Having spoken with Laurens I had learned that I could visit 5 sites on a single ticket, so decided today would be the day for that.
I managed to locate an oBike using the app, and set off.
The first stop was the former Tait & Co Merchant house, which has been turned in to a museum.
The architecture was very nice, with a very western mansion feel mixed in with Chinese style for the roof.
While there, there was a caligraphy exhibition, and I got to write my name in Chinese characters using a brush with water.
As I was leaving, I bumped in to two guests from the hostel, Evylyn and Monica, and they advised that their plan was to go in to the national park so were not going to take advantage of the multi site ticket.
The next stop was very near, the Anping old fort and fort zeelandia, demonstrating the dutch influence in the area. Anping uses the chinese characters for gentle/kind and peace, which was the name for the area before being called Tainan.
The museum itself had information about the different architectural styles, though the walls inside were just plasterboard with a wallpaper/plastic over them to demontrate the brick work!
After the museum and fort, I headed over to the Eternal Golden Castle, an old fortified area with lots of history.
I got to witness a display in Chinese demonstrating how the canons were used - they even loaded the canon up with fireworks to simulate the firing of the canons!
Recently, while doing ground maintenance, a new ammo storage room had been discovered in the complex, though they had filled it in due to the fact that it was not possible to keep it stable, there was still a sign to advise about it.
Next up was the US Navy warship Te-Yang, a DDG-925 battleship.
The whole ship was open to the public, where we could learn abut the missile launchers and other artillery as well as walk on the heli-deck and get a good view of the city from the con tower.
The last stop was on the other side of the city, that being the Chinkan tower.
I reached there towards the end of the afternoon, and before heading in, got to watch a Chinese dragon parade making its way down the street.
At the tower, I enjoyed the very chinese architecture with dragons on the roofs and some history information about the people who stayed there.
One feature they had was a counter to say how many people were on the frst floor - since there was a limit to how many were allowed up the stairs at any one time!
There was a spectacular sunset while I was there, with amazing hues of pink and violet in the sky, silhouetting the palm trees and roofs.
I made it back to the hostel, and met up again with Evelyn and Monica, as well as Jake.
Evelyn has been studying anthropology in Taiwan around the sunmoon lake area, for the last 11 years! Jake also worked in Taiwan, though up in Taipei so this was just like a ini holiday for him to be in Tainan.
Monica was a hitch hiker and had some great stories about her adventures travelling around asia.
We headed to a bar, which Jake had found the other day, and which none of us would have otherwise thought was a bar of any kind! It just looked like a normal house, unless you went in to the back and found the bar!