Following up on my trip to Kaohsiung. You can read Kaohsiung trip part 1 first, if you want the whole story. I also tell a bit about my trip down there with THSR in my Taiwan High Speed Rail Photos post.
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I don't know if this piece of art have a special meaning or name, but it seems to be some sort of tourist attraction here. Makes sense in some way, seeing as Kaohsiung is a city with a very big harbour.
Went on a trip around the port after running into the container-sculpture above. Mark must have prepared well and knows just the places to go to. It's probably mostly because I have a big camera with me this time, but the trip around the port didn't bore me one bit, which is quite amazing. Tourbuses and tourboats especially don't do the trick for me, and this one was even all in Chinese. Perhaps the size of the harbour and ships in it made it worthwhile.
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There's the Tuntext Sky Tower in the background.
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A number of retired restaurant boats were docked next to the tourboat when we went on. Mark says his wife went to eat here once in her young days (she grew up in Kaohsiung). Apparently, the food was terrible and the only reason people would come to this restaurant because of it's fancy being-a-boat thing. Obviously business stopping when word spreads is the only logical explanation for such an expensively-looking ship to float around and fall apart here.
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It's year of the tiger in Kaohsiung as well. Unfortunately don't have any better pictures of this floating tiger-statue, but now it's there.
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Taiwan loves curtain walls.
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They also have a thing for putting round things on top of tall residential buildings.
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I like this ships name.
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Mark worked at a boat like this while he was in military. Actually he might very well have worked (Every Taiwanese man have to serve the military for one year when they turn adult. A few years ago, it was actually two years. After all, (Mainland) China has been a big threat to Taiwan for a long time and still is. Relations between the two countries have been improving over the years although Mainland China still see Taiwan as their property, but my impression is that most Taiwanese still suspect that China would be likely to take over the country by force, should they step down too much in military.)
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These old ships are going to be used for shooting practice. There's a big naval military base nearby. A very big one. Taiwan's military force takes up somewhere between 16 and 18 percent of the national budget and Taipei doesn't have a lot of space for the big navy. Didn't go to see near the naval port though.
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Salvage Queen and Salvage Challenger.
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Well, well, look at that. Seems we don't only have Mærsk here, but also smaller shipping companies. Go Denmark!
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A green repair/refuel boat.
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Is this a yacht or a ferry?
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Lots and lots of giraffes around here.
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Or perhaps you think they look more like some sort of bird?
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A house made of containers, is it? Not an uncommon sight here in Taiwan. But usually they're located somewhere out near a rice field or something alike.
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Okay, now I'm in the mountains.
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We went searching for a place where you can see monkeys and Mark asked some people on the road for directions. They led him to another place than he had wanted to go to, but we decided to go look around anyway. They said there were monkeys here too.
After walking a bit back and forth, we bumped into them again (before, we were in a car and they by foot.)
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We were a bit impatient, as we were actually not really sure if there'd be monkeys here and didn't have much time left before sunset, so we didn't want to wait for the slow group of middle-aged ladies. As we had walked for a pretty long time without seeing monkeys, we were about to turn around and go to another place as we caught up with this 70+ year old guy who told that the monkey king in this area would bring his group further up in the mountain to their home. A bit of confusion arose and we almost went back to the car, but then decided to keep going as the slower group of ladies caught up with us and assured there would be monkeys 10 minutes ahead. Fortunately decided to do so.
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It's getting darker already. Have to hurry now. Sun sets early here.
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Then we ran into puppies! Lot's of wild dogs live in the mountains in Taiwan as people often leave unwanted dogs here. It's sometimes hard to find food here so they can sometimes be aggressive. It's best to walk together with other people when it gets darker if you go to one of the more remote areas. Here it's okay though. Many people on the roads here and the dogs didn't look like they were falling apart (means they aren't starving a lot), so I didn't feel uncomfortable at all.
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Been working really hard to find those monkeys. Too bad they moved further up in the mountain.
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Then, suddently, I saw the first wild monkey in my life. That would be a Formosan Rock Macaque. She was even carrying a baby.
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Okay, I'm convinced already. They're real, natural monkeys.
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The little one was sucking milk from his mother until she decided to lie down. Then he got angry and tried to hit her, resulting in a hurt hand. Lesson: Don't hit someone whose arm is longer than you're tall.
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All these guys do is apparently just cleaning each others furs and eat leaves. They're the only native primates on Taiwan (except for humans) and I bet they don't have much natural enemies if any. Most bigger predators are almost extinct here.
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Most of the monkeys didn't mind my presence, but this one was for some reason not too satisfied with me watching him eat leaves. (They're small and shy, don't worry.)
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The younger monkeys like to play around a yellow house there. Appareantly they are less concerned about humans passing by than the older ones. This place is pretty close to the hiking trail.
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Formosan Rock Macaques has kyoot too.
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They're playing with a broken plastic cup.
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I really like this picture.
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Can get so close to some of these and they'll ignore you almost completely. Only just this one finally found some interest in me while relaxing on a branch above me.
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While I was further up the trail to take pictures of a bigger monkey group, this little guy who got in a fight with his mother before had gotten curious.
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Then he decided to try on some other food than breast milk.
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Yeah, it's getting late. This one is already a bit tired. And I'll be ending this post soon too.
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Sun is setting now. That means there wont be many minutes before the place is dark as coal.
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Didn't stay here for long during the night. (I was almost 400 km away from my home in Taipei and didn't plan to stay overnight, so had to take the train early.)
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Just have a few low light pictures left for you as I also ate a dinner and spent quite some time travelling around.
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Did go to this old fort though. It was used during the Qing Dynasty but defeated by the japanese about 100 years ago when Taiwan was taken over.
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Almost completely no light here. Actually my camera sees better than me. Exposure time is 1 second and am sorry the picture is a little blurry. Didn't bring tripod.
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My lens is made for this.
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For some reason, a lot of high schoolers were hanging out around this dark dark fort. Mostly couples.
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The old nameplate of the fort. When the Japanese attacked, they destroyed the two latter characters in the name.
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Also went to see some fireworks.
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These two aunties treated us lunch and dinner and the one in blue dress who works at Mærsk, lent us her car to get around. Thanks for that! During dinner, two other aunties - one of them Marks mother-in-law as well as the old grandmother joined us, but I didn't take any pictures of them.
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I'd like to end my article with this. These signs were used near some of the Taiwan High Speed Rail stations and have been confusing Taiwanese people since two years ago, according to this Reuters article.
That object above is the Jubeat version of a song called Kiss & Ride by 中塚武, which I like too.
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