After my nap, I went out again and saw the Confucius temple. This time I had my umbrella, which was handy because it was raining again. The temple was pretty nice, and very quiet. It was interesting to be a tourist in what felt like a ghost town most of the time. Not much tourism happening on Monday and Tuesday, pre-season. Also, the whole time I was in Tainan I think I saw about 7 westerners. I did hear some Mainland accents and japanese, but westerners were not around much. Which was kind of nice. I got more respect when I spoke Chinese, and when I busted out the little bit of Taiwanese I know, I got some laughter. Not bad.
After the temple, I went looking for this restaurant that the front desk person told me about, but I couldn't find. I think it had closed down. Then I went to the night market to eat dinner. Tainan's night markets are famous, but I was there too early, on a rainy night, and it wasn't one of the more famous markets. It was ok, I had stinky tofu, some kind of Taiwanese version of a burrito, and an attempt at Indian Chai (that wasn't too good, though. No flavor). I considered going out to watch the world cup again, but I decided it's better just to save the money, so I just watched it back at the hotel. That was okay. I brought home something called coffin bread, a leftover from American GI's apparently. It's white bread with some cream sauce covered mixed vegetables and seafood shoved in a hole in the bread and covered with something deep fried. Richard tells me American soldiers call this "shit on a shingle." The first part seems accurate, it's just terrible. I was hoping that the Taiwanese had improved it, adding some delicious local flavor, but no, just bland yuckiness. It cried out for hot sauce, which I had foolishly forgotten to bring with me. Not recommended. Then I went to sleep.
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