City: Tainan
Top Things to do in Tainan
Top Restaurants in Tainan
- 1. Corner Steak House
- 2. A Yu Fresh Beef Shabu Shabu
- 3. Chamonix Teppanyaki (Tainan Gongyuan S. Branch)
- 4. Wen Zhang Beef Soup
- 5. Tan Zuo Ma Li Grill & Japanese Restaurant Tainan
- 6. A Tang Salty Rice Congee
- 7. Chamonix Teppanyaki (Tainan Yonghua Branch)
- 8. Cafe at Far Eastern-Shangri-La's Far Eastern Plaza Hotel
- 9. Jade Buffet Restaurant
- 10. ikki (Rende Zhongshan Branch)
Countries
Top 10 Historic Sites in Tainan, Taiwan
One of Taiwan's oldest cities and the former capital, Tainan is a modern city of commerce and trade, history and culture. It is also a religious center, with more than a thousand temples (including Taiwan’s first Confucian temple) plus frequent festivals and parades. Visit Guohua Street to sample Taiwanese specialties and local markets. Discover Taiwan’s people and past at The National Museum of History. Chimei Museum includes beautiful gardens and a private collection of art and musical instruments.
Restaurants in Tainan
1. Chi Shan Long Hu Yan
Overall Ratings
5.0 based on 1 reviews
2. Shan Hua Qing An Gong
3. Pujidian
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 28 reviews
4. Yong Cheng Cinema
5. Chihkan Tower (Fort Provintia)
Overall Ratings
4.0 based on 997 reviews
Reviewed By 631yw - New York City, United States
I am not a fan of history, but we paid a visit here just to show our respect to ancestors. The site is maintained well
6. Su Jia Gu Cuo
Overall Ratings
4.0 based on 1 reviews
7. Yu Zhen Ying Feng An Dian
Overall Ratings
4.0 based on 1 reviews
8. Tainan Wude Dian
Overall Ratings
4.0 based on 22 reviews
9. Wu Yuan Yiwen Center
10. Anping Tree House
Overall Ratings
4.0 based on 1,007 reviews
Reviewed By OrderintheHouse
In January 2020 my wife and I included a 6 night Wendy Wu private tour of Taiwan as part of our 18 day Asian trip we arranged to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. Our tour took in Taipei, Taroko Gorge, Sun Moon Lake, Tainan and Kaohsiung. While in Tainan we visited notable attractions and none better than the former Tait and Co Merchant House incorporating the Anping Tree House, located in the historic Anping precinct. Before offering a review on the Anping Tree House let me start by reviewing the former Tait and Co Merchant House which is next door to the Tree House and all part of the overall attraction package. This grand building was built in 1867 by British merchant James Tait who was engaged in the tea export business, insurance and banking. The building, a south-facing two storey structure with a central main staircase, demonstrates a fusion of both Eastern and Western architectural styles. Both storeys have a succession of arches circulating east, west and south and the top storey white-walled verandah has a green-glazed vase-shaped rail. Inside on the ground floor is an excellent museum, comprising several display rooms providing an impressive exhibition explaining the origin of merchant houses, trade shipping routes and trading models with a different theme room by room. One of the best rooms visited was the one with the excellent display of the early tea merchants and how they manufactured and graded and traded Formosa Oolong Tea. As an avid lover of all things tea I found this particularly impressive. Another room was set up as a period dining room setting. Then there were many interesting items of yesteryear on display. For example, it was great to marvel at an old Corona typewriter, a novel 19th century mechanical calculator and classic weighing scales, allowing us to appreciate the huge technological advances the world has made in making these commodities simpler and easier to use today. There was even an exhibit of a nice set of Japanese gold coins from the period of 1603 to 1867. Our tour itinerary unfortunately did not include a visit to the upper storey wax museum using wax figures to display scenes of early life in Taiwan, which was a pity. From the Merchant House we headed next door to the truly amazing Anping Tree House. What can I say – absolutely awesome to see before our very eyes the invasive power of the banyan tree when a building is left abandoned. The trees and their roots have over many years successfully strangled and just about suffocated the old house. This was an amazing sight and a demonstration of the wonders of Mother Nature. The derelict building was the former warehouse for Tait and Co. During the Japanese period of occupation of Taiwan (between 1895 and 1945), it was used to store salt for the Anping Branch of the Japanese Salt Corporation. After the War it became the warehouse for the Taiwan Salt Corporation for a time, but then lay empty for many years when the banyan trees became the buildings new tenants forming a living banyan roof and walls of banyan roots. The complex was renovated to include raised wooden paths and an overhead steel walkway to enable tourists to enjoy this rather unique attraction today. A brochure available at the Tree House aptly describes the banyan trees of the Anping Tree House. They belong to an invasive species that aggressively expands its territory and that the high exclusivity of the banyan ensures other epiphytic plants (any plant that grows upon another plant or object merely for physical support) will not encroach on their territory. It goes on to say that banyan trees thrive in humid places because their aerial roots are capable of absorbing moisture directly from the air. Roots of these trees secrete an acid that dissolves limestone, making them ideally suited to rocky environments. Thus the banyan trees found it very easy to cling to the brick walls of the building which were laid with a special mortar made of ground oyster shell, syrup and glutinous rice. We enjoyed our thirty minute walk around the building seeing how the banyan tree roots have successfully blended into the building walls and the immense level of tree strangulation of the building that had taken place over time. It was well worth taking the stairs to the overhead steel walkway to get even better views of this amazing phenomenon. This was a terrific place to visit, if nothing else because it represented something different from the usual temples and historic monuments or physical landforms such as rivers, lakes and mountains that we routinely visit in the course of our travels. As such, it is a highly recommended attraction to be included on any Taiwan touring itinerary.
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