. Since it is possible to travel from Jiufen to Keelung by direct local bus, the next day, Saturday would be the overnight stay in Keelung. As a result, the third night in Taipei to be Sunday night.
However, after making all the arrangements, I found out that public local markets in Taipei are closed on Mondays (at least Google told me so). No matter how reasonable the route itself was, as a local market lover, I felt that the last day of our trip would be uninteresting one. Moreover, the private kitchen that impressed me during my last visit had been closed. Should we continue to Taipei on our last day?
My wanderings began.
I started looking travel guides and YouTube every day. There were many choices, but if all we did was move around in Taiwan, it would be contrary to my original purpose and it would be too packed in itinerary. After much consideration, I came to a conclusion that the city of Tainan seemed like a good choice. Tainan is a city in the southern part of Taiwan, where the old cityscape still remains. We decided to stay two nights in Tainan, forgoing overnight stays in Taipei and Keelung. When we finally decided to stay in Tainan, it was less than two weeks before departure, and we had a hard time finding a good hotel.
After returning to Taipei from Jiufen, where was chilly and drizzling, we took the Taiwan High Speed Rail from Taipei. Although the distance is long, the trip takes only about two hours, and the seats are reserved. When we arrived in Tainan, the weather was sunny and almost sweaty. It was like in an another country.
In Tainan, I wanted to visit the ruins of an old warehouse called Anping Tree House, so we headed there first. I was able to capture beautiful oblique light in the early evening. If I had gone to Keelung as I originally planned, I would not be able to get out of the cloudy weather, so it turned out to be a great decision.
For dinner that night, we went to a private kitchen that I had selected from a list of restaurants made by my Chinese-speaking friend. I went there thinking it was a Cantonese-style restaurant that also served Western-style food, but it turned out to be more delicately flavored than I had imagined. It was worth overcoming to make a reservation and other arrangements, and this restaurant alone made me feel glad that I had come to Tainan.
Full-day sightseeing began the next day. We started with an early morning visit to local markets. After purchasing some snacks at the market, we returned to the hotel, took a rest, and then walked around the city’s tourist spots. The city was delicately large and we cut about half of the places we wanted to visit, but we still had to walk about 14 kilometers on this day.
Tainan was extremely interesting and very enjoyable, Taiwanese culture was influenced by Dutch and Japanese rule era. There were some places I missed and there seemed to be many charming back alleys. It is a city I would like to revisit.
Although I used UBER and took breaks from time to time during this trip, the distance we walked during the four-day trip was about 40 km. While I was able to adjust our air and rail travel schedule, as a sightseeing trip for an elderly person, this probably meant that we walked too much.
I tried to reduce the amount of effort required for travel, but it seems that I could not change my travel style. I am a selfish old son after all. By the way, my mother is 80 years old this year, and she is taken care by the same acupuncturist as myself and wife, who says my mother is in the best in health among the three and I am the far worst.
I guess that means I should take care myself without thinking about other things.