Beating the dog (days of summer) in Takao

The Kaminoge family spent this weekend in Taiwan's second city of Kaohsiung 高雄. It was bloody hot, but at least the predicted rainfall never happened (then again, the precipitation might have made for a welcome relief from the heat!). A good time was had by all, with the exception of my wife, who loves to complain about anything and everything in the southern part of this island. Still, even she managed to enjoy a few moments here and there.

Our trip was made sans automobile, and our public transportation odyssey began on Saturday morning with catching the 10:06 a.m. local train from Fengyuan 豐原 to Hsin-Wujih Station 新烏日車站. Or would have, except that I failed to notice said train only runs on weekdays. So instead we got on a Tzuch'iang 自強號 express and took it to T'aichung 台中, thinking we would then catch the shuttle bus from there to the high-speed rail 台灣高鐵 station in Wujih 烏日. As we had paid reservations for the 11:01 bullet train to Tsoying 左營, I was worried we were going to miss our train, but Taiwan's not-always-punctual train system saved the day - at Taichung we were able to transfer to the 10:04 a.m. local train that had been delayed by 24 minutes (!), and made it to Hsin-Wujih and the bullet train with plenty of time to spare. Amber was excited as the high-speed train pulled into the station. Money-losing white elephant it may be in danger of becoming, Taiwan's version of the shinkansen 新幹線 still got us to Kaohsiung in only an hour.

Once at Tsoying, we rode Kaohsiung's new subway system to Kaohsiung Station 高雄車站, where our lodgings, the Hwa Hung (Hua Hung) Hotel 華宏大飯店, was a short walk away. Giving it a 3-star rating would be on the charitable side, but the price was right (NT 1450, or $45/¥3920, for a triple room), the location was very convenient and, best of all, the colorful, "Peanuts"-inspired decor was right out of the early Seventies!

Having already had lunch at a tonkatsu 豚カツ restaurant across the street from the station prior to checking-in, once our bags were safely ensconced in our room, we walked back to the KMRT 高雄捷運 station. Next to the subway station entrance is what I assume was the original Kaohsiung train station, dating from the Japanese era. I remember seeing on the TV news a while back how the old building was literally picked up and moved a few meters away due to an (ongoing, from the looks of things) construction project.

Once on the subway, we rode the KMRT to Yanch'engp'u (Enteiho) Station 鹽埕埔站. From there, it was short hop on the No. 56 bus to the Shou Shan Zoo 高雄市壽山動物園. The zoo itself isn't very large, and it didn't take long to see all the animals, but the views of the city on the ride up were pretty good in the clear weather, and most importantly, Amber had a great time. She was very excited, running from one display to the next. For me, the highlight wasn't any of the caged animals, but the Formosan Rock Macaque 台灣獼猴 that invaded the zoo grounds from the mountains in order to raid the garbage cans for something to eat!

Once done at the zoo, it was back on the bus for the return ride to Yanchengpu and the KMRT. This time we got off at the Formosa Boulevard Station 美麗島站, noted for its "Dome of Light"  光之穹頂 installation.

Our destination was the Liuhe Night Market 六合夜市, a short walk away from the subway station. To be honest, the food we had wasn't all that great (and the draft Taiwan Beer 台灣啤酒 was even worse than usual for being so watery) - the highlight for me was a "Mexican" burrito. On the other hand, the twilight setting was lovely in its own way, Amber had fun walking around and checking out the sights and smells and as I don't often go to night markets, it was nice milling about with the crowds on a humid evening.

 

We walked back to our hotel from the night market. A long day meant we were very tired. All three of us were asleep before 11, and we didn't get up until 8 the next morning. Another nice thing about the Hwa Hung Hotel was that breakfast was not only complimentary, but it was "Western", meaning ham and a fried egg on top of a slice of toast (Chinese-style breakfasts, like Japanese ones, can be hard to take in the morning). Afterward, entrusting our bag at the front desk, it was back to the KMRT station. The day was sunny again, even though rain was in the forecast.

Our destination today was the Dream Mall, reached first by taking the subway to K'aihsuan Station 凱旋站, and then utilizing the free shuttle bus. Except that the line for the bus was long, and our time was limited. The mall is actually within easy walking distance from the subway stop, but there are two things my wife hates more than anything else in this world - physical activity and the sun - and so we got in a taxi for the short trip to the mall.

Once at the mall, we made straight to the roof, and the Ferris Wheel that sits atop it. While Pamela sat in the welcoming shade, Amber and I got into a car and enjoyed the great views (I've attached a short video clip of the scenery from the top of the ride). Back on solid ground, we were able to convince Amber to limit her time at the Hello Kitty ハローキティ/Sanrio サンリオ play area there - we would have gone broke if she hadn't!

The Japanese influence was very much in evidence at the Dream Mall, with its Hankyū Department Store 阪急百貨店 branch, Daisō ザ・ダイソー, "Japanese Food Street" and a "Japanese-style Fashion" area, the latter featuring a "Takeshita-dōri 竹下通り Zone" - anyone who has been to Harajuku 原宿 in Tōkyō 東京 will know what that means! The one thing we bought at the mall (other than lunch, and several doughnuts from Mister Donut ミスタードーナツ) was a bottle of aboriginal 台灣原住民族 amazake 甘酒  (from P'ingtung 屏東), which bore the name "Kasuga" 春日 on the label.

With time getting short, we took another taxi back to Kaihsuan Station. Kaohsiung's subway system is very efficient and easy to use, and connects to a lot of the sights in the city, so it's difficult to understand why ridership hasn't lived up to expectations. Back at the main train station, I retrieved our bag from the hotel and took a couple more photos of some interesting Japanese signs, before the three of us got on the 2:42pm Tzuchiang express train for the nearly three-hour ride back to Fengyuan.

  

It may be next to impossible to get my wife (who sees everything in shades of blue and green) to agree, but Kaohsiung looks better and better with each visit. Amber certainly wants go back again, if only to have more fun on the Dream Mall rooftop!

Being in purgatory, or a trip on a Taiwanese tour bus

Every year, the apartment complex where we live takes the money that it has earned from selling the residents' waste to recyclers, and uses it to pay for a bus trip for all the people who live here. Last year, it was to Tamsui (Tanshui) 淡水 and the Taipei Zoo. For this year's journey, the buses traveled in the opposite direction, to Kaohsiung.

Everyone met downstairs around 6:30am (OK, we were about 10 minutes late), and the four chartered tour buses parked across from the neighborhood Family Mart departed at 7:07. At 7:23, it began - the karaoke カラオケ singing. And it continued, non-stop (with the exception of a couple of brief visits to freeway rest areas), until we reached Kaohsiung 高雄 just after 10. It's one thing to go to a karaoke box (or KTV's, as they're known in Taiwan) - after all, you do so on a voluntary basis. But on a packed tour bus, there is no escape from the retread enka 演歌 (songs that were originally in Japanese, but retrofitted with Taiwanese lyrics). The view from the bus window certainly didn't provide an escape, for while the on-board TV set was playing videos of European castle towns and snowy scenes of Japanese villages, the scenery outside was 100% west coast. West coast of Taiwan, that is. Flat agricultural plains, broken up here and there by industrial complexes, and small towns with their concrete box skylines.

Amber posing at a rest stop; a video image from one of the karaoke songs, which looks like it was filmed in Magome 馬籠, Nagano-ken 長野県.

Kaohsiung looked almost beautiful after the long, concentrated assault on my eardrums, aka the bus ride down. And, in fact, the city has done a great job in cleaning up its act in recent years. The bus passed by several of Kaohsiung's new subway stations, including the Formosa Boulevard stop, but I wasn't quick enough to get a picture of that station's exterior architecture. I was able, however, to snap a photo of the former city government building/now current Kaohsiung Museum of History.

  

Our first destination was the Former British Consulate at Takao, completed in 1879 and used for customs administration until 1895. There were good views toward the ocean from the front, and of the city and harbor from the back. It was also already packed with sightseers at that hour of the morning.

 

After about an hour at the former consulate, it was back on the bus for the short ride to the Gushan Ferry Pier, and the even shorter ferry ride across the harbor to Cijin 旗津 Island. The guidebooks suggest visiting the oldest temple in Kaohsiung, a historic gun emplacement that was the scene of a battle when the Japanese took over Taiwan in 1895, and a lighthouse with great views of both the sea and the harbor. We didn't do any of that, unfortunately. Instead, with the 90 minutes we were given on the island, we walked up the very crowded Seafood Street (dodging cars and scooters, as well as people. The concept of a pedestrian-only road, at least on busy Sundays, doesn't seem to have caught on in many places in Taiwan), had a long (overpriced) lunch with some others from our tour bus, then spent the rest of the time letting Amber have some fun in a small playground in front of the beach. Had we been on our own, no doubt we would have taken in the above sights in a leisurely manner, with a break for lunch at a less-crowded eatery, all the while enjoying the ocean scenery. Eat-and-run, however, is the nature of travel, tour bus style.

   

After lunch and back on the bus, we left Kaohsiung, and made the first of two (count 'em, two) stops at souvenir drive-ins (for want of a better description), this one in Madou (Matou) 麻豆 in Tainan County. Ostensibly, the bus pulled in for a restroom break, but in order to reach the bathrooms, we had to run a gauntlet of vendors peddling various snack foods. Many of the sellers were using microphones to ensure their sales pitches could rise above the din of the crowd. The hard-sell didn't stop there, either. After leaving the drive-in, the bus drove on to our next destination, a "leisure farm" in the town of Jhongpu (Chungp'u) 中埔, but soon after passing through the city center, it pulled to the side of the road to allow a woman to get on, who proceeded to extol the virtues of salty raisins and vitamin pills all the way to the leisure farm's parking lot. It must have been an effective presentation, because several people ended up buying from her. For me, however, it was all the more annoying than usual because up until the saleswoman had gotten on the bus, we had taken a break from the karaoke and were watching the hit movie "Cape No. 7", which was nearing a key moment in the story when the DVD was paused to allow the raisin lady to do her thing.

The farm itself was a total tourist trap, with its cute farm animals, arcade games, snack and souvenir stands. On the other hand, for my as-yet-not jaded daughter (and may she never become so), this was the highlight of her day. She got to feed leaves to goats, run around on a spacious lawn, and enjoy yet another playground with slides. And I've got to admit, the location deep in the betel palm-covered hills was an attractive one. Still...

By now it was dark when we returned to the bus. "Cape No. 7" had almost reached its conclusion when we arrived at the second roadside souvenir emporium, the "Small Elephant Original Coffee & Mountain Tea Theme And Leisure Park". At least there were free coffee samples, and somehow me managed to get out of there without buying anything. Back on board, I was expecting to see the end of the movie, but instead it was karaoke time again! This time, the accompanying videos were not of the Travel and Living Channel variety, as the following screenshot shows:

After the pachyderm pit stop, it was time for dinner. When you travel by tour bus, large, noisy institutional dining halls are the order of the day. These places appear to be expressly set up, along with the souvenir stand rest stops, to serve the needs of Taiwan's huge tour group industry. Hundreds of people sitting at dozens of round tables, all eating the same courses, which are brought out on a continuous stream of large trays, while tour leaders use bullhorns to guide their charges to the proper tables, and the kitchen uses a PA system to communicate with the servers. The following short video clip, while of poor quality, I hope gives some idea of our intimate, relaxing dining experience:

Group Dining, Taiwan Style

It still took more than an hour to get back to Fengyuan 豐原 after dinner, 60 minutes of not only karaoke, but games, the point behind which I couldn't really fathom, and which I didn't bother asking my wife to elaborate on. It was close to 8:30pm by the time we got back, and I was knackered.

Knackered, and amazed. Amazed at why people here seem to go on these kinds of trips time and time again, when the whole process just left me exhausted, and anxious to get back home. Taiwan is a small enough island that most sightseeing spots can be easily done as a day trip without being part of a large group, with the advantages of being able to see and do things at your own pace. But no doubt I'm missing the point. There is some kind of bonding experience going on here. It doesn't really matter where you go (because you have probably been there before) and what you do when you are there (except eat, preferably something connected to the place you are visiting), it's the fact you are doing it with the others in your group that is most important.

So was it a hellish experience? No. As I noted at the beginning, with the exception of lunch and a small insurance charge, this outing didn't cost us anything. Everyone was very friendly, especially towards Amber, and I got to see most of "Cape No. 7" (though only with Chinese subtitles). So I wouldn't call this "hell". On the other hand, Dante might have included a Taiwanese bus tour as part of his description of Purgatory, had he actually had the chance to go on one. Unless, of course, he loved karaoke.