Flash Travel – Tainan 快閃台南

In my past holiday travels, I would usually prepare detailed itinerary for the trip. However, as my boy is getting older, he has his own expectation on the travel and the places for our visit may change from time to time. As such, nowadays, I only planned for the flights and accommodations, the rest of the trip will only be worked out during the trip.

In my recent Taipei/Kaohsiung trip, we had made a flash travel to Tainan.

以往到外地旅行，事前總會作極詳盡的行程編排，隨著小朋友日漸長大，多了些他自己的意願，想去的地方也會隨時改變，因此我也只會安排交通住宿，其他的行程到時才決定。

像剛過去的台北、高雄之旅，我們也作了一次台南快閃行動。

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Days before Christmas, I travelled from Taipei to Kaohsiung to join my family.

On Boxing Day, my wife had arranged a dinner gathering with her friend in Kaohsiung. We had not much time for the rest of the day and it was not possible for us to travel to places that were far away from Kaohsiung. We finally decided to take a short trip to Tainan adjacent to Kaohsiung.

For the morning trip, we got on the Taiwan High Speed Rail to the Tainan High Speed Rail Station at Shalun. We then took the local train service to the Tainan City.

聖誕節前數天，我從台北南下到高雄和家人匯合。

Boxing Day 那天太太約了住在高雄的朋友吃晚飯，剩下來的時間不多，遠的去不到，於是就到鄰近的台南走了一轉。

去程我們乘搭高鐵往位於沙崙的台南高鐵站，再轉乘台鐵到台南車站。

The High Speed Rail is supposed to be a fast transportation service. However, the Tainan High Speed Train terminal is quite remote from the Tainan City and it actually took slightly more than 90 minutes from Zuoying in Kaohsiung to Tainan City.

高鐵速度雖然很快，但從偏遠的高鐵站到台南市中心，再加上等台鐵的時間，實際要90多分鐘才能從高雄左營到達台南市。

The Tainan Train Station is currently under its renovation program, making this busy station even more crowded.

台南市車站正在翻新重建中，繁忙的車站變得更擠擁。

Oops, it’s already one o’clock in the afternoon and time for lunch.

Tainan is very famous for its local street food and Tainan cuisine: Danzi Noodles, Shrimp Roll, Oysters Roll, Milkfish, savory rich pudding plus various types of cold drinks and fruits ice-cream on shaved ice. These are extremely delicious and definitely worth a try. However, the weather was so hot and we were terribly hungry that we simply had our lunch at Cafe Grazie located in the Far Eastern Tainan Chenggong Store. I had previously visited Cafe Grazie at Xindian district of Taipei, tasty dishes at reasonable prices.

噢，不經不覺已是下午一時，又是吃飯時間啦。

台南最有名是地區小食: 擔仔麵、蝦捲、蚵捲、虱目魚料理、米糕；形形色色的冷飲和菓子冰等都非常吸引，值得一試。只可惜天氣實在太熱，再加上小朋友和我也非常肚餓，已沒有耐性去找了，就在車站後台南大遠百成功店（上圖的藍色建築物）內的義式屋古拉爵吃個飯便算了。我先前也試過它位於台北新店的分店，價格相宜，味道也不錯。

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After the lunch, we had visited two of the Tainan’s tourist attractions that are closed to the Tainan Train Station: The Colourful Lane (Lane 3) at Kaishan Road and the National Museum of Taiwan Literature.

飯後到訪了隣近車站的兩個景點: 銀同里彩繪巷弄及國立台灣文學館。

The Colourful Lane (Lane 3) at Kaishan Road 銀同里彩繪巷弄  

The Colourful Lane is actually the Lane 3 at Kaishan Road. Few years ago, a group of volunteers and residents of the lane participated in a community project to decorate the lane with recycled materials and colourful wall painting. Turning the old street and houses into a great tourist attraction.

銀同里彩繪巷弄位於開山路三巷，數年前由一羣志願人士、居民合力把街頭掃上繽紛的色彩，再加上環保回收來的物料作裝飾，使街道變得美輪美奐，為平凡老街注入生氣。

Within the Lane, there is a group of consecutive rammed earth houses that were built more than 70 years ago. Nowadays, they were reinforced and revitalised into various types of culture workplaces, lifestyle shops, cafe and coffee shops.

銀同社區內另一景點是具有70多年歷史的土角厝連體屋建築羣，這些老房子現已被活化為文化工作室，生活小店，食肆，咖啡館等。

At the end of the consecutive rammed earth houses, there is a wall painted as a colourful mosaic by students of the Institute of Art Studies of the National Cheng Kung University. I learnt from the Internet that the colourful mosaic was an abstraction of the Tainan City map. Probably I should spend sometime to confirm this.

土角厝連體屋建築羣傍有一道彩虹牆，是台南成功大學美術系學生的作品。據說這拼圖畫的是台南市的地圖，有時間的話，真要去仔細印証一下。

There is also an old temple called “Liu He Jing Qing Shui Si” that was built in the reign of Emperor Kang Xi of the Qing Dynasty, China, more than 300 years ago.

巷內還有座近三佰年，建於清康熙年間的六合境清水寺。

Opposite to the “Liu He Jing Qing Shui Si” is the “Little Forrest” homemade cafe that offered dishes made from local Taiwan ingredients. The owner of the cafe would like to express an attitude to life via his cooking. The minimalist cafe decoration matched perfectly with the lane’s hipster atmosphere.

清水寺的斜對面是一間基於台灣本土食材的家庭式料理 – 小山林 家庭料理。

店主想用做菜來傳達一種生活態度，簡樸的門面，頗配合整條小巷的文青氣色。

Crossing both the Kaishan Road and Nanmen Road at the end of the lane, we arrived at our second tourist attraction of our journey – the National Museum of Taiwan Literature.

On our way to the museum, we came across the “Tea Industry“, a nicely decorated franchised cafe serving freshly brewed tea and coffee. It looked really attractive but since we just had our lunch, we were quite full and had not given it a try.

從街尾橫過開山路和南門路，便可到達今天的第二個景點 – 國立台灣文學館。

街角有一間叫做茶工業的飮料店，提供即時沖煑的茶飲及咖啡，店舖裝飾得頗具特色，只可惜剛吃完午飯不久，未能一嚐他們的飲品。

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National Museum of Taiwan Literature 國立台灣文學館

The National Museum of Taiwan Literature is housed in the Tainan Prefecture government building, a declared national historical monument, that was built during the period of Japanese occupation in 1916. It was originally designed by the Japanese architect, Moriyama Matsunosuke. A lot of the existing Taiwan government buildings like the Office of the Taiwan Governor-General, were also designed by him.

The rehabilitation work was taken up by the Department of Architecture of the National Cheng Kung University in 1998 and opened to public in 2003. The museum researches, catalogs, preserves, and exhibits literary artifacts of Taiwan contemporary literature.

國立台灣文學館是從日治時期台南州廳改建而來，是台灣的法定古蹟。原本的建築物是由日本建築師森山松之助設計，台灣很多政府建築物如總督府 (中華民國總統府) 也是出自他的手筆。

重建、復修工程於1998年交由成功大學建築系負責，2003年完成及開放。文學館主要蒐集、整理、典藏與研究臺灣近代文學史料。

Right in front of the museum is the Tangdezhang Memorial Park. Below is the panorama reflecting the excellent planning work of the adjacent area.

文學館正門面向湯德章紀念公園，景觀開陽。

The museum also holds series of exhibitions. The one on display during our visit was the “Taiwan Ghost Culture Exhibition” that showed the traditional Taiwan ghost stories for the kids. By the way, those text description and the computer animation were quite scary.

館內有不同的展覽，當天是”台灣鬼怪展覽“，介紹一些台灣傳統兒時鬼怪故事，文字加上動畫，也頗嚇人。

Located in the atrium of the ground floor is the cafe and museum shop. Visitors can take some rest here.

館內地下正中的藝文大廳設有咖啡座及藝文商店，參觀人仕可在此稍作休息。

We had strolled around in the museum for quite a while and its time to return to Kaohsiung to have our dinner gathering.

逛了好一會，也差不多要趕回高雄了。

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Having the travel experience with the High Speed Rail in the morning, we decided to take the local Taiwan Railway back to Kaohsiung.

After buying our tickets and got into the station platform, our boy suddenly noticed that we were supposed to board the Puyuma Express bound for Chaozhou. Since he had read about the Puyuma Express accident in Yilan dated back in October 2018, he was quite concerned on the safety of the train and afraid to take the service.

經過早上的體驗，回程決定乘搭台鐵返高雄。

買了對號車票，入了閘後，小朋友才驚覺接下來要乘搭的是往潮州的普悠瑪快速列車。自從他在報章上看過去年十月在宜蘭發生的出軌事故後，一直對台鐵的普悠瑪列車都存有陰影，害怕乘搭。

By the time he got onto the train, he found that the Puyuma was actually same as the Limited Express he had been taking quite a number of times in Japan. He finally became more relaxed and his fear was subsequently vanished.

The return trip back to Kaohsiung Station only took about 25 minutes. Even we put in the transit time of the MRT train back to our hotel, a saving of around 30 minutes could still be achieved.  Frankly speaking, we may need to think carefully whether high-speed rail service is really an efficient means of travel in situation of short journey as in Hong Kong.

走進車廂，他發覺普悠瑪基本上和他在日本乘搭過的Limited Express一樣，他的恐懼也慢慢地消失了。

這程車我們只用了二十五分鐘便扺達高雄車站，加上轉乘捷運回酒店的時間，仍然較高鐵快約三十分鐘。那麼對於短程路線一如香港的程況，高鐵是否一個絕對有效率的運輸工具呢，大家可能要稍作思考了。🤔

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