Taiwan: Day Nine

On Day Nine we traveled by ourselves to Chiayi, a couple hours north of Kaohsiung on the west coast of Taiwan.  Chiayi is one of Taiwan's larger cities but still smaller than Kaohsiung.  We were planning on using Chiayi as the gateway to Alishan Mountain, a mountain village/resort area reknowned for tea fields and sunrises.  We had originally planned to travel to Chiayi and then immediately make our way up the mountain to Rueili, a tea growing village on Alishan.  But, on the way to Chiayi we decided we didn't want to get to Rueili after dark, so we decided to stay in Chiayi for the night and head up the mountain early the next morning.

We picked a hotel right across from the bus station and one we thought our guidebook was recommending.  Unfortunately, we realized after checking in that we were staying in a hotel unknown to our guidebook.  But, for about $25 USD we had our own bathroom (with an American style toilet), a TV, and a super hard bed, so we were pretty proud of ourselves.  Compared to the other hotels we had stayed in thus far, and really any hotel we've ever stayed in, this place was a shit hole.  But, calling it all part of the adventure we didn't let it bother us.  We dropped our bags off at the room and headed out to explore the city.

According to our guidebook, one of the things Chiayi is famous for is turkey rice.  Everyone must try turkey rice when visiting Chiayi.  Furthermore, everyone must try turkey rice at this one particular restaurant that invented turkey rice.  This is all according to our guidebook.  So, we found the restaurant that invented turkey rice (pictured here), made a bunch of friends while trying to figure the system out (English speaking customers made sure we knew they were available if we had any questions, one English speaking couple even bought us something they thought we should try), which was really confusing because the waitresses didn't appear to take orders, just delivering food to tables without speaking, and there was no line to show us if we should be ordering before we sat down.  Confused and hungry, Desi just walked up to the guy cutting meat and asked for turkey rice.  He pointed at a table for us to sit at, said something to someone else who then brought us some red tea (best tea ever!) and then someone brought us a couple bowls of turkey rice.  In case you're wondering, turkey rice is a small amount of shredded turkey mixed into a bowl of steamed white rice.  We're pretty sure this restaurant didn't invent turkey rice.  And, we're pretty sure you can bypass this experience entirely if you ever find yourself in Chiayi. 

After the turkey rice experience we walked the streets in search of specific cookies the guidebook referenced from a specific shop on the other side of town.  We wanted to buy a few packages for souvenirs.  Plus, we thought walking across the town would be a fun way to sightsee.  We encountered a fun street market and a nice temple along the way.

Later, on our way back to the street market for dinner, we encountered the Japanese symphony orchestra playing in an amphitheatre in a park.  It was such a lovely experience, encountering a free concert at dusk in Chiayi.  They played both familiar classical songs as well as popular songs, like one we recognized from Disney's "Beauty and the Beast."  The whole experience was magical.