Yesterday we hopped on a train for a day trip, something we almost never do. It's easy to do, if you're willing to look blankly at the ticket machine and wait for some kind soul to help you out. We were trying to buy tickets to Tainan and a young woman came to our aid, translating what the ticket booth gentleman was trying to tell us, then confirming that we were waiting on the correct track and finally, finding us on the train to let us know we'd arrived at our destination. People can be so nice.

We'd decided to go to Tainan and check out a couple of places I'd been to last January. Lee hadn't come with me on that trip so it was new for him too. Zach and Cierra have seen just about everything we could think of to send them in Kaohsiung, or at least the ones you can get to either on foot or on the MRT. They also accepted an offer from a friend of ours to spend a day driving to places a little out of the city. On Thursday they visited a huge Buddhist monastery, a former brick factory and some mud volcanoes. I hope to go to these places before we leave Taiwan so you'll have to wait until then to hear all about them.

Our destination in Tainan was the Anping Port area. Tainan is the oldest city in Taiwan and the former capital. It's where the Dutch set up headquarters and where they built their fort when they briefly controlled the island. This was in the latter half of the 1800's. The Japanese took over around 1890 and didn't leave until the end of World War II. Tainan has just a few European buildings and quite a bit of Japanese influence, as does most of Taiwan. When we were in Hualien there was also a lot of Japanese history to see.

Although there were signs to read at the Anping Fort about the history of Tainan we didn't really spend much time exploring any of the historical sites except for the fort. Instead, we wandered through the streets and tiny alleyways where the street vendors set up shop. It appeared to be bring-your-school-group-to-Tainan day because it was packed with teenagers dressed in school uniforms, most of which look like polyester leisure suits. I finally got to eat one of the foods I'd read about before coming to Taiwan: coffin bread.

It's a thick slice of bread that's deep fried, then the center is cut out and filled with various things and the top is put back on. This one seemed like chicken pot pie filling. I thought it was quite tasty and the vendor seemed very proud of his famous food.

The highlight of our Tainan trip was visiting the Tree House. It's an abandoned warehouse that a banyan tree has overgrown. Some clever entrepreneur cleaned it up and started selling tickets to walk through the old building and it's worth every NT (in this case, $50NT).

When we got back to Kaohsiung Cierra decided she really needed to go back to the night market and find some stinky tofu. You can't come this far and not try stinky tofu. Well, actually, you can, judging by Cierra and Zach's expressions.