January 14, 2014

We took the train for 30 minutes down to Kaohsiung got out and quickly found food.  We ate at a place near the station, where I had 牛肉面 (Beef Noodles) but to be honest it wasn’t that good.  After that we were able to check in the apartment we were renting.  It was only 3-4 blocks away luckily since we had all of our luggage.  We found a nice place to rent scooters from.  We waited at the MRT stop for the guy to come as his shop was nearby.  Of course this is when things got extra sketchy.  He pulls up in a van and asks us all to get in.  Now of course you wonder, all those years of being told never go into a strangers car especially van goes out the window haha.   Then your next thought is, hmm will I still have my kidneys after this trip hahaha but it was fine in the end.  We got our scooters, 125cc for decent pricing for just a copy of our ARC cards and NT$1000 deposit per bike.  Not bad at all.  Test drove them and we were off.  Our next stop was Formousa Blvd. where the MRT Dome of Light attraction is.  This is supposed to be the prettiest MRT in Taiwan, I’d have to agree.

Dome of Light – Kaohsiung MRT

After the pictures of dome were done we walked over the the Liuhe Night market.   There was a ton of food, and most of it was seafood, none of it really appealing though.  I think it is because I had street food the night before.  Anyways, I did have the snake soup.

It didn’t have the meat in it but it was the soup still and it was warm and tasty.  It just had a ginger flavor but their was definitely a flavor one doesn’t usually have in there haha.  After this we decided to go to the 愛河 （Aihe or Love River).  Some of us went on a boat and toured the river.  Although the tour guide was only speaking Chinese, the views were quite nice.  Bring a jacket or two, we went during winter, it was a lot less packed but freezing your pants off cold.  Our boat package included one drink at the cafe near the dock with live music.  However when we got back the live music show was over.  We still got our drink (I got a Mocha) and since the show ended the 老闆 (laoban or store boss) let us KTV for free!

Tour Guides	愛喝 (Aihe River, Love River)

After, we were so exhausted that we went home, boy it was freezing.  One thing nice about Kaohsiung is that the streets are so wide compared to Taipei.  So much room, but still many people.

January 15, 2014

In the morning our hostel included breakfast which was okay being that it was potato salad on a slice of bread with warm milk tea.

Then ventured off for day two.  First stop was the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas.  They were really neat to see and walk through.  The area they are in is really quaint. 

We tried some blueberry shaved ice and mango and cheese thing.  After, we checked out two other pagodas and then ate wonton soup at a placed recommended to us by the shaved ice 老闆 （Laoban).  It too was very tasty, and the hot sauce surprisingly spicy.

Then we went to The Pier 2 Art Center, apparently they still had the Cargo Box Art Festival still up when we went.  They had cool art.

After we went to the dream mall and played games at the arcade. Then went on a food tour, where we ended up finding Lai Lai BBQ but it was closed down.  We found a 熱炒（Re Chao）place to eat instead.  After that we ended up at Costco to buy pizza so we could watch a movie back at the hostel.  The real trick was trying to carry pizza and drive a scooter.  Luckily we had an Architect, Economist, and Linguist haha, sounds like a bad joke.