Kaohsiung Day Two

Sunday was our second day in Kaohsiung. We slept in a little bit, and then went and had an amazing breakfast at K Town Diner. I had a pesto omelette with toast and hash browns and it was delish. After breakfast, we rented some bikes again and headed to a jade market. It was insane. So much jade and jewelry everywhere. We shopped around the street and then went inside to this big place full of stands with different, beautiful jewelry. I bought some silver charms to remind me of Taiwan, some bracelets, and a pendant. We could have spent days looking at everything there. Afterwards, we went to an Indian clothing store. This clothing store might be my favorite place on Earth. Everything was so colorful and comfortable and not very expensive. I bought two pairs of pants, a wallet, a shirt, and a purse.

Outside the Indian clothing store.

After some shopping, we went on an intense bike ride to the art pier. This was a challenging, sweaty ride but totally worth it. There were lots of sculptures and and exhibits in the area. As we were walking along, I spotted Rody Land. No one seems to know who Rody is so I'll fill you in. Rody is a horse that an Italian company made to appeal to children. I have no idea why. I love Rody though. Anyway, Rody Land is an exhibit dedicated to Rody and his 30th birthday. It was perfect. I took a billion pictures, but here are my favorites.

After that dream came true, we walked around the art pier some more.

We walked to the Gushan Ferry and took it to Cijin Island. The streets of the island were filled with live seafood and really good lemon tea. Our plan was to go hang out and swim in the ocean because we were incredibly hot. Unfortunately, the beach was closed because yesterday a young boy drowned and they hadn't found the body yet. I'm not sure how they knew he drowned if they hadn't found a body but it was really sad.

After taking the ferry back, we took the MRT to look at the Dome of Light. The Dome of Light is a stunning stained glass instillation at the Formosa Boulevard Station. It is the largest public art instillation made of individual colored glass pieces in the world.

After seeing that, we went back to where we were staying, showered, and went to a delicious dinner. We took the train home and actually had seats this time! It was a hot, but fun filled weekend. Now I have one week of classes left, and one more weekend before I travel back to the states! Traveling to places like Kaohsiung and seeing all the beauty around Taiwan make me sad to be leaving.

Kaohsiung Day One

This past weekend Katy, Emily, and I went to Kaohsiung for the weekend to visit our friend Igor and to see the city. Kaohsiung is a big, beachy city down south. It was absolutely amazing and way too hot. I've never sweat so much in my life. I spent a lot of Saturday feeling really sick and I'm pretty sure it was due to lack of sleep and dehydration. It was still an amazing trip, and my last big travel before I go home in 9 days.

Katy, Emily, and I took the train to Kaohsiung early Saturday morning. We were really tired because Friday night we played flashlight tag at a local university with friends, and then went out for a beer in order to avoid packing for the weekend. We didn't have seats on the train which really, really sucked but we sat on the ground, ate Hi-Chews, and hung out for the three hour journey. We even took tiny naps.

One we got to Kaohsiung, we took the MRT to Central Park and met up with Igor. The station and the surrounding area was really cool. We walked around and Igor took us to this little place called Taco Rico. It was AMAZING. The tacos were authentic Mexican food. We could have eaten a million of them.

Central Park Station

Central Park

The next part of our journey included a few beers and A LOT of biking. I love the public bike system Taiwan has going on. We have these types of bikes in Changhua but they're called Ubikes. In Kaohsiung they're just called Kaohsiung bikes but basically, you get an MRT card and you can use to rent bikes for these bike stations. The first hour is free and then it is $10NT (33 cents US) for every half hour after that. Biking in Kaohsiung was awesome because they have sidewalks and bike lanes so I didn't feel like I was going to get hit by a car at any moment.

We biked to a place called Lotus Lake and then biked the 3K around the lake. We saw so many beautiful things along the way. The first beautiful place we saw was the Confucious Temple. It was so peaceful and breathtaking. Everything about it was gorgeous. All the colors were so bright and vibrant. When you walk in, you can write down prayers or wishes so we did that and then walked around the area. The temples will be one thing I really miss about Taiwan.

Roli and Moli

Ta Cheng Gate

Lingxing Gate

Prayers and wishes written by visitors

Ta Cheng Palace

After walking around in awe of all the beauty or the temple, we hopped back on our bikes. Our next stop on the lake was what I thiiiiink is called Pei Che Pavilion. It is a huge statue of the Xuantian God and it is insanely awesome. The colors are so cool and it is gigantic when you get up close. They had this really crazy chicken machine. If you put in $50NT it would squack to techno music and then lay a golden egg. In the egg was a good luck charm.

After seeing that, we biked past the dragon and tiger pagodas. They were next to a bunch of lotus flowers in the lake. We then went to a bar for some drinks and watched people wake board on the lake. There was this really weird machine that just pulled the wake boarders around a track in the lake. We enjoyed some drinks, ate some fries, and biked back to where we were staying.

Moli and Kai-Sali

Later that night we went out to eat and went to a club called Brickyard. It was Latin night so we had fun dancing like crazy and making new friends. And that was just day one.