Kaohsiung

Last weekend I went to Kaohsiung and Kenting with Justine and Ryan.
Ryan and I were going to participate in a 3000 meter open ocean swim that was being held on a beach in the Kenting area. These cities are on the southern end of the island and this was my first trip down to that part of the island. I was quite excited.
We headed down on Friday night and arrived at our hostel to find out that there was no one at the hostel to help us check in or give us keys to rooms. There was a number posted outside that instructed us to call it if there was any assistance needed. This was apparently meant as an exercise in futility as no one answered said number. There was a nice guy staying at the hostel who knew the owner and tried to help us out. It boiled down to us leaving our number, stowing our bags and heading out to get some food while we waited for the lady with access to the keys to return and let us into some rooms.
There was an Australian Outback restaurant across the river. I had not yet had a decent steak in this country and figured a western chain that specializes in good steak would probably be a good bet. We headed over there to be told that they are closed for the night and only place to get food at this hour (10:00pm) would be the night market, which isn't really walking distance from here. So after a few minutes of arguing we headed off to the night market via taxi. After all it's not like we were going to get into our hostel anytime soon, according to the nice man the lady with access to the keys likes to party.
In the night market we came across a stand selling "Mexican burritos." Well the pictures look interesting anyway. They were offering veggie, chicken, beef, fish and potato. There may have been one other, but I don't recall as of now. So I was intrigued by the potato option and decided to try it. While it was tasty (curried potatoes in a tortilla) I do believe the only thing "Mexican" about it was the tortilla. Chalk it up to yet another random interpretation of how things are.
Just as we wandered to the end of the night market, Justine got the call that we could head to the hostel. We did so and were shown to our rooms for the night. Behold the splendor!

To the right is a fan as there is no air conditioning, which is lucky for us it wasn't any warmer because Kaohsiung gets really hot in the summer.

The next morning I was the first one up so after a cold shower I headed out to buy a toothbrush, because in my frenzy to pack my bag and have everything ready to take to work with me so I could just leave from there I did not have the foresight to make a list and check it twice, so no toothbrush.
Our hostel was right next to the Love River, which has apparently been cleaned up considerably from it's days of being used as the dump for every bit of waste the city produced.
Behold the loveliness!


I was trying to get a good shot of the sign, but that doesn't seem to have worked very well.
Kaohsiung is going to be hosting the world games at the end of July. They will be starting the day I leave the country to go home for my vacation. They are of course advertising like mad all over the place.

And a dragon statue for good measure. Mainly because I like dragons.

There was also this highly entertaining bit of signage.
I'm not sure if it's telling you to pick up after you're pets or if you're not allowed to let your pets pee in the park. Sometimes this culture takes their visual aides to the next level and the amusement is had by many foreigners.

The next post will have pictures of Kenting and of the entertainment we had there, despite the fact that I am a goober and left my camera in the hostel while we scootered about.