Fa-shing buddhist temple and lots of monkeys
Kaohsiung has a city mountain. It is called either longevity mountain, or monkey mountain. Whilst as you will see monkey mountain is apt, I think it should also be called razor wire military check point mountain.
I was defeated. I shall return.
Instead of climbing up the main path, which looked like it might be over all too soon, I panned google maps and decided to walk around the back of the mountain, along the coast, and then climb over the back and descend into the city. My hope was that it would then be a full day exhausting activity.
Well, exhausted I am, but I did not get to the top of the mountain.
As you will see below, landslides, earthquakes, and then the army all conspired against my plan. Despite trying 4 different access paths to what looked like a really good steep test to the summit, all were blocked by razor wire and warning signs, and soldiers in uniform with machine guns.
Thats not to say it wasnt a great day trying, there were many things to see along the failed route, but I will not accept failure, I shall return either tomorrow or the day after and conquer the small monkey razor wire landslide mountain from the city side.
Now to talk about my hotel bed. You may recall my Hualien bed was much much wider than any bed in recorded history.
My Kaohsiung bed is much much harder than any bed I have previously experienced, and I thought I had experienced hard beds before whilst in Japan. I am almost certain it is a ceremonial sleeping altar, a slab of granite with a sheet on it. It is seriously harder than the floor, I tested this theory last night!
Honestly, I rolled over and it hurt my knees!
So I will have to make sure I am super exhausted each night so that I can pass out on a sacrificial granite sleeping slab. Sounds like a challenge.
Behold, clear blue sky, 'clear' except badly polluted. I am sucking down huge quantities of harmony particles (Chinese word for pollution).
Note to Taitung, this is how you do a bus stop. So far all bus stops I have seen have LED readouts scrolling for all the buses that are coming, and maps.
I agree, she is looking a bit too smug lately.
Tall buildings fading into dioxins.
A busy morning market, which is for old folks to congregate and yell at each other. Most people do not get off their scooters, they ride into each store.
I think the ability to ride your scooter into the store is one of the reasons Taiwanese people prefer the older dirtier markets to the replacment new shiny ones.
Part of the reason for the pollution. This shop is getting a new sign, so lets burn some rubbish in honor of the sign!
Mountain ahead. Actually thats a hill in front of the mountain, I have since discovered the mountain actually looks quite impressive.
I had time to cuddle a bear.
The streets are all very colorful, despite the smog. Lots of flowers and carefully manicured trees. Heavy pruning was going on everywhere. I am an expert on such matters.
Like Taitung, the old rail line has been turned into a linear park for bike riding and such nonsense.
Some kind of golden fund raising beacon. I better go have a look.
Still under heavy construction of course. They always are, need to raise more funds!
Time to enjoy the smoggy view. Big building on the left is the famous triforce building, I am sure it will feature in more photos before I leave.
I admired the determination of this trees roots.
View through a gate.
This is a shrine built in my honor. The martyrs shrine. They build these for me in every asian city.
Cool, glad I wore shorts and sneakers.
'Do not shoo away the monkeys with your hands, a stick or a slingshot', you mean to tell me I carried my slingshot up here for nothing?
Nice rocks, but I wanted to go up, not down. Load the bigger photo and you can see a guy in a fluro green / yellow vest for scale.
Monkeys were everywhere.
This monkey poses with the do not feed the monkeys sign. Thats some awesome monkey nipples.
I descended to this temple to buy some drinks. I only had the equivalent of a $50 Australian note, and I thought this might be an issue.
I go to the little old lady and ask if I can buy 2 bottles of pocari sweat ($1 value) with my $50 note. No problem, she unzips her FANNY PACK and pulls out a wad of what looked like 100 x $50 notes, sifted through them all to pull out a few $10's to give me back.
I stopped for a snooze. These matresses were everywhere. Later I figured out why. Landslide defence.
Army checkpoint #1, had to turn back, frustrated. There are soldiers around the corner, I dont like to photograph them in case I end up in military prison.
Evidence of landslide. I noticed the road was quite badly cracked in places. Cracks wide enough for your foot to go down.
Army checkpoint #2. Check out the road, beyond this point the road fell into the ocean. Time to turn back, defeated.
The view on the way back was pretty good. Clearer than in the morning.
An extended family of monkeys passed me by. We exchanged menacing glances.
Look closely into the smog and you can see a heap of ships lined up waiting to berth. There were 20 or more I could see out to sea waiting too. Dirty dirty smog producing ships.
I imagine this is what my apartment in Melbourne looks like currently.
I was hot and thirsty, time for a stupid ice tea.
A truly great sign.
As it was now 3pm and I had not had lunch, I opted for a convenience store fruit salad afternoon tea to keep me going until dinner.
I, like most men, can only eat fruit if its cut up for me.
The hotel however has decided to provide me with free chocolates to go with my fruit salad. They are trying to make me fat(ter).
Riding the new tram to the giant mall
This evening I ended up at the dream mall by accident after accidentally riding on a Melbourne tram in Taiwan. Allow me to go on with boring detail.
My plan was to walk a great distance to a place advertised as the biggest night market in all of Taiwan and therefore the world, a place so big it used to be two different markets and it grew until they absorbed each other and became a mega market.
A 90 minute walk later, past the biggest razor wired army base in all of Taiwan, I arrived at half a dozen sad looking food stalls, a strange semi abandoned animatronic dinosaur obstacle course, and 172.3 hectares of sheds and white lines painted on concrete memorializing what used to be the Taiwan mega night market experience.
However, much to my surprise, nearby the new tram line was in trial operations, and its free. Anything free is fine by me, its one better than cheap. Go on the tram I shall, I dont even care where it goes.
It went to the Dream mall. Astute readers of my 2011 trip will remember I went here and went on a rooftop ferris wheel and watched a roller coaster disappear into a hole in the middle of a wave pool on top of the biggest mall in East Asia. Yes, thats all true as amazing as it sounds, but forget the mall, what about the tram?
The tram is a Melbourne tram, exactly the same, same door buttons, same bell noise. Either these were made in Melbourne, or the Melbourne tram companies claim that they designed and built the tram in Melbourne is false. In the age of alternate facts I dont know who to believe.
At 6pm on Friday, the streets are packed with food carts protruding directly into traffic. It was chaotic and quite dangerous.
One of the many art installations in parks I previously mentioned, this one is bamboo, and oyster shells. They must have cleaned them well as it was odourless.
A bit more of the oyster shell LED light tribute to the tensile strength of bamboo.
This is where the mega night market is supposed to be, at this point I still thought it might be hiding, it wasnt.
Dinosaur park used to cost money to enter, now its free! And its just me.
There is an even weirder obstacle course thing above the admittedly, impressively large moving dinosaurs, the booth attendant appeared to be dead, or dead asleep, so I didnt bother.
Part of the abandoned mega night market.
A Melbourne tram.
Admittedly the seats are a little different, but I am positive they are otherwise the same design.
The dream mall. I had no intention of coming here. It is impressively enormous.
The food court goes on forever, then goes around a corner, and goes on forever some more.
I am a big fan of the food court, because its so cheap. Cheap beats good, every time!
My dinner was a tomato version of beef noodle soup. The broth despite being beef colored really was quite to-ma-to-ee.
On my way back I stopped to appreciate this impressive overpass. Cause thats the sort of activity I enjoy.
Any day with more than 40,000 steps is a good day.
33.8km according to my watch, but it was slightly more than that because I ran about 5km earlier in the day without telling my watch, which increases my stride length.
Thats more info than anyone needs to know about my Garmin forerunner 225, except my heart rate is currently 41. I like my very slow heart.