16 March 2017
Animal kingdom
Getting from Taitung to Kaohsiung by train
Now I am in Kaohsiung, better spelt as GaoXiong. To get here I took a train across and mainly under many mountains, however my train did not depart until after lunch.
Because of the late train, I had time for another Jog around Taitung, focusing on the swamp, in the daylight! Sounds boring, but I encountered a dog, horse, monkey and later a cow.
The dog ran with me for about a kilometre, then knew when to stop, I was confused as to why he stopped, then I turned a corner, and I was in mystery horse territory, whilst a monkey watched me from a tree.
Then a bit later on after horse, monkey, puppy and myself went for post jog coffee, we met mr cow, just hanging out near the station.
The train ride was pretty slow, about 2.5 hours, but arrived right on time in Kaohsiung which is a very large, much more modern city.
The last hour of the trip was a linear city out one side of the train, and palm tree plantations out the other window. What are they farming palms for? Palm oil? I dont know.
I now also realise my next location after this one is not even 50km away, the entire western side of Taiwan is now a linear city, no gaps.
Todays photos are numerous and poor quality, so lets hurry up and get to them! Also due to late departing train and long train ride, its dinner time and I am starving.
The track I am jogging along has many places to rent bikes. Most of the big bike brands are Taiwanese, so rental bikes are great quality from what I have seen.
The beach, still looks pretty good, despite being very grey. Sunshine is forecast for tomorrow in Kaohsiung, and the days after.
Along the swamp path there are numerous places to go bird watching.
I could not see any birds.
I think this is roughly the place I took a spooky photo last night. The entire area seems to have been destroyed by a typhoon.
Here is my dog, he enjoyed jogging with me a lot.
We stopped to appreciate a small lake. Soon after my dog decided to turn back...
...and surprise horse appeared. It really is just an abandoned horse living here. Imagine if I came across the horse in the dark last night?
To my further surprise, there is an ironman triathlon event on in Taitung, this weekend. I missed it by 2 days!
This is the swimming part of the triathlon. I think it would have originally been built for rowing.
If you win the triathlon you get this volkswagen food truck.
One last photo of downtown Taitung, this one came out well, I stood in traffic and used my zoom and aperture and all the other controls.
As is my tradition, here is Taitung train station, in all its glory.
As I was able to miraculously get a bus that took me to the station, I had time to wander around the local area before the train came.
There really isnt much around, except this one building. I dont know what its for either.
Then I came across mr cow. He looks delicious.
The station does have a convenience store for lunch.
The blueberry bagel is a normal bagel with blueberry jam on it, shrink wrapped, with an expiry date 2 years from now. Delicious.
My train today was old and orange, no strange silver arch inside the carriage to inspire confidence either.
After spending what seemed like 2 hours in a tunnel, we arrived on the western side of Taiwan, part one of 2 useless photos from a moving train.
Here is the palm tree forest, they import orang u tans and stick them in these trees.
I was finally off the train, in a big city, hooray.
Heres my view from the hotel. I have stayed in this hotel before.
My room is old fashioned, but enormous.
The bathroom features not only a full size bath, but also a padded chair for me to sit in and do my makeup. Very useful.