A full lap of Taiwan in March 2017 - Page 5

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).

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.

Heading to bus station failure departure point, I passed a building constructed in my honor.

In no time flat I left my new bus friends and was at the entrance gate, theres many parts to this complex, the only part with other people is the gift shop and bus parking area as you will see.

For my mother, heres the toilets. Its an old converted bus. They have removed a central strip of the bus floor and installed a grate you squat over, along with some convenient poles to balance yourself either side.

Buddhist temple gift shop has a starbucks. Matcha tea latte time!

As you can now see, 95% of people get off the bus, enjoy the view from the gift shop / mall, sit and have lunch, then leave. I found this very weird.

Getting closer to the main temple area, note the lack of people.

Looking back, better picture of that direction later.

Under the big gold statue is the museum, which has 4 large very high quality galleries. They are not at all serious, they are modern 3d kid friendly and funny.
This is a talking laughing buddha statue. They project a moving mouth onto his golden head whilst the characters from the peanuts climb over him.
There is an unusual fascination with peanuts characters in both Taiwan and mainland China dating back a very long time, I remember reading about it, must research for future photo comments.

There is a 4D theater. An old lady was spraying the 3D glasses (whats the 4th D?) with what smelt like petrol.

There are also halls of mirrors with projections on curved walls, it was quite the weird sensation. No doubt designed to subliminally message me to spend big in the gift shops, there were at least 30 gift shops all over the place.

The museum is very comprehensive. Here we can see a representation of people travelling to visit the museum.

And here is a wax figure of a guy telling me that I will be reincarnated as a dung beatle unless I spend at the gift shop.

Someone carved a thousand buddhas on this hunk of wood.

Once I walked around the back, there was absolutely no one at all. I could have removed my shorts.

Looking back towards the starbucks.

There is also a garden telling the buddhist story of creation. The Dalai Lama woke up drunk after a dream and thought of all kinds of magnificent creatures and commanded the monkeys and pigs to procreate until such time as new creatures were resurrected.

They have also recreated the Kyoto golden shrine. Two of them.

At first I thought that was it, day over. But no, there is a much larger monastery up and around this steep road featuring cartoon characters and buddhist messages.

I did not see another person. I had read there was a free lunch here for 5000 people! As it turns out, not on weekends. The monks are out partying on weekends.

They have created a forest of minions out of old tyres to amuse themselves.

There is no way into that structure, from what I can tell it is where visiting monks get to stay. They are known for having wild parties with cocaine and hookers. I am not kidding, google it. It was a big global scandal a couple of years ago when one of the worlds highest ranking monks killed a hooker in a hotel in Korea. They had booked out the entire hotel!

Inside the monastery there were many gardens, looked after by employed gardeners, not the monks themselves.

Also, more pagodas.

And just when I thought this was a serious monastery, yet more gift shops appeared, lots of them!

This is the main hall in the real monastery area. No photos inside buildings like this. Actually even inside the museum building there were 2 places they were very serious about no photos. Also, take shoes off!

I still managed to get a free lunch! As it turns out, I ate in the gardeners and other workers canteen. They have a donation box... free lunch!

Now we move into the world of thousands of statues.

I worked out now that I had come in a back entrance and made my way to the front. Oh well.

Note the hundreds of gold statues surrounding enormous gold statue.

As I said at the top, the whole place is located on cheap land. This is the view, of nothing except pollution.

Look how happy these kids are to find a public toilet! This one is a shared hole in a wooden plank, with a rope suspended from the roof to hang onto.

Bonus view of monastery area.

I went back the way I came and prayed to pokemon go for a while.

Final photo for the day, I snuck up through a fire exit into the front of the visiting special monks hotel. I still couldnt figure out how to get inside, but I really could hear a party going on, with Katy Perry playing, and then someone was revving a Harley Davidson!
....daisy dukes, bikinis on top...

Unlike last night, this is a proper market, it is impossible to get to the footpath on the other side of the road where the market starts.

Down one of the many aisles of boiling hot oil, This is a less busy spot where I could get my arms up to take a picture.

Shop cat is now a night market cat. He gets his own small house. He seems to like people playing with him as they go past.

Its a hello kitty drinking game. You pay money to drink x beers in y seconds, and if you win, you get a furry pillow toy.

More cactii.

Example of a seating area. I was scouting for somewhere to sit.

I found a seat at a Taiwan steakhouse night market stand. Such things are very popular all over Taiwan. It is a good piece of steak, on top of pasta and an egg, on a grill plate.
So a lot like pepper lunch. Delicious, and about $5, not bad for a good steak.

Pies made to order, sweet or savoury.

German pork knuckle.

Some kind of flame thrower grilled cheese thing. Crap photo but stayed here because the child assistant was yelling at me for taking a picture.

More people eating. I thought that bald guy was a white guy, but on closer inspection its a bald albino Chinese man.

Very comfortable spot to enjoy your xiao long bao. They look good though, made before your eyes in the open.

More chaos.

Redundant photo from afar.

The nearby Australian beer house.

And actually, this whole area despite being a bit out of the city centre is very nice and modern, lots of shops and bright lights. A shame I dont have time to fully explore.

I took the subway to the point nearest the trail start. It is still a 45 minute walk from the subway unless you take a bus, there are numerous, but I like walking in the sun.
Nearly every station here has free activities to enjoy. I read some childrens books until the security came with a net.

The path to the path was mostly through parks with paths. First this park, on a red brick path, then another park with a gravel path around a duck lake.

This is a new style Taiwanese mega apartment building. They look very ominous compared to the typical all glass design in Australia. I am guessing that is due to earthquakes.

An old man and his parrots were enjoying a remote area in a park. I asked if I could take his photo with the parrots on his head. No. I could only photograph the parrots without him in the photo. So heres his parrots.

I fed the ducks for a while.

Then I stopped at the place where Monet famously did his painting.

NO MERMAIDS, there started to be a lot of signs, some seemed serious, but it got confusing, read on...

No worshipping, a sentiment I can get behind.

Beware of qigong, ok I stopped photographing now. Dont feed the trolls.

Just another Kaohsiung nice looking street.

The start of my path today is through this temple. Paths up mountains often are, but you would never find it if you didnt know that.

Soon after negotiating my way past incense burning grandmas, I was on the trail.

Except more grandmas were walking slowly with terrifying umbrellas to stop anyone getting past.

Thankfully, before too long, the grandmas had stopped and turned back. There were still lots of people, but it was possible to go at a good pace, and enjoy the evolving view.

A bit more view. I saw lots of different hiking clubs. Including people walking backwards as always, but a new one was about 10 guys chanting whilst running with no shoes on down the rocky trail.
The Taiwan barefoot hiking association.

Nearer the top it became cool and tropical. Boardwalks the rest of the way, very convenient. Apparently this place is filled with snakes! Scientists specifically go up here at night to study the snakes that mostly come out at night, mostly.

Eventually I was over the top of peak number one and could see down to the ocean where I was lost the day before yesterday. There is no way to walk down there.

There are lots of peaks and valleys and lookout spots. All had a little picnic spot like this, generally filled with people as you shall see.

There are also caves. These people are attaching ropes and harnesses before descending into a cave under this tree. I note they have a first aid guy on standby. I bet theres snakes in that cave.

Along the top was a truly excellent hike. It was mostly boardwalks but the scenery was superb.

Some more people resting at the top, blurry photo, but someone hauls up water, which is then boiled to make it fit for consumption. I didnt have any.

There were lots of monkeys. I came around a corner and a group of people were arguing with a monkey who was hissing at them. I passed quickly.

More view of ships, pollution had cleared a bit by now.

Lots of people enjoy this mountain.

I learnt that its made of coral. Really it is. Somehow this all used to be under the ocean.

A few hours later, after going all the way as far as you can along the boardwalks at the top, it was time to descend back to the city.

The start of each trail has some stalls selling hiking equipment, boots, gloves, poles, head torches, and of course, small transistor radios to listen to distorted Chinese opera.

On the way back I got off at the interchange station to take the photo everyone takes in Kaohsiung, and a photo I took last time I was here. So here is that photo.

Before boarding the subway I toured the local youth fashion market. But since it was not quite dark yet, there was not a lot going on. Which means it was still possible to select your direction of travel rather than move in a sea of people.

I walked a bit further to board the subway at central park. Which was still quite busy at dusk.

Another very impressive Kaohsiung subway station. The new tram line will be a full loop of about 50 stops, and will make transport very convenient, I rode the bit of it that is open, the rest will open soon. So next time I am here, full loop on the tram.

The exterior of the Hanshin department store, quite impressive.

I was starving. The line for Tim Ho Wan (michelin star yum cha) was not too bad, but yum cha is no fun on your own.

The line for Din Tai Fung however, was ridiculous. 50 minute wait. They would not admit a party of one anyway.

I cant eat there, but I can watch the xiao long bao scientists do their work.

Lots of small dessert selling shops like a Japanese department store, because it is.

For dinner I had Jinan-Bou. It is popular in all food courts right now. It may be beef tongue but I think its just beef. I cant be sure!
It has 2 selling points, they slow roast huge slabs of beef at 60 degrees before fine slicing it and grilling it to make it more flavoursome, possibly a true claim, and they pile it really high to make it look like a beef mountain.
My mountain had collapsed in on itself by the time I found somewhere to sit. It was basically a more flavoursome gyu-don.

A bit more view from Hanshin. They dont let you onto the roof, and they tint the windows to prevent photos of the view, so this is the best I could do.

And because I cant get onto the roof, you get a photo of the top floor ballroom / wedding hall, which must be the size of a football field.

I decided to go for a lengthy walk along a main road following the subway, passing lots of flash car dealerships, and this absolutely massive gym. That is all gym, and theres more either side. I could not fit it all in.

And finally, this is a maid cafe. Just like Japan. Tonights writing theme is just like Japan.
So if you want to pay $20 to have a 30 year old woman dressed like a 12 year old girl feed you a $2 piece of cheesecake, Kaohsiung has you covered.