Im on the Leeds United web page, hurray!!!

People i met here who contributed to, and improved my trip:

http://www.leedsunited.com/page/NewsroomDetail/0,,10273~1269754,00.html

I arrived into Tainan pretty exhausted after having been up so early, but after a quick shower i decided that i should at least try and do some sightseeing. I began my walk at the Taiwanese Literature Museum, where i was more interested in the architecture than the writing. I'm afraid to say that i don't think my knowledge of Chinese (i.e i have none) would have held me in good stead to enter! From here i wandered down to Confucius' Temple, which was ornately decorated and spread out over a reasonably sized area. If you go here though, there really is no point in paying the admission fee, as you can see all but one building for free anyway!

My journey took me through the city and on to the Great South Gate, where i had to pass through a small building site to get access to the remains.

I'm not really sure if i should have been wandering around there, but as no-one told me otherwise, i had a little nosey :) Next stop was to see a section of the old city wall, after which, i went to Wufei Temple. The story behind the temple goes that the last heir to the Ming dynasty, King Nin Jin, recognised he would never regain power of the Chinese empire, so decided that suicide was the better option! He was living in Taiwan at the time with 5 concubines and suggested that they move into a nunnery, but this thought probably depressed them after the lives they had so far enjoyed and thus they decided to commit suicide along with the King. Wufei Temple was constructed to honour the women who showed such an act of loyalty.

A few hundred metres down the road i came to the 300 year old Fahua Temple, which had a nice pagoda and then moved on to take a look at Koxinga's Shrine and the nearby Lady Linshui's Temple.

I finished my 'temple tour' by visiting Dongyue Temple and finally the brightly decorated City God Temple. Needless to say i was templed out after all this! I went to use the internet at night and got a very pleasant surprise when i found that the Leeds United website had published an article about me! (see link above) It was totally unexpected and brought a great big grin to my face :D

I had planned to spend at least one more full day in Tainan, but i was annoyed with my hotel when they put up the room rate for the weekend. I understand some hotels have this policy, but they normally inform a guest upon checking in, but they had made no such effort to tell me that the price would vary during my stay. I was already paying $20, which was the most i had spent on a room in a long time, but it was on principal that i was unwilling to stay there another second and thus checked out.

The tourist office were really helpful and said there was actually a hostel in the city, which was only $10 a night (Lousy Planet said the place i was staying in was the cheapest - thanks). I was then told though, that the price of hiring a motorbike had actually doubled, so my enthusiasm for heading into the countryside around the city depleted somewhat. The problem was that my day was drifting away and i'd started to question if i really wanted to stay another 24 hours in a city just to look at more temples! I decided i couldn't be bothered to lug my bags around town and instead decided that i would buy a train ticket for the 20.30 train later in the day.

By this stage it was pushing on towards lunchtime, so i made a beeline for the few key attractions remaining in the centre that i hadn't already seen.

First was the Altar of Heaven Temple, which was tucked away down a small back street and this was proceeded by the Official God of War Temple and then the Chikan Towers and finally Matsu Temple. I enjoyed the Chikan Towers the most, as it was something a little bit different from everything else i had been looking at in the city.

I think that although i was really enjoyig Taiwan, my spirits were beginning to drop as i was struggling to eat any decent meals. My diet was ranging between sandwiches from the 7/11, McDonalds and Burger King. It was honestly not the kind of food that i wanted to be eating, but so many of the restaurants in my price range normally had neither English signs or even photos of the food, just simply a description in Mandarin and the price.

I was actually a little surprised at the levels of tourist infrastructure within the country, as it seemed like they were lacking basic things like English menus in almost all the places i had been to.

I caught the 20.30 train to Taitung, which took around 4 hours, but managed to pass much of the time doing some crossword puzzles. I was actually fortunate to get a seat, as the train ended up been standing room only and i don't think it would have been much fun to have been stood up after a long day of walking around!