Kaohsiung, Taiwan

When Eunmi and I landed in Taipei last Thursday, we took first took the bullet train to Kaohsiung. For about $40 USD, we were traveling at 300 km/hour and made it there in an hour and a half.  Kaohsiung is the second largest city in Taiwan and is located on the southwest coast.

Kaohsiung was nice. Humid. About 30 degrees Celsius, or close to 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Too hot when the air wasn’t moving, but with a slight breeze, the evenings especially, were perfect.

Scooters EVERYWHERE. Everyone has a scooter. Often times, a family of four with teenagers will have four scooters.

Twin towers. I don’t know what they’re called, but they’re famous and are popular with the tourists.

Walking around in a night market in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Smelled really awful (turned out the “aged tofu” was the culprit), but had a lively atmosphere.  They sold everything from weird street foods (almost all deep-fried) to nail clippers.

Eunmi and Ashley posing inside a huge tiger’s mouth. We showed up right when they were closing the interior, so I can’t tell you about what’s in there.

That’s Chris (from Ireland), Charlotte (native Taiwanese), Ashley (Korean living in Taiwan), and Eunmi (holding a Taiwan Beer).

Here are those nail clippers I was talking about. I have never seen more than 4 different types of nail clippers in one place before seeing this. Never thought I’d have a picture of nail clippers on this blog.

Some sore of addictive chew that all the taxi drivers in Taiwan keep in their mouth all day. The taxi driver that drove us the 2 hour drive from Kaohsiung to Kenting had one in his mouth at every moment. When he was taking one out of his mouth with one hand, the other had was reaching for another from his bag. His teeth were black and half-deteriorated. All of his taxi driver buddies he was waving at also had black teeth when they smiled back at him.