Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Anpin Tree House and Old Tait & Co.Merchant House

I've been told that in Anping, there is an exotic tourist attraction where the aerial roots of banyan grow into the walls of the warehouse for salt. The atmosphere there makes you wonder if you were in one of the ruins of Angkor in Cambodia. Next to it is a 2 floor white house with a blue roof that keeps you wondering if you've just passed through a wormhole which connects Angkor and a European country. The following descriptions are excerpted from the back of the entrance ticket.

Anping Tree House, built in Janpanese Occupied Era, had been used as An-shun Saltern warehouse and abandoned due to the Anping salt industrial downgrade after the World War II. The existing area of Anping Tree House is covered by soils, red bricks and partial concrete and featured by fallen leaves and big trees with aerial roots.

The shop was set up by British merchants in 1867(the 6th year of the Tung Chi reign of the Ching dynasty). It's purpose was to serve as a base for the export of tea leaves, insurance and banking service. It is one of three British foreign shops that has survived to the present time. This shop now exists as a wax museum of Taiwan agricultural history.

Location: 108, Fort St., Anping District, Tainan, Taiwan.

Entrance fee: 50NT

Opening hours: 08:30-17:30, multiple entrance are permited.

Today I finally made it there and it looks just like the discriptions above: attractive. One thing that ruins the atmosphere is artificial decorations. Plastic balls hanging along with the aerial roots in the air; somehow a huge spider found its way to the top of a tree and left its web on the floor. Art exhibition? I'll say it's vandalism.

1 comment:

225712012 said...

I love this place, I've been a few times. I would love to see a small, candlelit restaurant under the banyan, it would be perfect. And you are right about the European flavour of the waxwork house, it reminded me of Spain.