Kaohsiung

March 26th
Kaohsiung, Taiwan

Today, due to a rehearsal and an early departure to make it back to Hong Kong in time tomorrow, was cut drastically short as far as my exploratory time was concerned. I did however have almost 2 hours to get off and walk around, so I guess that’s better than nothing.
I got off the ship with the intentions to spend the remainder of my Taiwan currency, something that would soon be totally useless seeing as I don’t return to Taiwan any more this contract. It was about lunch time, so as usual, most of my time was spent trying to find a good place to eat. I ran into one of my friends on the street who pointed me towards a restaurant he’d just came from that was fairly decent, so I took his advice and found the place. This was one of the few nice places to eat, if not the only, that I saw walking through the city that day. The place almost reminded me of Hard Rock Café and Americana meets Taiwanese culture, and considering the menu also had English descriptions, it was bound to work out fine. I ordered some spicy chicken dish which I enjoyed along with a local beer. I spent almost all my money there, I guess the décor meant it was slightly more expensive than the food being served a block away, cooked under a tent using a barrel fire, but I knew it’d be clean.
After leaving, I spent my last 45 minutes wandering up and down the streets zigzagging my way back to the ship. The town was really interesting to walk through, and much less developed than anything I’d seen yesterday. There was an amazing high number of shops that resembled piles of moped parts, motors, wenches, or anything else mechanical. Walking by these places, you’d see someone tending to the shop sitting way in the back hidden by 6 foot piles of parts, and this would be the dominant business on multiple streets. I have no idea how they make any money doing that or what the actual service is that’s being offered, but machine parts seems to be a passion shared by many.
I returned to the ship with about 10 minutes to spare, and got back on to play a matinee show and then two farewell shows that night, an unusually busy day. Then that would be about it for the day and for me in Taiwan. I’d really love to go back sometime and get more time to really learn about the cities and the culture, but I’m thankful for the taste I was able to get over the past two days. Thanks for reading!