My next stop was Kaohsiung City, south of Tainan. Again my reasons for stopping here were more out of a sense of, “why not?” than a need to see the city. I’m not exactly positive, but I think it’s the second biggest city in Taiwan. It was only about a 1-hour long train ride from Tainan to Kaohsuiung and the train station was only about 100 meters from my hostel so the whole process went really fast. The train was more of a metro than a true train though and it was crowded. I ended up standing the whole ride which isn’t really important, but might give you an idea of the ride.
Again, just like in Tainan there wasn’t a plan of things that I should do or spots that I should see. My goal was just to ‘experience’ the city for what it was.
The city is for the most part just like all the cities that I’ve been to in Taiwan, crowded with lots of beautiful women and food stalls—both are becoming the endearing things I like about Taiwan. It was hot too, maybe a little bit too hot for me. It would only take a few minutes of walking before sweat would be pouring from every spot on my body. It is a situation that I find both uncomfortable and embarrassing.
On one day I went for, according to my GPS, a 15-mile walk (24km). I love long walks and although I don’t think I’ve written about it before, I consider my walks to be more of a chance to meditate than anything else. I do appreciate being outdoors and getting some exercise, but after about the 3-mile mark of a walk my mind starts to wander and I end up almost in a contemplative state similar to what I consider to meditation.
On this walk I just wandered around the city, kind of aiming towards a large building that was situated far in the distance, it looked somewhat unique but more importantly it gave me a destination. On the way I heard fireworks and a mix of drums and chanting. I could see about 6 blocks away a large group of people doing something so I decided to check it out. I’m still not exactly sure what the celebration was for, but it was a procession of worshipers making their way from temple to temple… I think.
I stayed there for about an hour as each group would march by, turn a corner and stop in front of a temple, ‘do their thing’ and then move on. After each group left a person would set off fireworks. There were many different types of groups, there were people carrying an idol, flag bearers, musicians, and my favorite, dancing dragons. Although it wasn’t, ‘fun’ in the typical sense, I had a good time watching. The whole process was maybe a little bit strange to me for a few reasons, the first being that they had to deal with traffic. Here’s a procession of maybe 500 people and they have to wait for a green light cross the street or stop to let a car turn left. Just funny. The procession left the one temple and I would later find out that it was going to all the temples in the area. I figured this out because after I left I kept running into them for the next hour or two, somewhat embarrassing considering that they probably thought I was following them.
“What did you do today?”
“Nothing much, just followed a parade for about six hours.”
I may need a life sometimes, but I don’t think I’ve been desperate enough to follow a parade before, especially considering that I had no idea what it celebrating. J
Most of my time in Kaohsiung was spent just exploring not too far from the hostel. Did some typical touristy things like go to the night market, wander along the river and maybe unique to only me, gorge myself on fruit. I love watermelon… I really, really do. I think it’s the best fruit ever… If I ever have a son, I’m going to name him Watermelon. J
