Welcome to another beautiful day in Taiwan.
Today - we are in Tainan today, and specifically we decided to start our video in the historic
district of Anping.
In fact, if you're familiar at all with this area, you might already know where we are.
That's your hint - the giant banyan tree behind us.
We are at the Tree House.
This is not like the tree houses that you see in the United States, where it's like
a fort that's built for the kids.
No, this place is far more interesting.
While we're in Anping today, we're going to be exploring some of the area's most popular
attractions, and also enjoying a lot of the food that we have read about and are super
excited to try.
That's delicious.
Wow!
I know we've been trying a lot of food while we've been here in Taiwan,
but it's so amazing we can't help but share it with you.
Oh!
Actually, I wish I really could share it with you. It's delicious!
Now Anping's Treehouse actually started as a merchant warehouse.
We are in an area that actually used to store Dry Goods.
Here are the walls behind me, but over time it fell into disrepair.
When I say over time, I mean like over the course of hundreds and hundreds of years.
Banyan trees have taken over the warehouse.
There's a window in there somewhere, and it's created this beautiful art installation.
I can imagine that at some point the city of Tainan had to decide, do we keep the warehouse
or do we tear it down?
Well, they decided to keep it and they reinforced it with steel beams everywhere so the Banyan
trees can continue to keep growing.
It's absolutely beautiful and an incredibly popular attraction here in the historic area
of Anping.
Oh, I made it!
I barely had to duck.
Banyon trees are so cool - the way that their roots go everywhere and their branches
go everywhere, plus I know somebody who got engaged under a banyan tree.
Oh I almost forgot!
No you didn't.
Better not have!
A long, long time ago, yes.
In a galaxy far, far away.
There's also a museum as part of this whole Treehouse experience.
It talks about the history of Taiwan, so if you're not familiar with that, that's a good
place to start - but really the main attraction here at the Tree House is,
of course, the tree house.
We're on our way to the second site and we stumbled across a market in the middle
of the street. The streets are closed off.
It's Sunday or it's a holiday, but now we're hungry.
I'm going to have to make a quick pit stop before our next stop.
This is packed. It's really hopping!
Our first snack has cilantro in the middle and cilantro is a winner with us.
It somehow involves peanut brittle?
It's basically crushed peanuts with honey that has been warmed so that it's flexible
and can be rolled around cilantro.
I never would have thought of putting those two together.
They're absolutely delicious, plus it has a bit of heft to it,
so this is a really filling snack.
At 24 Taiwan dollars, I would definitely recommend it.
We have two fried oyster dishes that we're going to try.
We have some deep fried oysters that are sort of like a spring roll, except with oysters.
Then we have a deep fried oyster omelette, which sounds amazing, and we accidentally
squirted Wasabi on it, so this is going to be fun.
First, we're going to try the fried oysters.
Oh I just really put one in wasabi.
Oh, that's going to be Bill's.
All right, deep fried oysters.
That is very much like a deep fried spring roll, except it has the typical oyster flavor
- so a little bit briny in the center.
The texture on the inside is very mushy compared to the outside, which is crispy.
I'm not saying that in a bad way.
It's actually a really nice complement to the outside, which is so crispy.
I think I got a little bit of Wasabi.
It was really good.
I've never had deep fried oysters before.
It's pretty delicious.
The other dish that we got here is an oyster omelet, which we had not planned on getting,
but so many people got them in the checkout that we had to try one, too.
It's falling apart.
Normally at home, omelets are made of predominantly eggs - like 95% eggs - and then you add in
all the other things.
This omelet is not at all like an American omelet.
It's more like some rice paper or rice flour, and a little bit of egg, and then a bunch
of vegetables.
I did not have any oyster in that first bite, but I'm sure it's in there, and the red sauce
is a very savory sauce with just a hint of sweet.
It's delicious on the rest of everything.
I've never had an omelet like this, but I love it.
That was delicious.
That place is not rated super well on Google, but there was a personal recommendation from
a Blog that we've been using.
We're going to link it down below, because the blog has been so helpful for planning
our time in Taiwan.
The best part about it is that it's not far at all from our next stop, because we're already
here at the temple. Okay, spin, spin!
This is where we're headed to next. We'll tell you all about it.
This Temple is dedicated to the deity Mazu, and there are temples all over Taiwan that
are dedicated to this deity, but this is the largest and it's really convenient if you're
in the area.
Really grateful that there are water dispensers all over Taiwan!
We're here on April 2nd, and we think we might be here on a holiday or a festival
of some kind. There are all these booths set up,
selling food or playing games that are behind us.
If you know what was going on when we were here, could you please let us know down in
the comments? We're wondering.
It seems like it's even busier than normal. Thanks!
When all you do is walk, you get really hungry, so we couldn't resist this.
It's Bill's turn to try.
It's some kind of fried doughy thing with some sugar on it.
It's got to be great: Fried and sugar!
I have no earthly idea what that is. Is it sweet potato?
Nope. So, I have no idea what this is.
It's really good.
It's almost like a custard consistency in the middle, but I think it's made of rice.
Somehow it's a yellowy orange color.
It's just a nice sweet fried flavor.
Here you go, Heather. You can try.
Custard in the center? That's not what I was expecting.
It's not.
Millet??
You know what this is?
It's delicious.
It's delicious, and it was only 25 NTD.
Fantastic.
Well, the temple was really cool.
It is so busy here. We expected it to be busy.
We did not expect it to be this busy.
It's so much fun, but it's also kind of hard to see the sights that we want to come to,
because it's so amazing here.
Look at all the people.
All the booths, all these kids are playing games.
It's just so much fun.
For anyone who's wondering, we've talked a lot about the stairs that we've done so far
in Taiwan.
In the last three days alone, we have walked up to the observation deck
of Taipei 101 not once, but twice.
That is a lot of stairs.
For over 200 years, Tainan and specifically Anping, was the capital of Taiwan.
This made sense because so much trade passed through the city.
I can't believe that it stood for 200 years as the seat of the government, and even this
fort was the very spot that all of the major trade relations took place.
That's really neat that we can still visit it today,
and we can see the cannon that's behind me.
Really, this is just such a beautiful spot, overlooking the town.
I love it.
The tower that you can go up is actually more
modern than the rest of this area.
It was built at the end of the second world war, and then modified in the mid-1970s.
We still recommend going up it, because the view over the city is fantastic.
The wall behind me is the only original wall still standing from the Dutch period in the
17th century.
It's held together with syrup, seashells, and something else.
Rice!
This has held up for 400 years.
How is it possible?
It really is amazing engineering.
This is a lot.
I still don't really know what's going on, but it's packed.
You just kind of merge with the sea of people, and just keep moving,
unless you manage to stop somewhere.
Here's our next item on the food tour.
This is Anping Fort Coffin Toast.
There's a bunch of vegetables and a creamy sauce.
Seafood is involved somehow, we think, and that's in a kind of a little shell.
It looks really good, and it looks like a coffin.
I hope it tastes better than a coffin.
What does a coffin taste like??
That's delicious.
The outside is fried, almost like a french toast, and it's just a little bit soft on
the inside and then super creamy.
I'm not dripping or anything.
Amazingly, it's holding together.
It's just really tasty.
Does it taste like seafood?
Not really, no. No, it doesn't, at least not to my taste.
That is deep fried.
That does not taste how I expected it to.
It tastes like cheese in the center, but it's not cheese.
No, that is so unusual.
What an interesting street food.
This is the sweetest, mango-iest mango I've ever had.
They add sugar to it back in the States.
This does not need sugar. It's delicious.
That is very good.
Oh, I love it!
It's a little bit sour, but still mango.
It tastes like candy, but it's not.
Oh my gosh.
It's - it's so good.
Oh my gosh.
Oh, I love that one.
It makes my mouth happy.
It's like the sour patch kids version of mango.
We just stopped at this shop to try some of their dried fruits, and we tried two different
kinds of mango and something else that I think sounded like pomelo.
They were amazing.
Yeah, we need one of those.
Yes, we did absolutely buy some.
It was delicious.
What a treat!
Their dried fruits were delicious.
They have some that are sugared and some that aren't, and honestly it doesn't need it.
Absolutely delicious.
Come here for some dried fruit.
The next thing we're trying is called an ox tongue cookie.
I've been assured that no animals were harmed in the making of this cookie.
I guess it kind of looks like an ox's tongue.
I think that's the idea.
It smells very buttery.
Amazing!
This tastes like a lightly sugared sugar cookie, like we would have at home.
It would be just a sugar cookie: flour, butter, and sugar.
It's pretty good.
I just want to add, it also has vanilla.
A lot of vanilla, and it also has kind of a doughy texture more than a sugar cookie
texture.
It tastes like a sugar cookie, but like a flattened bread dough, with a lot of vanilla.
I really like it.
It's good.
Well, this was a lot of fun.
We are pretty full.
We're pretty tired from so many people, but it really added to the atmosphere of the place.
Thanks very much for watching.
If you like what we're doing here, please hit the Subscribe button, otherwise we'll
see you the next video.
See you next time.
Thanks for watching!
Bye!