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Started by a private collector who has a vast collection of violins, many of them antique in nature and made by masters like Antonio Stradivari and Nicolo Amati. There's also various exhibits about Western art, weaponry and natural history. The building and surrounding park are astonishing in their incongruence and could have been transported entirely from classical Europe.
The Chimei Museum is a private museum established in 1992 by Shi Wen-long of Chi Mei Corporation in Rende District, Tainan, Taiwan. The museum's collection is divided into five categories: Fine arts ; Musical instruments; Natural history and fossils; Arms and armor; Antiquities and artifacts. The museum is known for housing the world's largest violin collection and for its significant collections of ancient weapons and sculptures. Forbes magazine, in its February 1996 article on private collectors in Asia, called the Chimei Museum "one of the world's most surprising art collections." The museum moved to its current venue on Wenhua Road in 2014, and it is open to the public except on designated days.
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十鼓仁糖文創園區
A former sugar factory that has been taken over by a troupe that puts on new age performances using traditional Chinese drums.
Baseball games in Taiwan are lively and light-hearted with a lot of chanting and cheering in unison. Beer and barbecues are even allowed in the bleachers. Stadiums are divided into home and away crowd, infield or outfield. Wear green and orange to blend in with the home crowd. The team does travel between stadiums for games, so check the CPBL schedule. The season runs from March to June and July to September.
A small shrine dedicated to Koxinga, with plaques and information about his life. Locally known as Zheng Chenggong, Koxinga is an intriguing iconic hero of Taiwan, symbolic in different ways to different people and his image bent to fit whoever is in charge. He was a pirate to the Dutch, a brave and loyal general to the Chinese, a brutal conqueror to the Aboriginal tribes and a favored son to the Japanese through his mother. He was even a beacon of hope to the KMT in their aims to reclaim the mainland, though perhaps not the best example for them. The garden is quiet and serene, and a statue of Zheng Chenggong on horseback guards the entrance.
大南門
One of Tainan’s most well preserved city gates.
A serene destination surrounded by a small park. The temple was built in 1665 as a place to perform rituals and cultivate intellectuals, and is regarded as the first academy of Taiwan. Explore the temple, then go to the incredibly popular shaved-ice store right on the opposite side.
國立臺灣文學館
Located in a restored colonial-era Japanese building, even with the limited English on display this museum is fascinating. The coffee shop is good too.