Tainan is my favorite city in Taiwan. It is the oldest city, established by Dutch explorers in the 17th century, and so has that very nice aged and established feel that historical cities have. It is in the southern part of Taiwan and also has that slower, relaxed pace that southern cities have. Both of these aspects appeal to this Virginia girl’s heart.
In my opinion, another cool thing about Tainan is that the Tropic of Cancer goes right through it. This little factoid appeals to my geeky love of numbers and trivia. South of Tainan is officially the “Tropical Zone” and north of Tainan is merely the “Subtropics”. It’s all hot to me, but it is true that Tainan is noticeably hotter than Taichung (~2 hours to the north).
On our second day we went to see Cheng Kung University (this is the “official” spelling, but in pinyin it is Cheng Gong). The name of this school translates to “Success University” which I think is just great! Who wouldn’t want to go to Success U? In truth, it was named after Zheng Cheng Kung, a Taiwanese historical figure who ran the Dutch settlers out of Tainan.
We weren’t looking for success, we just wanted to enjoy a little shade on a hot afternoon.
We found the shade all right, this is the biggest of several really, really big trees on campus.
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