This is gonna be a big mess of photos, folks. Those of you prone to sensory overload and fainting may want to close this window immediately. (Or tab, if you are one of those people. Though I myself do not understand tabs. They offer no benefits over windows. None. And they have some shortcomings that windows do not. You can disagree if you want, but you are wrong.)
I went to Anping on Saturday with one of my fellow foreign students. She's from Belgium and is a native Flemish speaker, but like all Europeans from small countries, she speaks pretty much flawless English.
Anping is the are where the Dutch originally settled in Taiwan and set up their colony. It was an island at the time, and by controlling Anping, the Dutch controlled access to the nice bay behind it, which was key for controlling trade in the area. The Dutch, ever the able seamen, understood this and put up a fort (called Zeelandia) and encouraged the growth of a small village near the fort. (Note: The Dutch did not actually call the island Anping. They called it Taiyuan, which I think was based on an aboriginal Formosan word. It's also the origin of the name "Taiwan" for the entire island. The Anping name for the area came later.)
安平地方に有るオランダ砦のゼーランディアを回りながら、何か長崎が恋しく成った。（安平は現代名だ。オランダ人は「タイユアン」みたいな台湾先住民から習った名前を呼んだ。其のタイユアンが「台湾」の由来だ。）安平は出島と同じく、当時のオランダ貿易帝国の大事な拠点の一つだった。台湾がちょうど日本、中国、東南アジアの小国のど真ん中に有るから、中継貿易にはかなりの価値が有った。
Some of the walls of the Dutch fort still remain, and much of the rest of it has been reconstructed.
日本時代台湾の塩関係の建物だ。現在は博物館に成っている。
元々の塀がちょっと残っている。Some of the original walls of the fort.
風車！長崎の出島とハウステンバウスを思い出す、、、
Like everything in hot, tropical Taiwan, the wall is covered in plants. The other day, I was standing around waiting for someone and some vines started growing up my legs. Fortunately, I was carrying my weed killer spray, so I was able to avoid being leached of too many nutrients.
漢字だから、有る程度読めるかな？頑張って。
"Know what this historical fort needs? A gaudy looking tower with no elevator so that people can turn it into a steam bath by climbing its 4 stories to get to the top." It was a pretty nice view though...
平戸生まれ、日本人のお母さんを持っていた鄭成功の銅像が此の上に有る。鄭さんはオランダ人と闘って、台湾から出した。中国系の人として（お父さんは中国人だった）初めて台湾を支配した人だった。明朝の支援者で、台湾をベースにしてから清朝とも闘った。
This statue is of Zheng Cheng Kung, also known as "Koxinga" in the west. He is the guy my school is named after. He was born in Hirado, Nagasaki to a Chinese father and a Japanese mother. He fought the Dutch and took over Taiwan. Because he was the first person of Chinese descent to control (part of) Taiwan, he is often viewed as a sort of founding father of Taiwan nowadays. He was a Ming loyalist, and he used Taiwan as a base from which to fight the Qing Dynasty, which had taken over the Chinese mainland recently.
石獅さんかな。（シーザーのご先祖）
Trees with beards. We're in the tropics now.
くつろいでいる観光客。暑いさ！座らして呉れん？
This is the building at the top of the fort now. Obviously a modern reconstruction.
砲台
The view from the fort.
This is a gate in front of a temple near the fort. There's a lot of historical touristy stuff in the Anping area, and I didn't even see the half of it.
Mrrrowr!
台湾に着いてから、初めて見掛けた野良（？）猫だ。長崎は多かったけど、こっちは野良（？）犬が多い。
One of the rivers around Anping. Though much of the former bay to the east of Anping has been filled in and is now part of Tainan City, Anping is still kind of surrounded on four sides by water.
The Banyan House. This is a building near Fort Zeelandia. It was built as a trade house and traded hands a couple of times, but at some point it was abandoned and taken over by tropical growth. Some enterprising person took the overgrown, condemn-worthy house and made it into a tourist attraction.
此れ全部自然に生えて来たよ。何故か観光名物に成った廃墟だけど、やっぱり何か凄いな。
They have to fix up the building sometimes to keep it from totally disintegrating. Someone figured out how to avoid messing up the roots.
おねえさんが変な入り口に入る気満々。もしかして、名前はアリスだ。もしかして、向こうに不思議な国が有る。
It says "Anping".
台湾人はやっぱり此の天気に慣れている。此の日は日本の真夏みたいに３０度で、多分湿気度が９９％達している。其れでもこういう体力的な労働をする。
This is the Tait & Co. building. It was originally a trading house, but it's now a museum about the history of the Anping area, with displays on how various people there--Dutch, Chinese and Formosan Aboriginal--lived.
古い堤防だ。安平は島だったから、海に因る浸食を防ぐ為の奴だ。
These old seawalls were put up to prevent erosion of the Anping island.
ということで、安平の一部を見せて差し上げた。まだまだ見る処がいっぱい有るけど、もう暑くて暑くて、ばたばたしていた。又今度も行こうと。
There's still a lot more to see in Anping, but I got a late start, and it's hard to walk around for hours and hours in this heat anyway. I'll probably be posting more photos from this area at some point in the future.
