Another fine day in Kaohsiung, I have been very fortunate with the weather so far.
This morning I headed out to a narrow island just off the coast which is both a major ship building facility and port as well as a fishing village and spot for tourists to visit on the weekends to buy tourist things.
The line for the ferry was absurd, I waited for over an hour in a line, for a ferry ride that took no more than 2 minutes!
Before I headed to the island, I walked past the skytower. Its got a hole in the middle, you have probably seen photos of it before if you are anything like me and look at photos of interesting buildings on the internet all the time.
Check out my boring brunch, its a combined fruit and vegetable salad. Ordering at this place proved especially challenging. Sugar for my coffee was not available, instead a small tub of high fructose corn syrup was provided (just like Japan).
Looking back at the port from the ferry, they are particularly dangers looking ferries, and you can just ride you scooter straight on as well and hang out with the regular passengers inside with your engine running.
Heres a similar ferry going the other way, note the gang plank things, the ferry was pretty overcrowded. They have a tv showing how to put on a life jacket, but I couldnt see any lifejackets.
The video is amusing though, a girl is showing you how to put it on, and then she shows you how to pull tha auto inflation thing, and the look on her face of sheer terror as it inflates on her is great. I watched it 3 times.
Looking back at Kaohsiung, you can see the building with the hole in it in the distance
This is made of plastic.
Modern toilet ice cream seemed very popular.
I was surprised to find an actual beach on the ocean side of the island. Its a black sand beach much like New Zealand. Notice all the ships out to sea, there would have to be at least 100 I could see from the sea shore.
This is the ocean marketplace, pretty much every stall was selling the same thing...
...ground up dried fish (I think?)
Tonights update is a little thing on details and photos. This is mainly because I went shopping and had my hands full. I hate having my hands full with shopping, it makes it difficult to walk the great distances and to pick fights with strangers.
The shopping in Kaohsiung is great, well it is if you are into shopping, theres at least 5 of the big Japanese department stores, more than I think there is in Taipei.
Theres also plenty of alleyways selling the latest fashions and accessories, it might be a generailisation, but this does seem like a much more modern place than Taipei.
I am staying at the Lees hotel, which along with all the other hotels I have used on this trip (Butterfly on Prat in Hong Kong, Hotel Dong Wu in Taipei) has been superb.
A highlight of this hotel is the shower, which has jets coming out of the wall all over the place, its so much fun I have had 3 showers today already.
Tomorrow I am taking the bullet train back to Taipei, but because my flight the next morning to Singapore is quite early, I have chosen a hotel at the airport. Now when I selected this I wasnt aware just how far the airport is (1 hour by bus each way). So I am not sure what I will do tomorrow evening. As you may recall when I arrived at this airport in the evening about a week ago, there seemed to be nothing nearby except heavy industry.
Perhaps I will take a tour of oil refineries.
You often find things down alleyways. This is the biggest temple I have seen, as far as I can tell this is the only entrance to get to it.
This evenings random neon light photo comes at dusk, near the central park area.
My dinner was a huge failure. It looked good in the plastic version, and the guy said 'chicken' when I pointed I think. But im not sure what I got.
First of all it looked raw, and the hotplate its served in wasnt hot enough to cook anything.
Secondly, its 90% bone, and bones too big to be chicken! (I am hoping it was pork) I hardly ate any of it.
Because my dinner was such a let down, I found this pineapple cake in the supermarket. Now most websites will tell you that in Taiwan, pineapple cake is a must do.
I dont think this is the real deal though, its the same as the pudding bread from the zoo but with a mild pineapple flavoured syrup stirred in.