Katy in Taiwan: February 2011

Tuesday-Thursday, December 28-30, 2010

We all took the train from Taitung and Devin, Erin, Libby, and I said good-bye to Allison, Kristi and Meg in Kaohsiung Tuesday night, they went on to Alishan. The bus from the train station let us off in front of a cathedral where we were reminded of the season with this display:

We got to our hostel and now I can say that I've finally stayed at they type of hostel you think of when you think hostel.

A trippy pic of the stair to the 4th floor.

That night we ate at a nearby burger place on Love River and for dessert I had a Twix pretzel (not as good as it sounds, but interesting ;).

Me eating my TWIX pretzel

Oh, the Chinglish . . .

Love River is one of the main attractions of Kaohsiung. It was a beautiful night!

Wednesday we took a ferry to Qin-jin which is a long skinny island lining the harbor at Kaohsiung. My facial expressions on this trip have to be apologized for now . . . I was happy, I promise ;)

Katy, Erin

View of Kaohsiung from the harbor

First road after getting off the ferry.

To the right is the shop where we rented the 'vehicle' portrayed in the next photo

We were officially tourists, it had to be done!

Back: Libby, Erin

Front: Katy, Devin (who was the only one with actual steering control, but we all contributed to the peddling)

It really was a nice mode of transportation!

Black sandy shores of the beach, beautiful!

I just couldn't resist the call of the ocean! And I love the feeling of walking in wet beach sand.

Katy

. . . there was an arrow . . . so I had to point?

Katy

There was a fort and a lighthouse that had to be explored so we ventured up the hill toward these destinations and couldn't resist the touristy pics.

Me in a creepy old fort place . . .

I have a thing for doors, what can I say; and these red fort doors were especially compelling.

Me standing on a fort wall-arch

Libby and Katy

The lighthouse was smaller than I imagined, but the view was great!

Katy & Lighthouse

(posing)

Katy & Lighthouse

(candid)

We walked into a random photo shoot at the lighthouse (we still don't know if it was professional or for a wedding)

random photo-shoot people

Notice how skinny the island is!

I love the building you see to the left I wish I could have gone!

Libby

Sadly, my favorite pair of heals broke while climbing down from the lighthouse!

Yet another instance were carrying around flip-flops in my purse proves useful! (thank you Paris!)

A very sad Katy

(thankfully I had C.C. Lemon to comfort me ;)

I don't even know what this is of, or why it's there, but because it was this picture is ;)

Katy & lasso-esk cut-out art

After the island we were off to metro to Dream Mall, the 3rd largest mall in Asia (color me happy!) Let the shoe hunt begin!

Erin, Libby, Katy, random people ;)

We were on vacation! So we splurged for lunch at Fridays (in Dream Mall)!

Our waiter was very kind and took a pic for us!

Libby, Devin, Katy, Erin

More evidence of the Christmas season!

I don't know, it just seamed odd. A painted line for a barrier (I guess it's better than nothing!)

2011 is the 100th year for the Republic of China, Dino's are always cool and it was Christmas time . . . sweet!

On top of the mall was a faris-wheel, which was closed ;( and a mini amusement park, so we had to ride the little self propelled roller-coaster!

Katy, Devin

It was a great view (especially of the coming sunset)

Katy

Erin, Libby

We didn't get to go on the actual faris-wheel, but there was a detached car for a photo op.

Katy, Erin

Dream Mall was huge, and the architecture was great! So I had to get an official pic of me in front of it!

Katy, Dream Mall

We had gone outside to get a view around and were told to move this way, quickly, then were kindly yelled at to move that way, finally someone told us to move again, explaining that there was a filming in progress, so of course we had to watch! It was of a crowd of people, apparently at a concert, where everyone was holding balloons, then all of a sudden people start shooting into the crowd and all of the balloons get released! It was cool to watch, but for the less than 30 second shot it took 10 or more minutes to reset, fill redistribute balloons to everyone, then shoot again, or get it from different angles, etc.! (kinda glad I didn't go into the extras business ;)

Film-shoot of crowd with balloons!

It was getting late, I was getting tired, so my photography got . . . artistic?

Upward view from Dream Mall outside court

So I guess 7-Eleven sponsors Dream Mall. The 7-Eleven logo was everywhere! (even more everywhere than the everywhere-ness it is in Taiwan anyway!)

Erin, Katy, Libby, main 7-Eleven mascot

Devin and another 7-11 mascot

The random LG bunnies also needed to be posed by. Plus, it's a great shot of the mall and it's faris-wheel!

Erin, white LG rabbit, black LG rabbit, Katy

So it had to be noted: one stall, two toilets . . . .

Cold Stone is a must when ever your around it (and this one let you choose what was in the ice cream, which is uncommon here in Taiwan)

The free shuttle to and from the metro! Dream Mall Rocks! (or maybe it was 7-Eleven's idea, note yet another one of their mascots)

From the mall we headed to the biggest night-market in Kaohsiung. On our way we saw yet another pop art piece to take a pic with.

Katy

We went to Liuhe night-market (a tourist night-market) where my real shoe-hunt begin! I found two pairs for a very reasonable price of . . . 400? maybe . . . ? I also got a a great jacket (featured from here on) and a jade rat necklace! Go rats!!!

After the night-market we went back to love river and took a crews on a little ferry were we understood exactly 0% of what they were saying about this great river, but it really was a beautiful night on a beautiful river. (Apparently, just a few years ago all of Kaohsiung was a big industrial city and Love River was gross and polluted, but you would never know it now!)

Libby, Katy

I believe Devin took this picture, as he was the most artistic photographer among us.

Love River

These were done for the 2010 Kaohsiung Film Festival, in any case they were there, so these pics are here!

Devin with a film-fest cupid

Libby with a film-fest cupid

Erin with a film-fest cupid?

Katy with a film-fest cupid

I finally made it to Love Pier! Who knew I was actually pointing to a place I would eventually end up! (although I really don't know how you would get from there to here directly . . .)

Thursday we checked out of our hostel (left our bags in the lobby) and set off for our last day in Kaohsiung!

This statue intrigued us from the first night and Devin finally got a good pic of it as we walked to find breakfast (thanks). It's on Love River and I think it's of an eel-sea-creature-thing.

Our first stop was the Kaohsiung history museum which used to be the city hall and has the governors office preserved, which survived (more or less) the invasion of the Japanese at the end of the 19th century. It also had other great stuff like like an ink rock display, some papers which documented the agreements between the government and the indigenous peoples, and some scale models of buildings in Kaohsiung (most prominently the museum itself and that cathedral the bus let us of at the first night, which is apparently the oldest catholic church in Taiwan). oh, the stuff you learn when you go to museums ;)

Next stop (after McDonald's, yes we digressed) was the Lotus Pond (lake). There were no lotuses, but there was more than we got the see.

First stop: was the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas. For good luck you should enter the dragon and exit the tiger.

Katy, Erin, Libby, Devin about the enter the dragon

Katy entering the dragon

Katy at the top of the dragon pagoda

Katy

The view from the pagodas was great in the background you can see on of the many Taoist temples surrounding the lake.

Gotta love the zig-zag walk-way!

Can you see the dragon's tiger counterpart? I can ;)

Katy crossing over to the tiger pagoda

Katy exiting the Tiger

good-luck to me!

I had to get the eye of the tiger!

See how shallow the 'pond/lake' was, the crane is walking!

The pavilion I took respite in for a while while the others explored the dragon behind me.

Some guy (admittedly, fairly attractive ;) wanted me to take his pic so I had him take mine. Who knew he was getting my three traveling companions! Can you spot them? I can't ;)

Erin, Libby, Devin, Katy

They caught up and I guess Erin just couldn't resist the random giraffe car

An amused Erin, and a bemused Katy

As we walked to the next spot I saw this across the street at the Kaohsiung Municipal Jiuo-Cheng Elementary School

Yep, it's Jay Chou

NO SMOKING - gotta support ;)

Apparently this is a Taoist god (I can only assume of war . . .)

Katy and Taoist war god?

It's just too hard to resist, from a western point of view it looks like French-tips . . .

This is only the second Confucius Temple I've been to, but this one was taken a lot better care of than the first one I saw in Chang Hua. More evidence of tourist driven budget decisions.

Can you resist bridges? we can't!

Katy on pretty white bridge

Libby under pretty white bridge

Katy hagging off of pretty white bridge

This is great for a well traveled back, definite recommendation!

She and her outfit were just so cute I couldn't resist taking a pic, and when she realized it she ran up to me, "Hello! Hello!"

Adorable Chinese girl

And then, "Bye-bye!"

Adorable Chinese girl and ?grandfather?

He was very amused by the whole thing

Confucius Temple

Ok, the mustaches are a long story, just go with it ;)

Mustached-Libby

Mustached Katy

Katy studying the words of Confucius

No, really there's English on the left, I really was studying part of the Confucius Analects!

Yes, I'm a nerd, it's been proven, and now tested ;)

Next we were off in hunt of an alleged Mexican restaurant.

Random poinsettias, yet again give us a reminder of the season

After searching, and searching, and searching, and then more searching, we finally gave up and were simply in search of good food. Who knew Erin hadn't given up and was still keeping an eye out. Upon thinking she has spotted it she and Libby headed down a street to see if it was a mirage or real, and as you can see it was real!!!!!

Ah, Mexican food!!!!! Ok, only like 85-90% of it tasted legit, the rest was Taiwanese ingredient subs (like ketchup in place of enchilada sauce) but it was run by a Latino and 'gringo' so they did the best they could, and we are grateful for that!