Helen's Blog 5

These last few days in Tainan have been very eventful. On Saturday we did an indigo dying project. I thought it was so cool that the dye started out a muddy green color in the water basin and slowly turned deep blue when exposed to oxygen. I tried make my own design of folding it into triangles and securing it with popsicle sticks and I think it turned out decent although a bit different than I thought. (my design is fourth from the left in the image).



We started the next day with a boat tour of a local wetland reservoir by Anping. It was a small lake with mangroves on the banks. There were some locals out fishing on bamboo rafts and we even got to try casting some nets ourselves. We didn’t see much fish but we did catch a surprising amount of jellyfish. Our tour guide even let us touch one. It felt just like jello! In the afternoon after the boat tour we toured the nearby city of Anping, where the original Dutch fort was located. All we saw that was left of it from the original 17th century fort was a decaying brick wall behind a temple, but it was still pretty cool. Afterwards, we stopped by the house of a well-known local calligraphy enthusiast. They had little sheets to practice our Chinese calligraphy and I was reminded of how bad I am at it. We also went to the nearby famous Anping “tree house” which is literally an old warehouse that has been nearly consumed by a massive tree. Of course it is the kind of place that basically demands to be photographed so here are some photos!





On our free day after, I went to Tainan Museum of Modern Art, but I’d say it was a bit of a failure honestly. They had a special exhibition for Alphonse Mucha and since I had already seen some of his work in Paris earlier this year, and because the special exhibit price was basically triple the general admission, I bought the general admission ticket. However I discovered that, despite the fact that the museum is 3 stories with multiple gallery spaces on each floor, only one gallery was open. It was about this artist from Tainan (named 蔡草如) and was a decent exhibition but sadly it could not emotionally carry the ticket price and so I left feeling more than a little bit annoyed. However, I found this delicious crispy preserved green plum coffee after and felt a lot more satisfied! After the museum we went to this place called Ten Drums, which basically an amusement park built from an old sugar refinery. It was very charmingly rusty and run down so it felt like a unique experience you wouldn't be able to find in the US. We went on this epic slide that they put you in an insulated sack for, so you zoom down extra fast, and we went this swing that was on the very top of the old refinery so it had some great views. The ticket price also came with a complimentary Taiwanese drum show that was very epic!

Comments

  1. MeichunSeptember 9, 2026 at 4:55 AM

    I'm sorry to read that the museum doesn't have any particularly interesting exhibitions at the moment. Well, at least the building itself is interesting! I've never been to the 10 Drum Theme Park, so hopefully I'll get a chance to visit someday.

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