As usual, we woke up late again. My feet are tired from all the walking and today is going to be another day of walking. We were afraid of taking the bus since most of the writings are in Chinese and not a lot of people understand English. That is why we have been stuck to walking and taking the MRT. Anyway it is a good exercise and it does not hinder me from seeing the sights and going around a new place.
By now, we have been going in and out of the Central Park MRT station but there are still a lot of spots there to take pictures of. We also tried a different route from our apartment which is actually a shorter walking distance than where we have been used to walking.
From R9 station we went to R16 Zuoying station, the nearest station to the man-made Lotus Lake. Going out of the station, we felt a little lost as there were very few people around (like it was in a ghost town) and we literally cannot find any sign leading to Lotus Lake. We saw the Train station though which is a separate railway from the MRT but is just right beside it. From there we walked for quite a bit and saw some signs leading to the Confucius Temple. This is good news, as I know this is just around the vicinity of the lake. After around 15-30 minutes of walking, we finally saw the huge lake.
A view at the back of the Confucius Temple
My husband pretending to climb the Confucius temple gate
After taking some shots near the Confucius temple entrance, we walked around the path of the Lotus Lake. We sat for awhile in one of the benches to rest and again took some pictures of the nice view from that area.
Walking further south of the lake, we saw this huge Taoist god statue (called The Emperor of the Dark Heaven) and went to have a closer look. According to Taoist myth, he defeated the demon king and serves as a reminder that good always defeats evil.
We also saw this small lotus pond near the Taoist god statue pavillion entrance. It would look nice for a wallpaper.
A bit further south is the Tiger and Dragon pagodas. As they say for good luck, one must enter the Dragon and exit through the Tiger mouth. Rene is tempted to do otherwise, but I convinced him to do the safe way. We don't want to play with fire you know.
The walls have nice colorful paintings but we did not check closely if there was some story into it. I did read somewhere that it tells about China's 24 obedient sons and some scenes of heaven and hell.
Exiting the Tiger trail, we gave a little donation at the counter and we were given some nice postcards of the place. Afterwards we went up to one of the pagodas which reached up to 6th floor. The way up was all worth it when we saw the view from the top!
More views of the pagodas around Lotus Lake
The Tiger and Dragon pagodas, a temple across the street from the pagodas, and some carved artwork on the zigzag bridge
The walls of the bridge have some carvings probably telling a story; Above another streetsign that Rene thought was funny
Before leaving the area, we decided to check out the Old Fongshan wall as well. We sat by one of the benches first to take some rest.
The Old Fongshan wall is just about a block away from the southern edge of the Lotus Lake. I was a bit disappointed though. I was expecting it to be like the old walled city of Intramuros in Manila (which looked an old city by itself) but instead it was just literally a well-preserved wall. We still took some nice pictures though. You can still see the Dragon and Tiger pagodas from afar.
On our way to R15 MRT station, we took a late lunch in one of the sidewalk eateries, which was good. Each of us ordered a meal for NT$60 that already consisted of a chicken dish (Fried Salt and Pepper Chicken or Peking Duck), rice, 3 side dishes and an iced tea drink. It was delicious and very filling.
We went back to our apartment to rest for awhile so that we still have the strength to go to the Liouhe Night Market later. On our way back, we took a pic of these contrasting establishments. They are not located beside each other though, in case you were wondering.
A Toys of Lovers store and a nice Catholic cathedral in Kaohsiung city
The night was cold and windy as usual when we headed for the Liouhe Night Market. We went there around 8pm. Tonight we were not planning to shop a lot. Instead, we were planning to to a do lot of eating.
The place was colorful and alive. Although we found the place a bit small compared to other night markets we've been to such as those we found in Bangkok. It looked like it was just one street block so that when we reached the end of the road, we were quite disappointed that this was it. Nevertheless, we found a tasty looking seafood congee at the end of the street and decided to try it out. It is a bit expensive though at NT$90 each. After the congee, we also tried what looked like a lumpia / spring roll at NT$40. We also could not resist trying the strawberry topped strawberry ice cream costing NT$80. I guess we were not quite adventurous enough with the food we tried. Mostly because we cannot converse and read in Chinese.
Before going home, Rene also tried out the Taiwan beer which we bought at a nearby convenience store. That capped our 3rd day of touring around Kaohsiung.
Related posts:
A few days in Kaohsiung, Taiwan (Day 4 - March 10, 2009)
A few days in Kaohsiung, Taiwan (Day 2 - March 8, 2009)
A few days in Kaohsiung, Taiwan (Day 1 - March 7, 2009)
A few days in Kaohsiung, Taiwan (Preparation)
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