Short outing to Cijin Island
This morning, I set off to check-out Cijin Island, a very long island that acts as a natural breakwater for Kaohsiung. It was reached via MRT to the area which I had been to yesterday, followed by a short walk to Hamasen pier. The ride itself on the ferry was only about 10 minutes.
While I knew that Cijin was built-up, it was a little more built-up than I had expected. I wandered around the street selling seafood but things weren’t too lively at this time in the morning. The temple was undergoing massive restoration and completely inaccessible. Even the roof tiles had been taken off and the main beam supported from above by attachments to a temporary metal roof.
On the far side of the island (which was very near since the island is very narrow) was the grey sand beach. It was actually quite nice but I wasn’t prepared for swimming.
It was getting hot and I didn’t feel like making the climb up to the lighthouse. So it was back onto the ferry for the trip back.
I settled on an early lunch at the Indonesian restaurant again before having much-needed slothful afternoon lying in bed. Over lunch, I learnt that today was Children’s Day and tomorrow Qingming (tomb cleaning day) and with two days weekend following, it was a very long weekend for locals.
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- Looking out to Cijin Island.
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- Beach on Cijin island, one of the suburbs of Kaohsiung city. It is very built up but has done quiet corners.
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- Beach on Cijin island, one of the suburbs of Kaohsiung city. It is very built up but has done quiet corners.
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- Dried seafood market on Cijin island.
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- Looking back at the relatively low-rise part of mainland Kaohsiung.
In search of Love & Happiness
In the evening, I had an early dinner. I had another one of my chats with the Dayak-looking Hakka Chinese lady running the restaurant. She is from Sambas in Indonesian Borneo not far from my hometown Kuching.
She married a visiting stranger from Taiwan who had been in her town looking for a wife. It isn’t easy for less well-heeled men to find a wife in the modern materialistic world, and they go further afield in their search. She said there’s a sizeable community of women from the town of Singkawang (near Pontianak also in Indonesian Borneo) who have married visiting Taiwanese strangers. These women have a lot of courage and trust in the strangers who literally go to the ends of the earth in search for love and happiness. They have taken huge risks for a better life.
The Sambas lady now runs at least two restaurants for her husband recently graduated high school in Chinese as an adult student. Their customers are largely Indonesian workers who undertake hard labour that Taiwanese do not want to do, eg. farming, construction, factory work, crew on fishing vessels. They, along with their female counterparts working as maids, have gone a long way and worked bloody hard for a better life.
I salute them all! Most of us should never forget how lucky we are!
Travel insights like these are very special to me and are often possible by speaking another language, in this case Indonesian (which I do better than Chinese). An extra salute to the Indonesian workers who speak better Chinese than I can.
Night Market again
I wandered to the night market again for supper around 2100. It was drizzling. As I got some fruit for my breakfast, it poured. I walked along the five-foot ways of the shops which were really cluttered with equipment. I decided that the rain wasn’t going to stop any time soon and went into a convenience store to get some ready-made stuff instead for supper and breakfast.
Lo and behold, the rain stopped as soon as I had done that. I had enough money left for the MRT ride to the airport but chose to spend it on a snack I had wanted to try out. The MRT can be paid for on a Mastercard at the turnstiles (but not Visa) but here’s hoping nothing goes wrong!
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- Kaohsiung, like much of Taiwan has an active night market scene.
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- Some sort of a pie. Crusty unleavened bread with a very peppery meat patty inside with some of its juices. Super nice. Cooked in a tandoor-like oven. Could be a northern Chinese thing, as those people don’t really eat rice. Bread and dumpling people.
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- Big clams au gratin. Yummy.
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- Scallops au gratin. Again, these were yummy.
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- Dried minced meat. While we have these in slices in Malaysia, the Taiwanese also make them in thick slabs. Pretty out-of-this world yummy. I just tried the free samples. They’re expensive and laden with sugar, salt, fat and probably MSG … that’s why they’re so tasty.
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- Duck’s tongue. Didn’t try it.
