Me and my friends hopped on the train to Tainan the first day of our winter vacation. We had been planning this trip as soon as the new semester started. Last winter vaction we had a wonderful time in Taipei, and this year we decided to head south. We actually had a small argument of whether this should be a cuisine-trip or a historic-monument-trip since we had only about two days in Tainan, and finally we came to a compromise that it would be half-half. Our original plan was to rent scooters in Tainan and travel around following the map, but Jing- Wen's father wasn't feeling secured to have us riding around in the bustling traffic, so he showed up at the train station in a huge SUV to pick us up and became our tour guide.
First stop: Chikan Tower. It was built in 1653 by the Dutch, and now it is the landmark of Tainan and its most famous historic site. It was a shame that none of us knew the historic details of this renowned building although we remembered it showing up in our junior high school's history textbook. According to Jing-Wen, the tower is particulary attractive at night when the light in the building and the garden are lighted up.
Nine stone tortoises carrying royal stele carved in both Chinese and Manchurian.
Second stop: Yan Ping Jun Mang Ci. When we arrived it was already closed, but we could still walk around outside the building.
Let us in!
Snake soup, which I never have the will to try before this trip, surprised me after Jing- Wen's father urged me to try some. It actually tasted quite good, and it was said to be good for both health and beauty (that encouraged me to take two more sip).
As for dinner, we had seafood with Jin- Wen's parents and her two little brothers in a restaurant they often go to. There again, I tasted food I never taste before, like duck's tongue, sea snail and chicken's kidney. As disgusting as they may sound, they were not as bad as I thought.
Jing- Wen's parents were kind enough to welcome us to stay overnight at the kindergarten they belonged, which we could sleep in a music classroom that was big enough to room the five of us. Staying in the kindergarten brought us all back to childhood again, and we stayed up till midnight playing those miniature instruments, sharing each others' kindergarten memories until we fell asleep.
An-Ping Fort, also a national grade 1 historical site, was our main tour site the second day in Tainan. Actually I was more interested in the famous cuisine and snacks selling nearby, and before we visited the fort I was already carrying a bag of shrimp crackers and a box of preserved fruit to take back to Taichung. 
Eternal Golden Castle was built in 1874. The handwritting of General Shen inscribed on the brick gateway is the most well-known feature of this castle, so almost all senior high history textbooks in Taiwan have the photos of the characters "億載金城" and "萬流砥柱".
