Taiwan #4 - The Heart of Asia: Kaohsiung

Day 5

Continuing from previous posts (1, 2, 3) of my Taiwan trip, we took a bus down south to Kaohsiung. Kaohsiung is the 2nd most populous city in Taiwan, after Taipei & is the island largest industrial centre. Halfway, we stopped at Hakka village in Meinong for visit & had authentic Hakka lunch meal. This small community village allows you to experience the richness of Hakka culture & way of life.

At Hakka village entrance

Next is to Fo Guang Shan Monastery, the most popular tourist attraction in Kaohsiung. This centre is affiliated to Fo Guang Shan & is the largest monastery in Taiwan. Founded by Master Hsing Yun in 1967, this Buddhist movement since, has expanded rapidly throughout the world with its humanistic Buddhist teachings. The monastery covers more than 100 hectares & opened to public since 2011. You just need to be impressed with the building structures, sculptures & drawings with  detailed information given to each of them. One will need more than a day to fully explore the place & read all teachings signs, erected all over the place.

Majestic statue of Buddha & His disciples

Majestic pavilions with the large Buddha statue erected

The layout of whole area, covering over 100 hectares

We checked into E-Da Royal Hotel. This 5-star hotel is located within the vicinity of the E-Da World, an integrated park consists of an indoor & outdoor theme parks, outlet malls, university & even international school. It is the largest tourist resort in Taiwan & hosted many international events. Spent the whole evening, taking on the rides in the outdoor theme park & window shopping at the premium outlet mall. A must-ride in this theme park is the Taiwan Formosa ride. This indoor ride offers you a bird-eye view of all the natural attractions in the whole of Taiwan, providing the up/down movements as if you are flying on a paraglide. Another notable mention is the "Booster". This ride brings you up in the air in & making a 360 degrees (a few turns actually) turn up in the air. A first timer bounds to have his/her voice cracks for screaming out in fear throughout the ride.

The "Booster" ride. Two words: Terrifying excitement

Colourful ferris wheel at night

As mentioned in previous posts, we had dinner with Dad's long lost cousins & other relatives in Taipei. This time, with another bigger sets of cousins & relatives based in Kaohsiung. Apparently, some cousins of mine are already of grandparents status. It was a happy & emotional reunion for Dad & us, being able to see so many of them making efforts to meet us on a weekday night.

Definitely the biggest round table I've seen so far. Great for reunion purpose

The Kaohsiung gang. Seriously, I still don't know where is their standing in the family tree, just call them long-lost relatives from Dad's side...:p

Day 6 & 7

The next day was a full day tour of Kaohsiung city attractions. First stop was the Lotus Lake, located at the centre of the town. This scenic lake is well noted for its profusion of temples with the Confucius temple at the north edge & in the south, the Dragon & Tiger Pagodas and the Spring & Autumn Pavillions.

Papaya milk tea. A must-try in Taiwan if you're a milk tea fan



The pagodas in Lotus Lake

The pavilion with Guan Yu (Lord Guan)'s statue behind

Next, we took a short ferry ride to the Qijin island. This island is known by locals (not really well known by foreign tourists yet) for its seafood industry & slowly turning into a tourist attraction. Has seafood lunch along its famoud Qijin Seafood street. Spent the afternoon in the New Juejiang shopping street & the night, strolling along Love River after dinner. With the vibrant skylights, sightseeing cruise & riverbanks activities, the scene at night along the river was a sight to behold, taking after Beijing's Silk River or Bangkok's Chao Phraya river style.

Seafood on display for steamboat meal in Qijin Seafood Street

Leaving Qijin island on a ferry

New Juejiang shopping street

Night light at Love River

For the last day, we went to the largest mall in Kaohsiung, Dream Mall for lunch before departing for Kuala Lumpur. With fun loving people & fun loving, helpful local guide Jin Lee coupled with good food & attractive places as well, this is truly an enjoyable & memorable trip. Definitely wont be the last time I will be visiting Taiwan, for there are plenty more places yet to be explored & plenty more foods yet to be tasted. Hot springs next perhaps...

Langkawi Langkawi

Okay, Akurians..this is the wayyyyy toooooo long for me to call tis an overdue post. But its better late than never rite?? This is the 2nd edition of annual Akurians reunion trip held in Langkawi last 29th-31st Dec 2008. Some of u may suggest might as well spend the New Year Eve on the island. Excellent idea in fact but being true frens we are, we adapted the timing to the schedule of certain someone, who ffk in the end...P Anyhow, we go ahead with only 4 persons this time; Maj, Nei, Ray & myself.

Got ourselves a rented Hyundai Accent at rate of RM 200.00 flat for 3 days duration once arrived (pretty cheap I would say during tis triple peak season) & checked into the Aseania Resort hotel. This hotel is strategically situated at the junction between the Kwai-Loh invaded Cenang beach & the serene Tengah beach. Room is pretty comfy, air-con working nicely & hot water available...way better than Pangkor rooms and swimming pool is sooo tempting that u just wanna jump into it even with your clothes on. No prize for guessing what's the first thing we did after checking in. There's mini jacuzzi, water slides, giant mushrooms falls, man-made waterfalls & even man-made rivers, all in one. Being camwhores we are, I can safely say 1/4 of total photos taken for tis trip are scenes from tis swimming pool....

Pantai Cenang. Sundecks need to be rented with separate pricing for umbrellas

See me practicing the new Zen exercise - floating over the water

Freaked out over an uninvited guest emerging from the pool

1st day dinner was at a Spanish restaurant, Tapaz, one of the many multi-fusion restaurants at the Telaga Harbour situated just in front of countless millionaires' toys (we called them yachts in proper term) parked at the harbour. The harbour's ambience makes you truly feel like one of the rich & famous, coupled with oldies music played by live band whole nite long. And yes, the ex-PM Dr.M's owned bakery's The Loaf was located here as well. Next day stop is to Langkawi Oriental Village where we took the cable car ride to Mount Matcinchang. Here placed an overhead skybridge, which should be highlighted in Discovery Channel's Extreme Engineering.

Millionaires' toys parked at Telaga Harbour

Langkawi Oriental Village

The Skybridge - not for the faint hearted

Akurians with the Skybridge at the back

Looking at the height & condition of the hanging bridge, even AJ Hacketts will probably need to think twice before introducing bungy jumping here. When it's windy, u can really feel the bridge is moving. Later, we took the car for round island trip before stopped by at Pantai Pasir Hitam (Black Sand beach). Understand the sand colour here is due to natural cause & not oil leak or whatever. Went to Kuah town for shopping after that. The whole island is duty free, in case u dunno. The wide range of chocolates & liquors here certainly put the airport duty free shops to shame. Bought few cans of foreign beers for testing, costing only approx RM 2.50 each. You see, a can of beer here is way cheaper than a bottle of mineral water. Eagle Square is a must for all visitors to this island especially during dusk. Photo enthusiasts will be thrilled at the heavenly sight of the sunset.

The quiet & serene Black Sand beach, notice the colour of the sand

The island mascot at Eagle Square

Scenic sunset, as if the Light shining down from Heaven

Despite of being in late twenties, all of us seems to have the tendency to jump around whenever we posed, no thanks to the inaugural jump we had in pangkor last time..:) Had seafood dinner at Cenang beach before testing all liquors/beers in the room. Next morning, we took the morning walk to Tengah beach where lots, lots & lots of camwhoring shots taken before lunch along Cenang beach. Later, we catched the evening flight back to KL, just in time for New Year Eve celebrations.

We jumped at the pool, familiar sight huh??

at the beach....

on the Skybridge, some 652 metres above sea level.....

and even on room beds...

Collections of beers & liquors. All the beers suxx, except for Budweiser maybe....Tiger is da best !!!

Trip this around truly lived up just like what I expected earlier. Fun in the sun with great company. Never mind the small number of people, it's the quality times spent with people ur comfortable with that matters. So peeps, start look around for places for 3rd edition ya...Enough said bout the island, to the officials of Langkawi Tourism Board if ur reading this, can I demand a commision of sorts for promoting the island here???

Family & Friends...

Last weekend has to be one of the most eventful for me thus far. I supposed the day shud be fun as I was celebrating my b'day on Friday. Let me start on event on that day. A subordinate of mine screwed up some urgent works on the day before, causing customers & other ppl fuming mad. Naturally,as the superior, I got something to answer here, bound to be @&%#) upside down.

Called into a meeting in the morning & Boss was screaming all the way. To worsen it, there are other stuffs were screwed up as well. This is example of one of the days in our life where all matters just dont turn out right (& I'm sure other ppl experienced tis too) and it happened on my belated day !!! It was to the extent that I looked up to the sky & asked "God, is this Your New Year message & lesson for me?" And then, one teaching (learned in Mahikari) suddenly popped out from mind,it said "We need to treat all things in the universe as voice of God". Made me realised that making mistakes is one thing. It's the process of learning from mistakes (normally tough & winding road) that will help us to improve further. Getting screwed & being answerable for somebody's mistakes is not easy really but it will be worth the pain (we'll realise it later in life) if we learn & understand the phrase by heart.

At nite, went for Western food dinner outside with my family for the b'day. And them to Skybar, Traders Hotel for drinks with several MYG frens. Great place to hang out at, with its modern Zen design, majestic view of KLCC & seductive pools nearby the tables. Definitely gotta be added into the list of best places to enjoy the KLCC view (as commented in my previous blog) My only intention that nite is just to sit down, drink, relax & get the mind away from the stress. So, to those fellas with me that nite, there's a reason why i'm quieter than usual...

Thanks for company !!

On Sat nite, went to Sahara Tent restaurant in BB with my best pal & other frens to sample some Arabic fares. I must say the meat dishes are tasty, especially the lamb. On both occasions in bar & restaurant, got a surprise birthday cake from the frens. The cakes are nothing to shout about actually but what matters to me here is the sincerity & the efforts of those fellas, which make it meaningful.

Small cakes given with big heart !!!

Upon reflection of tis, I'm glad to have my family and frens around me all this while. Call me being emo but tis time around makes me appreciate the ppl around me. Dad once asked me, "If ur outside and the world is going to end in 2 hours, where do you go?" Naturally, we'll go home to check out our loved ones & be with them for the last 2 hours of our life. Daily laughters & harmony in the family makes us feel secured & appreciate the love of one another.

Close frens who has been with us are not to be ignored as well. They might be sarcastic, annoying, full of crazy antics or watever u may describe them. We just gotta admit that their presence itself brightens our day or at very least, makes us feel better..u get wat I meant?? Words of comfort is not necessary actually but families and frens that being there and being themselves cheered me up for me to go thru my brand "new year".

To my family: Dad, Mum & my 2 siblings, I thank God for giving me YOU. To all the brothers & sisters out there, thanks for your companionship all these years. Your presence itself means a lot to me. Cherish ur families & frens for your life would not be complete & meaningful without them. To end tis, can somebody gimme a tissue box here??