Ocean Spray

Half time! Glad you've stuck with me so far, I'm delighted to introduce the wonderful city of Kaohsiung 高雄 to you!

First of all, a word on the romanization of Chinese names on Taiwan. Sadly, they don't have a unified system like Pinyin on the mainland, leading to such beasts as "Kaohsiung". Even within the same city, street names are not consistently transcribed. I thought about using Pinyin to transcribe the Taiwanese city names, which is why I called Taipei Taibei. I decided against it in the end though, since if you want to research the places I went to see on your own, the official romanization will probably yield more results. If you were wondering, the Pinyin transcription of Kaohsiung would be Gaoxiong.

The first evening in Kaohsiung I spent visiting the city library which was conveniently located right across the street from my hostel. It's an amazing place, even has a roof terrace. And they have books on everything! I could have spent an entire day there, sadly I only had one hour before closing time.

On the roof terrace.

The library building seen from my hostel.

The next day I went to the Lotus Pond, a lake surrounded by more than 20 temples, mostly Buddhist and Daoist. The most impressive buildings there are the Spring and Autumn Pavillions and the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas. They are built over the water, reachable by bridges. The Spring and Autumn Pavillions are connected by a giant hollow wooden dragon. You walk in through its mouth and arrrive at its tail. This is supposed to bring you luck. At the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas, there is not only a dragon, but as the name suggests also a giant wooden tiger. You walk in through the dragon to get to the first pagoda, across a small bridge to the second one and then back out through the tiger. This is also meant to bring the person visiting luck. I really hope that turns out to be true! Walking around the pond, you get to see all these temples from different perspectives, it's truly a beautiful place. Afterwards I took the metro to Sizihwan 西子湾 and wandered around the station for a while, trying to find the former British embassy. On the way I walked across the campus of Taiwan's Sun Yat-sen University, which has an absolutely amazing location, the beach is just five minutes away. Dream location. I then strolled along the beach and finally found the former British embassy, which was built on a hill overlooking Kaohsiung harbour. I watched the sunset while enjoying a cup of rose tea and felt overall very old-timey and fancy. In the evening I had some delicious food at a nightmarket and then went to bed happy.

The Confucius Temple at the Lotus Pond.

There's also a giant statue of Syuan Tian Emperor.

The mouth of the dragon.

One of the temples built on the lake.

Dragon and Tiger Pagodas.

These figurines are on so many temples in China/Taiwan and I still don't know what they mean. An everlasting mystery.

The beach of Sun Yat-sen University.

This bird must have been confused.

Love.

View of Kaohsiung harbour from the former British embassy.

The sunset as seen from the British embassy.

On my second day in Kaohsiung I slept in and then was invited to lunch by my host. She took me with her on her scooter, which was a completely terrifying experience and brought me to a small backstreet restaurant which sold spring rolls. The food was definitely worth the scooter ride though :) Afterwards I went back to Sizihwan and took a ferry to Cijin 旗津 island. This is an island mainly inhibited by fishermen, but it also has an amazing beach. I also came across a shell museum, which hosted a giant collection of shells that one man had collected throughout his life. It was surprisingly cool! Overall, Kaohsiung really surprised me in a good way. I thought it would just be a big city with not much to see, but what I saw while I was there was really worth the visit.

There was this place where somehow waves were coming in from two directions, leading to waves that were perpendicular to each other. It completely blew my mind, I was standing there for about half an hour, just staring at the waves.

In the shell museum.

Aren't these cool?

The beach :)

A temple dedicated to Mazu, deity of the sea. You see these temples a lot in Taiwan.

Wow, a lot of picture for this one. Next stop: Tainan!

Chinese Word of the Day: 春节 chunjie Spring Festival/Chinese New Year. "New Year's Eve" is tomorrow and the new year begins the day after! Exciting times indeed.