Fili’s world

Even after living here in Tainan for a few months I keep discovering great new parts of Tainan in a way that makes me wonder how come I’ve never been there before. I sometimes just ride around with a friend or two, some Taiwanese locals, insisting to take a new road I don’t know till I see something interesting and ask “Hey, what’s this?”. Then, I usually get the odd response of “Oh, yeah, this could be fun, let’s go see”. Why, I keep complaining,  didn’t you think about taking me to this place before I asked. The almost automated response, no matter who’s asked, is “I didn’t think it’s special”. Eh, you should know me by now, it’s special to me.

Tainan Culture Center is a great area in Tainan, with the EVA hotel nearby, loads of posh accommodation and some really good - even if somewhat touristy - restaurants and night-life. Some night there are some outdoor performances sponsored by the Tainan authorities.

There are usually alot of groups practicing martial arts and dancing, some of them really professional. Like those girls, which I thought I can watch for hours :$ …

After spending some time chilling out and eating in that area, the next stop was for some Tainan live music, Taiwanese style. A pub with professional and quite entertaining bands singing KTV songs by requests from the audience pub. This night it was the Pioneer pub, which I really like. Great food, good music, not the usual expat joint hangout although there are the occasional foreigners who seem to blend in great with the friendly locals.

I especially liked the part where a group of 3 young Germans choose Wubai’s very local song and came up to the stage to do the song dance.

Compare this to the original Wubai MV :

Tainan, although considered a bit boring when compared to Kaohsiung and Taipei, does have more than meets the just-got-here-foreigner-eye. The Tainan<->Taipei comparison always reminds me of the Jerusalem<->Tel-Aviv comparison. I don’t know, Tel-Aviv’s great fun but I always felt more at home in Tainan, eh, I mean Jerusalem.