Visiting Taiwan isn’t on the top of most people’s bucket lists but I found it to be interesting. It is real and and definitely not touristy. Often the word for places like this is authentic. Sometimes gritty.
We visited there on a cruise boat hosting about 600 people that started in Hong Kong and ended in Singapore last winter.
The Port of Kaohsiung our first stop on the cruise.
We learned that this city has only been hosting cruise ships for about five years and has room for two ships at a time. The welcome is warm and festive. I think the characters on the building tell the story. This happy place welcomes guests other parts of the world.
The following two photos are the cruise ship welcome building where we were greeted and joined our excursions.
Interestingly though, there was no old town like many places around the world. When our guide took us to the what they called the “old city” we were shown a wall and a few gates and entries. Nothing left of whatever was there. It’s now a park.
But we enjoyed the temples. Again, some were quite new. The one below was built ten years ago and even included a coffee shop.
This is the interior of a Taoist temple showing the elaborate decoration. I chuckled to see the bare lightbulbs.
Near these temples I enjoyed visiting a dragon boat center. After taking a few photos of the boats, I played with double exposures and water reflections. I would enjoy visiting at the time of a race.
We visited an Art Center that looked like fun, arriving after the galleries were closed, but I got a kick out of capturing this scene with my camera.. Made me laugh. The sculptural looking bridge drew lots of attention.
