Taiwan 2023 (Part III)
I guess I'm on part III somehow. And I don't feel like I'm halfway through the trip yet. So we'll see how it goes.
After the first day in Kenting, we went to a close, but less touristy city, Hengchun, the next day for breakfast. In previous trips, we stopped by this city and had the world's greatest mango ice, but it was too early to get it for breakfast.
Anyway, we had breakfast and walked around through a market for a little. Then we headed to the Kenting National Forest Recreation Area. Basically, we had a nice leisurely walk (since we didn't want to kill Angie's mom) around the site. We thought of going up to "A Thread Of Sky", which sounded really cool, but apparently it required stairs that also warned about snakes (which her mom is afraid of). So we just wandered around the park.
Funky looking tree which had a name that I can't remember now
Another very twisted tree
Pond with lillies... it was actually really stinky for since the water was somewhat stagnant
A monkey on the path
Very twisty trees (mangrove area)
Besides trees, we also looked into a stalagmite cave (but the entrance was closed) and saw a broken cactus house (recent typhoon).
Then we headed back to the hotel. Angie and I switched into our beach attire even though there were no swimming flags up (waves). It actually wasn't a good day since on top of the waves, it was very windy so sand was flying all around. And it was a short trip as we were hit by a big wave going into the water. We both stumbled, but I unfortunately stumbled into underwater rocks. I cut my foot. So we headed back since it wasn't the nicest day and I didn't want to get sandy pushed up into my wound.
Since we had extra downtime, we ended up doing laundry (fun and exotic). And when it was later, we went to the night market again. This time we collected some food and beer, and brought it back to the hotel where we ate and drank on the balcony, which wasn't bad.
Food in plastic bags, the symbol of quality in Taiwan
Goodbye to Kenting and we headed towards Kaohsiung, which was about 2-3 hours away. On the way, we stopped at various stands for wax apples and mangos. When we got close to Kaohsiung, we went towards an adjacent isle/peninsula which we had very "authentic" Vietnamese food. I'd actually say it was quite good, probably better than Edison, not sure about Philly.
A+ pho
Banh mi, not sure if it was great or just good
After eating, we walked through the Tunnel of Stars which was a walking path with lights that goes through a mountain. And on the other side, there was a pier which was hyper misty.
Tunnel of Star, kind of like Space Mountain
Crashing waves
Misty pier
On the walk back to the car, we stopped for more sashimi (not sure if Angie's mom didn't like Vietnamese food, or if she just loved the sashimi).
We checked in at the hotel after a little confusion on the parking. The hotel's breakfast area was open all day with tea, coffee, and ice cream, so we saw there and had the above (more laundry being done in an adjacent room). That evening, we headed to another night market. I did notice that there were much more Cantonese speakers so I'm guessing this city gets more tourists from Hong Kong/South China.
And as we were leaving, there were several tours coming in. Oddly enough, there was a group of Japanese school girls that were in uniform somehow. I would imagine a trip from Japan to Taiwan can't just be a day trip, so they must have been dedicated to their uniforms.
On the way back to the hotel, we stopped for some snow ice that was quite good; it was probably the first really good ice on the trip.
Cutely stupid bunny holding gold nugget
That's enough for now.
Somehow a portion of my post (between Kenting and Kaohsiung) was deleted in my original post. So I updated to add it back (plus 3 food pictures).