Train bound for Hualien city

Kaohsiung - After a hearty breakfast, we rested in the hotel before heading the Train station to board our train bound for Hualien City @ 1pm.   

Waiting for our train to arrive.   Kaohsiung has an area for female passengers travelling at night.

Here comes our train and it will be a long ride of 5hrs to our destination - Hualien.

Our train cabin and we had reserved seats...

Nice Desert Shop

Kaohsiung - After crossing the ferry from Cijin Island, we ate some desert from a famous desert shop near the ferry termnal. 

This desert shop has unique character with many signatures and graffiti scribbling on their walls and ceilings.

This mango ice shaving desert uses lots of condensed milk and ice shaving were made from milk.  After our desert, we walk to the MRT station and take the sub-way back to Kaohsiung Bus terminal MRT station.

Fun at Cijin Island

Kaohsiung -  We had our hearty complimentary breakfast at Kindness Hotel and the spread was very good.  Today, we set forth walking to Cijin Island, but before that we went to Sanmin street.  It was so crowded with many tourist, with hawkers selling food and many sundry products.

We took the ferry across to Cijin Island from Gushan Ferry terminal....

Ferry to Cijin Island

Scooters and bicycles on the lower deck and passengers on the upper deck.

Images from the deck of the Cijin Ferry.

We arrrived at Cijin Island.

We had a quick lunch and rented a Quad-Tandem bicycle for 3 hours to cycle around the island.  It was so fun.  

We had a map to navigate around the island and we first pass by the Tianhou Temple, then cycled to Cihou Lighthouse

Cihou Fort

View from the Top of Cihou Fort

Cijin Shell Museum

Cijin Seaside Park

We completed 3hrs cycling on the Quad tandem bicyle, laughing at one another.   It was a tiring and fun ride and everyone contributed their energy to the cycle.   When we returned the bicycle we were their last customer before closing shop.

Shop owner packing the bicycle

Cijin is famous for their seafood and we had our dinner there.

A kind of seashell dish

Cycling in Kaohsiung

Kaohsiung - After breakfast, we took the free bicycles provided by our hotel to cycle along the Love River.

We pass by Sanfong Jhong Street, a very popular shopping area for sundry goods and tit-bits.

Cycking along the Love River.  The Love River runs through the city and is now a major recreation site.  The 16.4km river is lined on either side by well-kept parks and gardens that make romatic walkways of the riverbanks.  

Land and water vehicle

The Soaring Dragon Fish Statue

Love Pier situated at the junction of the river and harbour, makes use of the integrated design of flowers and large sailboats to match with the Hebin Park.  My kids then cycled all the way back to the Hotel as we could rent it for only 3hrs.

In the evening, we went to Kaohsiung biggest mall - Dream Mall - we walked to the Taipei Railway station MRT (R11) and stop at R6, we took the free shuttle bus to Dream Mall.  We had our dinner there.   There is a huge Ferris Wheel on the roof-top.

Kindness hotel in kaoshiung

Kaohsiung - We took the High Speed Rail bound for Kaohsiung and had to take the MRT to our hotel.   

Kaohsiung is situated on the Southwestern coast of Taiwan, facing the Taiwan Strait to the west, and beyond the southern tip of the island.  It sits across vital sealanes connecting North-east Asia with the Indian Ocean, and offers outstanding commerical port facilities.  Proximity to the sea gives Kaohsiung a warm, sunny climate all-year round.   The 2nd largest city in Taiwan.

Our Hotel: Kindness Hotel Xiong Zhong -@ 44, Jianguo 3rd Road., Sanmin District, Kaohsiung City
The Kindness hotel is actually a chain of 13 hotels in Kaohsiung.

When we reached our hotel, we are surprised with the 5-star treatment from a 3-star hotel.   After a long trip, it was really good to have a homely feeling about a hotel and this is it.   We had a family room with 2 Queen size bed.  Our kids love this hotel as they had free flow of ice-cream, refreshments,  and internet access.   The staff made us feel so welcome that we extended one more night at this hotel.    They also had free use of the washing machine and dryer - which is really good as we had a pile of laundry to clean.

At night , we went to Kaohsiung famous night market - Liu He Night Market.

We sat down and had some fish noodles....

Fried Octopus

Chives pancake

Oyster Ball

Mullet Gizzard

Shop selling dogs

Chicken feet

Taiwanese famous saussages