Taiwan – Part 2 – Kaohsiung and Tianan (South Taiwan) » Backpacking in your 40's

Taiwan – Part 2 – Kaohsiung and Tianan (South Taiwan)

Carol August 13th, 2016

You will not believe it – this is the first time I stayed in hostels during my adventure – well 3 different hostels in Taiwan. One of the hostels is like the one I use to stay in my 20’s, the other 2 hostels are nicer, and one even has a coffee machine (ok – I know I don’t drink coffee regularly, but there is something about sitting in an living room drinking a hot milk tea in an air conditioned room, watching the sunlight brighten the room with no one around. I know this probable sounds like your own kitchen/living room and sometimes that is all that you need to feel at home!! Erica every time I see a coffee/espresso machine, I think of your supper duper, fancy barista espresso machine. You make the best Stumptown lattes. The funny thing is that there were plenty of coffee machines that made milk tea in the other places that I traveled and people will actually make it and bring it to you, but I think the difference is to be able to enjoy the quite, open, clean, air conditioned space for a couple of hours. It is hot and humid in Asia this time of year – it is funny to listen to different people in different countries state that one country is hotter/more humid than another – for me within a certain range, the weather feels the same in Indonesia, Philippines, and Taiwan. I really love the breeze – nature’s fan is great!!

Hostels: Listed below are 2 of the 3 hostels. So far my criteria is quite, open, air conditioned, and clean. The first one is my favorite.

Costco in Taipei:

I know this seems silly, but I really like Costco. The Costco in SF (San Francisco) has rows of fresh tuna (they must sell a lot of tuna) and they have real ice cream in their food court. The Costco in LA (Los Angeles) has separate walk in refrigerators for milk and eggs (they must sell a lot of milk and eggs), their food court has Korean BBQ bake (like the chicken bake but w/ Korean marinated meat). The Hilo Costco is great during the holidays, because you can get buckets full of Botan rice candy (and other great stuff, but I guess I really only care about the Botan rice candy and was very disappointed when I went there during a non-holiday season and they did not have it in stock – now I get a care pkg from my Aunt every x-mas w/ rice candy – thank you Aunt Terry!!). I went to the Vancouver Costco but did not find any gifts, so I didn’t spend any time looking around – darn – I will have to go back again! The AZ and OR Costco have the same basic stuff. The Taipei Costco – has mango shaved ice in their food court. Allen’s Costco and my Costco are slightly different – even though they are ~ 30 min away from each other in the bay area. I will never complain about the cost of cherries again. I never complained about the cost of blueberries and now I appreciate them more – we get 2 pds of blueberries for less than $5 dollars – even if you buy the organic stuff, it is still cheaper than what you can buy in Asia (Guess what America!! We actually export blueberries to other countries – it will not make up the American import/export deficit, but it is neat to see that we export stuff as well!!)
Costco is also my default when I have co-workers, friends, or family visit. This is one of the best value added places if you are shopping for gifts for the family. That is normally how I end up in Costco in other places as well – I am looking for gifts for friends and family in the local area. Sure you are not going to buy that original piece of art, but Costco has already filter out most of the food stuff, they stock what is popular, so if you wander around the store, you can find the local brands and food that people in that area eat. Basically when it come to gifts, it is mostly snack/junk food anyways! My non-US friends love baby stuff (car seats, clothes, toys), suitcases, children toys during the holidays, electronics, candy, etc. Frankly, if you are going to try a hot dog in the US, you might as well buy one at Costco – it is one of the best ones and a great price – if you don’t like it, throw it away – it is not that expensive. Side note – If you go to a baseball park, you have to get a hot dog there, it is part of the experience.
Anyways – Meg and Mirielle are happy and stocked up on 6 pd of blueberries, peaches, Italian cheese, and other great stuff that they can’t get in the Philippines. I thought this was funny that Mirielle never had peanut butter pretzels until I brought them from Trader Joe’s in the US (my default travel/backpacking/hiking/camping snack). Peanut butter pretzels is a common snack, unless you are allergic to nuts. Interesting side note, hard shell peanut butter pretzels only existed in the 1980’s (mnft. process did not exist before then).

Kaoshiung and Tianan: We decided to take the high speed train to southern Taiwan. Train stations in Taiwan are very nice. We were traveling around 295km/hr. That is fast!

Pier 2, Kaohshiung: Old warehouses turned into an art district. We did see Shinzi Katoh 45th anniversary exhibition – ok – we didn’t see the exhibit, but we did visit the gift shop! Good place to pick up cute gifts for girl friends.

Food, Kaoshiung: We hunted (we did not do any hunting, we did more tracking) for the best dumpling and beef noodle soup place. This basically means we walked all around town and missed the major sites, ate, and drank bubble tea – yum!! I did see Tower 88 in the distance. This dumpling place had a sign attached to the building and the shop is basically in the ally (low overhead costs). We also ate at a very busy beef noodle shop near the film archive. We decided to start the Forgetful Foodie blog, because our friends who normally take pictures of our food is not with us. Kris and I eat everything before we remember to take pictures. Expect to see empty plates, bowls, and wrappers on this blog.

Ruifeng and Liuhe Night Markets: Great street food. Scallion pancakes w/ egg is my favorite. You have to find the booth that makes the scallion pancakes from scratch (sometime it is pre-made and then heated). This is one of the many places we ate scallion pancakes!

Kaoshiung Film Archive: When we looked at the tourist map, this was stop number 8 or 9. I think we missed tourist stops 2-8.

Formosa Boulevard Station, Kaoshiung: Dome of Lights. This is listed as one of the most beautiful subway stations in the world. This is probable the worst picture of the dome of lights.

Tainan: Anping and Chihkan

Tait & Co Merchant House (1800’s Dutch trading company) and Anping Tree House. Do you remember the man vs nature English compositions we had to write in high school? I guess nature always wins.
- There are other dutch merchant buildings in the area as well. It looks like coral was used in the foundation or they built the building on top of the coral??
Chuhkan Tower:
Anping Old Fort /Fort Zeelandia: Zee – means sea.
Chichkan Cultural Zone – Collection of Quing dynasty pavilions.

Other interesting pictures:

There are x-mas lights in one of the parks we came across. It reminds me of what Meg says about the Philippines, they start putting up x-mas decorations in Aug. These may not be for x-mas, but I associate colored lights w/ x-mas
I liked the bike sign over the bike rental place.
There are so many cute large statues in the city and in front of restaurants.