KAOHSIUNG

Phil and I spent this past Saturday and Sunday in Kaohsiung City. This was our second time being there, but we didn’t get much sightseeing in during our first trip. Kaohsiung City is the second largest city in Taiwan. It’s located right on the ocean, about two hours south of Douliu. The city is the industrial hub of Taiwan. We’ve been told that not so long (10-15 years) ago it was very dirty and not much of a tourist destination. At this point, though, the people of Kaohsiung City have made major strides towards cleaning up the area and promoting some of the really great things they have to offer.

We spent Saturday afternoon on Chijin Island. This small island is part of Kaohsiung City. You can easily see Chijin Island from the coast...it just takes about five minutes on a ferry to get there. We went to a lighthouse, saw a Matsu (the goddess of the water) temple and hung out on the island’s black sand beach.

(These are pictures of the ferry we took to the island. All the ferries here seem to have room for scooters!) :)


(A view of Kaohsiung City from from the ferry.)










(A view of Kaohsiung's nature park reserve from the the lighthouse on the island.)

In our eyes, the weather on Saturday afternoon was not “beach weather”. It was warm (not hot) and cloudy/hazy. This was a perfect day to spend on the beach in the eyes of most Taiwanese people, though. People here do not like to get tan. We’ve been told this is the case because they want to look like “foreigners”. Phil and I find this ironic since most “foreigners” prefer being tan over pasty white. Despite the fact that, in our opinion, the weather was not “beachy”, we really enjoyed our time on Chijin Island!

Saturday evening we headed to the Kaohsiung 85 Building. This building was the tallest in Taiwan until Taipei 101 was built. We were hoping to see the sunset from the view deck, but we didn’t see much because of the haze. We were able to enjoy the lights of the city once it got dark, though.

From the Kaohsiung 85 Building, we headed to Love River and enjoyed a short boat cruise.

We ended our night out on the town at a restaurant called The Happy Buddha. We had found this restaurant online before heading to Kaohsiung and we were really excited about it because it had an English menu and offered some foods we hadn’t had in awhile, such as tacos. Well...it didn’t quite live up to our expectations. We ended up visiting it on the last night it was open for business. So, because of this, the once extensive menu became very limited.

I ordered the veggie tacos which, on that night, consisted of very stale taco shells, a little bit a cheese, a lot of lettuce and a few black olives. Phil got the cheese pizza. Along with the shredded cheese on top, it was supplemented with chunks of sliced cheese....not so good. The funniest part of our experience there was reading the description of the pepperoni pizza in the menu. It said, “Even the pickiest eaters in the world like pepperoni pizza.” This statement definitely put Phil among the pickiest eaters in the world, since it’s probably what he would have ordered if it would have been available. (Not that cheese pizza is any better!) :)

Sunday morning we headed to the city’s nature park reserve in search of Monkey Mountain. This is a mountain that’s supposedly full of “wild” monkeys. We’ve been told the monkeys have lived among tourists their whole lives, so they’re pretty domesticated. Despite this fact, we wanted to see them! To our dismay, we weren’t able to find the hiking trails that led to the monkeys....big bummer! We did enjoy the hike we went on and the things we came across (temples, etc...) while we were in search of those trails, though!

Please know that we will be thinking of you all during this upcoming holiday season. We hope you have HAPPY THANKSGIVING this Thursday! Enjoy all the food and time with family and friends for us!