Monkey Mountain: Kaohsiung, Taiwan

Day 2 had us waking up to a beautiful sunny day in Tainan. Our mission for the day: a day trip to Kaohsiung! After so many hours in flights and then trains, I figured we would be a little jet lagged, but we woke up fairly refreshed and excited for our day. This is one of the few nights that we stayed in a hotel for our large north-south trip, with hostels making up the balance of our accommodations. The breakfast offered at most places were comparable - not large by Western standards, but definitely enough to start your day. Lots of couples and families with small children were traveling and sharing breakfast with us.

We finish breakfast and hit the street and are greeted by a beautiful, warm, sunny 17 degree weather. It's such a pleasure to be able to feel the warmth of the sun on our skin after the dreary weather that we left behind in Toronto. Note that there was actually a massive ice storm blasting Toronto at this time of the year, so we were lucky enough that our plane even took off. We definitely counted ourselves lucky.

This is the weather in Tainan

This is the weather we left behind in Toronto

This second day in our Taiwan trip took us on a day trip to Kaohsiung, Taiwan. 高雄市 is apparently classified as a special municipality, meaning that it has the rank of a province. Wikipedia tells me that the earliest evidence of human activity in Kaohsiung goes as far back as 5000 years ago! This makes sense given the proximity to water, and the large river that flows out to the ocean in this region. There is a history of indigenous people that dates far back, and then also history of colonization, starting with the Dutch in 1624. The popularity of the Kaohsiung region is due in part to the Takau
 port, which was particularly popular for fishing.

Taiwan is very well connected and so we were able to take a bus to the local bus terminal and then hop on a train for our day trip to Koahsiung. The prevalence of buses and taxis and the general good weather made travel planning a breeze.

Our stop at the local train station and the 7-11 reminds us that it is indeed Christmas time. Hard to think of Christmas when it is sunny and nearly 20 degrees out already!

Taking the typical tourist photos

Waiting for our train!

The whole process of buying train tickets is relatively painless and then we are on our way. By the time we get to Kaohsiung, it's nearly noon already so our hours in Kaohsiung are somewhat limited. Knowing that the daylight hours are a lot longer in Taiwan than we've been having in Toronto, we aren't too worried. We grab a map at the train station and make a bee line to the West, in search of our first location: Shoushan (壽山) mountain. It was affectionately named "Monkey Mountain" by the Dutch in the 17th century, who noticed an abundance of monkeys on it when they first explored the area. 500 years later, it is still crawling with our distantly related cousins.

Our first sight when we get to the base of the Shoushan monkey mountain

The monkeys are generally quite peaceful and not troubled by humans, which is in part due to humans feeding them

We start hiking up the mountain, and are again surprised at how easily the locals outpace us, even while they make it look like leisure. Both Melody and I are quite warm at this point, and are having trouble keeping up with the locals.

There are quite a few good lookout points on the way up, which show the size of the city. There is a little bit of smog to contend with though.

We make our way up to one of the higher points on the mountain and take a short detour,and we find this beautiful, quiet little hiding place where the large banyan trees have all but blocked out the sun. You can see below that some of the roots have taken very wild routes on their search for water and anchorage, suggesting that some soil erosion has taken place over the years.

Lovely, quiet place we found along our hike, which shows the supremacy of the banyan trees

Right near the top of the mountain, we stumble upon what I can only think of as a monkey convention. The little guys are everywhere! They are just relaxing, looking for food, and grooming one another.

It's hard to properly see the view of the city in the mid-day haze, but it's still a relaxing sight

We had a few patient monkey models

Our trip down is almost as difficult as the trip up, because our legs sore and we are getting hungry! 

Some well thought-out designs to aid traction

We make our way down and find ourselves at the base of the massive Martyr's Shrine. There appear to be several Martyr's Shrines throughout Taiwan; we found one in 2012 in Taipei.

Martyr's Shrine, Taipei, 2012

Martyr's Shrine, Taipei, 2012

This Martyr's Shrine looked quite different, and looked right out over the city. It's as majestic as any I've ever seen, so it never gets old for me.

I love big temples - Martyr's Shrine, Kaohsiung, Taiwan 2013

These courtyards always take my breath away. So peaceful

The gates to the Martyr's Shrine

We wander around the Martyr's shrine for a little while and then wander a little closer towards the coast where we see a massive display with the word "LOVE" in big block letters.  Part of the reason for this is that the river that runs around the base of the mountain is literally called the "Love River"

Picture of the Love sign with Kaohsiung in the background

Photo time

By the time we were finishing up taking photos on the mountain the sun was going down. Time to start making our way home, or at least get some dinner! We also had to make our way back to the train station to get back to Tainan! Luckily the train is running pretty frequently throughout the day so this didn't require a lot of planning.

Melody enjoying her Dorayaki

Dorayki (銅鑼燒 or Tóngluó shāo) is the favorite food of Doraemon - Melody's favourite comic of all time. Can you see the resemblance to the photo above? 

More bizarre Christmas tree displays in Taiwan

So on December 26, Boxing day, we woke up to 20 degree weather, took a train from one city to another, hiked up a monkey mountain, found a giant Love sign, and then discovered random interpretations of Christmas trees that I've never seen before in Canada. Quite a different Christmas holiday indeed!