Day 3 (16/6): KaoHsiung

Woke up slightly later that morning and we headed towards Kaohsiung train station to take the "jie yun" or singapore's version of the MRT. Decided to collect our railway train tickets for the following day to Hualien just in case and that was when we met with that idiotic attendant I mentioned in my previous post. Story cut short, he kept insisting we didn't book the tickets after giving him my IC no. (he refused to accept the booking number so don't bother remembering it) and gave a very unfriendly tone towards us. When I tried to troubleshoot and realised it could be due to an additional "S", we finally managed to verify that we did make payment for it beforehand and his attitude changed slightly better... but that was all.

Anywaz, before moving onto our next destination, the famous Love River of Kaohsiung, yq saw a very cute stitch keychain wrapped around a larger stitch bubble. Costs $80NT but thinking we would have seen it somewhere else, with a chance that it would even be much cheaper, we decided to take that risk and carried on with our planned itinerary. The reason for me telling you this is that we did indeed see a similar toy that was much cheaper going at $60NT in a UFO catcher but we only managed to see the same toy only once and it was at the weirdest of places.... in Pingsi 6 days later. Bottomline for me telling you all this is that if you really like something very much, you should not take that risk of letting it go because contrary to what you might believe, you might not see it again.

The only stuff or items that you'll get to see time and time again are those sold at the "box" shops.. Singapore has a similar concept shop that rents out the box space for ppl to display their items. Those, you can rest assure that you'll be able to get them almost anywhere in Taiwan but I think the prices are more or less the same.

The nearest station to Love River was more than a stone throw's away from it. I can't remember the name of the station but like everywhere else we went, the customer service counters at the train stations will be your quickest, most convenient and safest bet to get the places you want to go. After exiting the station, we had to ask around again and during our walk there, several "twin" buildings caught our eyes. They were in duplicates designed similarly and were clustered around one area. That is the area you would want to walk towards. Treat it as a landmark and orientate yourself to Love River from there. We even stopped at a roadside selling cold red bean soup to cool ourselves down before proceeding on.

When we did finally reach Love River at around 11am, it was... overrrated. It was nothing more than what Singapore River was... just about twice the width larger. Food stalls line one side of the river while the other side was taken up mostly by the setup stages. The stalls were there and the stages were there because if you recall... that day was Duan Wu Jie (dragonboat festival). More and more people gathered around the riverside, waiting patiently for the dragonboat racing to start, despite the sorching sun. The sun that day was merciless, we didn't want to feel like dumbos standing around waiting for the time to strike 2.30pm just to witness the first wave of dragon boaters battle it out so we just jalan-ed the food stalls and walked around both sides of the river bank.

One major setback we made was that we underestimated the weather and didn't bring with us a brolly that day. We tried out the local foods such as fried seafood balls, eggs cooked in salt, and bought ourselves a winter melon drink with 3 scoops of banana soda in it. Nothing all too fantastic, but the good thing about the drinks in Taiwan is that most of the beverages come in supreme sizes, all at a reasonably low price.

As anticipated heightened, and it was finally time for the first 2 dragonboat competitors to take off, the crowd roared and cheered as if an earthquake was eminent. Even the buildings shoke with terror.... ok... I'm joking. Nothing of that sort, not even close. When the starting whistle blew, the entire place was almost void of cheers. There was such a din with all the chattering that I didn't even recall hearing the blow of the whistle. Hell, I didn't even know it started until I saw the dragonboaters row their boats midway in the river. Got me thinking to myself... why are the onlookers or "supporters" even gathered around the river? For a free suntan? Or an accelerated trip to the underworld via death by skin cancer? Seriii.. oouusss... ly..... Geeze. All that hype for nothing.

Needless to say, we didn't stay any longer for the 2nd wave to push off and decided to explore the other "side" of the river. There was a professional basker along the streets and he managed to gather a crowd with his still poses and robotic movements. Also tried some Chong You Bing on the other side of Love River.

I remembered glancing through a good handful of tourist attractions but we ended up only visiting the Municipal Film Archives (MFA) and Yancheng district (which wasn't even a defined area). There were cute figurines dressed in different superhero outfits such as Spiderman and Batman surrounding MFA. The place mostly featured old films and there was a higher "restricted" room on the 2nd floor which didn't allow visitors carrying bags the size of Times magazine in. You'll have to deposit them at the counter in the basement. When asked what was in the room, they were mostly films for rent... We didn't see the worth to go through all the hustle (since our important belongings like passports and stuff were in our bags) and gave it a miss.

We then walked along Yancheng district. Asked around (feel free to anyone working in convenience stores.. they seem to be the experts in navigation) and realised that we were already standing in Yancheng district. Didn't see much "old" stalls nor any cultural differences but we did pass by a beef noodle shop which had the guts to debunk another's famous beef noodle shop claim just a couple of streets away. We thought to ourselves, "for them to do so, they must be the real deal." Curiosity killed the cat I guess, we took a go at it and WOW, true to its word, it was good. Sorry I couldn't give any more details because I can't remember the street name of how to get there, merely the image of the shop front lingers in my mind but I believe it would fade with time. Another regret we had was that we didn't take many photos of the food we ate during the first few days of our trip.

We soon came to accept the fact that there was really nothing much to do in Kaohsiung "main centre" so we decided to head towards our next destination... Dreammall. On ur way there, we caught our first pink panther soft toy which cost us $60NT (was $80NT bao get but a little girl gave 2 tries and gave up)! Also, I had left a couple of details out, such as us buying the Hello Kitty Ferris Wheel tickets at Dreammall via our hotel's counter lady at a discounted rate and that we dropped by the visitors centre which was lined along Love River and were advised to forego 85 Sky Tower and go for the Ferris Wheel instead since they were pretty much the same thing... and costs around the same as well. The visitors centre was located under the gargantuan dragon statue overseeing the Love River in the middle of one side of it.

We took the jie yun over to the nearest station from Dreammall and there was a shuttle bus there. We were greeted with a cute bus and even the interior was adorably furnished. With their mascots mounted at the driver's seats as well as those decorated head rests. Dreammall was surprisingly quite impressive on the outside... and we would soon have discovered, on the inside as well. The mall itself was big, reminded me of Times Square in Kuala Lumpur or Singapore's very own Vivocity. And of course, the stuff they sold there was of a higher range than your average (in Taiwan's context) roadside stalls. We just window shopped a little, got a couple of souvenirs and headed to the rooftop, where the Hello Kitty Ferris Wheel stood tall. On the roof there were carnival games and mini theme park rides. We played a couple before finally queueing up for the 15 minute ride to view Kaohsiung's night scene.

There were 2 kinds of carriages you could choose from, the normal cutey carriage or the transparent carriage (only had 2 of them... out of I think about 15 carriages or so?). We chose the rational option because the queue for the transparent carriage would have taken too long. But we were not disappointed for the normal carriages were lined with cute Hello Kitty and Friends wallpaper and the seats were sweet looking and even had fluffy pillows on them. The carriages were air-conditioned and towards the last few moments of it, they would take a camera shot of your entire carriage... of course you'll have to buy the photos at the counter if you want (which we didn't cos we were misaligned).

We then headed to the basement to get some food to munch on. Came across this Japanese imported food product... no idea what the name is but its like those triangular sushi rolls, just 3 times bigger and the rice was wrapped around barbequed pork. Decided to give it a try and alas... we had to take a queue number and was told we had to wait 30 mins for it. Christ. Still, we gave it a go since we were convinced there must be a reason for the wait and went around looking for other food. I went into a bakery and bought what looked like a giant sized croissant-shaped plain yellow bread. It was slightly oily but everyone else was buying it so I thought to give it a try as well.

And man I must say, I was so thankful for trying both foods out. They were awesomely delicious. I will come to the top 10 food list at the end of my entire trip and these 2 foods are in it. Savory and highly memorable. We checked out the exterior of dreammall, took several photo shots of the front and centre of the mall before moving off to Xing Juejiang Shopping District.

After taking the train a nearer station, we began our "marathon" walking along the streets of Kaohsiung and headed to one of the talked about place - Xing Juejiang shopping district. It was quite like the bugis where all the hip and cool stuff were at, which was bustling with shoppers. That was where yq bought a stripped sling bag which she carried around for the rest of our trip. I asked around for where I could get the famous Kaohsiung papaya milk drink and a stall directed me to the nearest one around the corner. It was as its reputation preceeded, perfect on every level. Wasn't too sweet, and had a good balance of papaya and milk in it. Left a pleasant, faint and lingering aftertaste. Think that was pretty much all that we tried over there.

We carried on walking and came across this beautifully constructed train station, Formosa Boulevard. It felt like a very arty farty and abstract train station. Do check it out if you get the chance too. If I'm not wrong, it's also the nearest station to Liouhe night market. Boy oh boy, Liouhe night market was a food paradise. Everything came in miniature sizes, cheaper costs and they were highly catered to Singaporeans (because we weren't there for full meals but to try out as many different dishes as we could). We bought tiny muahchee like balls on sticks, Rou Zhao Fan (like the 3 layer pork on rice), prawn noodles and even... guess what... the famous Kaohsiung Papaya Milk!! Gave another go at it but despite its credentials, all the posters it put up about TV stations visiting and promoting them and stuff, they were anything but close to what I tried before at Xing Juejiang. The only other Papaya milk shop I saw was at the top level of Dreammall but I gave it a miss because it looked a little too gimicky.

Well, though Liouhe night market offered a wide selection of food snacks, only one dish won our heart. It won my heart so much I tried it at the start of my walk along the night market and had another bowl at the end of my walk - the Rou Zhao Fan. It was the best (though it was the first at that time, I did try it 3 other times but I still think none can beat that stall's), cooked by these two 30+ guys who took turns to cook them and smoked whenever they got the chance. The cigaratte smoke was quite a turnoff but we strategically chose our seats well.

After the night market, it was already getting late so we made our way back to our hotel. Like what I've mentioned in my previous post, Happy Hotel has a pretty good location and its walking distance to the night market... just that you'll have to reach this split road up a highway and a narrow and seemingly darker straight road ahead. Do still beware of your own safety but you don't have to be too paranoid about it for as long as you have the feet of a shopahoilic, you can get to those places of interest in Kaohsiung.

To sum it up:

Kaohsiung Ratings: 3.5/5 (nothing much to do, but the food was superb)

• don't have to buy a day train ticket to get around as you won't be using it too much since everywhere is within walking distance
• bins are tougher to find in Kaohsiung than in Kenting but cleanliness wasn't that affected
• Love River is overrated as well as both sides of it, Dreammall is definitely worth a trip down to try out the Bread and Japanese Sushi? and Liouhe night market is a must-go for its Ruo Chuo Fan. Try to wack whatever papaya milk stalls you see 'cos true to its repuatation, Kaohsiung's papaya milks were indeed commendable

• toilets are tough to find and your best bet of relief would be the bigger malls such as Dreammall or the train stations which surprisingly has one of the most clean toilets around (probably because they are all in the station itself (after the control gantry)
• not that safe walking along the streets because the walkways were narrow and were clustered either with parking motorbikes or the shops stuff (we could literally closeline a motorcyclist if we were to stretch out our hands)
• traffic lights were not pedestrian friendly for most of them didn't have the "green" man, had to do lotsa checking and "jaywalking" to get to places (simply put, the traffic light system bo license)