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Travel date: 20/05/2023
Due to my husband getting his teeth straightened, we have to drive back to Tainan every 2-3 months. After visiting the dentist, we usually have a few hours to spare. However, it's challenging to find parking in the city on weekends, so even if we plan to go somewhere or eat, we end up spending a lot of time driving around looking for an empty parking spot, often giving up.
During this visit to Tainan, we went to eat at DanDan Hamburger, which I had missed a lot. This fast-food chain can only be found in the south of Taiwan, with several stores in Tainan and Kaohsiung. It's different from McDonald's or KFC because they also offer soup options. They have vermicelli or corn soup (my favorite), and what's even better is that it's super cheap compared to other fast-food chains. For example, the set I usually choose costs less than 100NT.
Baihe Lotus Park (白河蓮花公園)
We also visited Baihe District, which is well-known for its lotus farms. Baihe produces 2/3 of all lotus seeds in Taiwan. Every year from June to September, the Lotus Festival is held there to promote tourism. The town offers lotus picking, lotus tea ceremonies, painting activities, lotus-based meals, and ice creams. The only other place that organizes the Lotus Festival is Taoyuan, the second-largest producer of lotus in the country. Since we had already visited the park several times in the past, we didn't find it as interesting. However, in addition to viewing the flowers, visitors can also buy various lotus-infused products such as ice cream, puffed rice, lotus seeds (whole or powdered), and dried flowers for making tea.
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National Chung Cheng University (國立中正大學)
Afterwards, we drove to Chiayi to see the Flame trees in bloom. The most famous place to see them is in National Chung Cheng University. The flowering period for these trees is from the middle of May to June. Flame trees are native to Madagascar and are known for their fern-like leaves and flamboyant display of orange-red flowers during the summer. In many tropical parts of the world, they are grown as ornamental trees and are known by several names, including royal poinciana, flamboyant, flame of the forest, or flame tree.
As it was getting late, we also stopped by the newly opened IKEA in Chiayi City. Feeling hungry, we then started to drive back to my parents-in-law's place. While passing by Dounan in Yunlin County, we saw a night market and decided to stop there for dinner. After finishing our meal, it was already 7:30 PM. We knew my parents-in-law weren't home, but they were supposed to be back between 8-9 PM.
Here's something I can't quite understand. They went to a Buddhist place (as they call it) for religious activities, but I'm not exactly sure what they do there. The place doesn't allow the use of phones, so we had absolutely no contact with them the whole day. I find it hard to grasp why people aren't allowed to keep their phones turned on. What if there's an emergency? It felt abnormal to me, as we grew up having phones, and being in touch is quite normal for us.
Anyway, we waited at the park while my husband tried to contact them a few times. It was already past 9 PM, and their phones were still off. He contacted another person who might have had more information, and we found out that their activities could last until 10 PM or even later. We had already been waiting for over an hour, and not knowing how much longer it would take, we decided to drive back home. Another peculiar thing about Taiwanese homes is that people not only close their regular house doors but also use garage doors. If not for that, we could have waited inside their home since we have keys. However, because the entire house was inaccessible, we had no choice. We started driving back at around 9 PM. The drive from Yunlin to Miaoli is 40 km, and it usually takes around 2 hours or even longer if there's heavy traffic. Fortunately, the highway wasn't too busy at night, so we arrived at 10:30 PM.
In retrospect, it felt like wasted time. We could have at least found a hotel in Tainan to stay for the night or, had we known they wouldn't be back until after 10 PM, we could have driven back home much earlier instead of at night.
I was raised as a Christian-Catholic, but I'm not particularly interested in religion. I also don't want our son to grow up following any specific religion. I dislike restrictions, although I don't recall having so many rules in Christianity. While I understand that people won't answer calls during prayers, the idea of having phones turned off, especially when staying somewhere for over 24 hours, is something I can't quite imagine. Perhaps others have different experiences with religion, but these are just my thoughts.
