6/25: Kaohsiung

​We left Taipei today for a week of travel around Taiwan. We started with a high speed train to Kaohsiung, a city way down on the southern side of the island. I love high speed train travel, it’s always smooth and relaxing. I managed quite a nap even in the middle seat, plus we got some great photos and time lapse videos of the eastern side of Taiwan. I can’t upload videos here but you saw them when I posted about this blog post I think. 

When a lot of seasoned travelers end up in a station together we somehow always seem to end up chilling on the floor. 

Had to take a selfie on the train. 

We had hot pot for lunch which is always a favorite meal, then went to this cute little park. It has a temple and statue areas and I think it’s named after the Tiger and Dragon statues shown here. Some of it was under repair so we walked around a bit and melted in the heat. There were so many things to see from the birds and turtles to the beautiful flowers. Some of the group walked a lot more than I did to a Confucian temple but I stayed back, which was the right choice for me for sure. I would have died doing a long walk in that heat. 

I hope all those photos loaded, I’m posting this on a bus in Vietnam and I’m not sure they will. Please comment if you can’t see them and I’ll try from the hotel!

After the park we drove to the port and took a ferry to a little island off the coast. It’s basically a tourist spot with lots of street vendors and the beach, but it was a beautiful place to see. I think the funniest thing I saw was a dog in the police station who wanted to come outside so it stood on it’s hind legs, pushed the door open button, and took itself for a walk! Such a smart dog. I wasn’t fast enough to get a photo though. My group and I walked across the island to the beach (it’s got black sand!) and took some photos of the sand castles that were there, I loved this girl with her tiny animal army. It just cracked me up! Then I got this strawberry yukult frozen treat with freeze dried strawberries on top which was one of the best things I think I’ve ever eaten. Just fantastic. We saw all kind of funny things, the ET and Spider-Man statues were unexpected. 

On the bus ride home I took a selfie of the effects of the day. It was so hot and humid, I was just destroyed. So we found a grocery store and I ate in again, doing that periodically helps me recover a little for future exploring.