Good Fishies

Saturday - Kenting - 墾丁

Kenting is small, sunny surfing town on the southern-most point of the island. White sandy beaches, beautiful rolling waves, high wind and SUN. Its the end of October and its hotter than it’s ever been in Vancouver in July. We stayed in a small, funky, down-to-earth hostel called a-wu的民宿 above a little restaurant on the south bay (南灣) strip, overlooking the ocean and the beach. We stayed in Kenting for two nights, giving us just enough time to relax and wind down. (Both of us have been kind of under the weather with a sore throat and runny nose) Kenting is a town that is just so easy to fall in love with. Everything and everyone just seems a bit more chilled than everywhere else in Taiwan, or any other major city.

We visited the national aquarium & marine center in Kenting where we saw penguins, walked through the national park on the eeny-weeny southern-most tip of Taiwan - Eluanbi - 鵝鑾鼻 - it means the duck egg nose.

Monday - Kaoshiong - 高雄

We left Kenting Monday morning, and started our trek up the west coast. The west coast of Taiwan is significantly more populated than the mountainous, tropical eastern coast. Our travels were fast, thanks to a busy freeway that runs all the way back up to Taipei. We met with Cathy’s uncle in a small town outside of Kaoshiong called GangShan (岡山). He still lives in the same Japanese-style house in the retired-army village (眷村) where his mother grew up in. He treated us to dinner in a community center/entertainment hall (新生社) that was once used by the army for soldiers & their families while they were off duty. It was the same exact spot where Cathy’s parents got married years ago. Also the exact spot where both of Cathy’s grandparents, danced at night, during the war time years ago. It’s such a small town that everyone who still lives there knows Cathy’s whole family on both sides, all the way back to the grandparents. (Both of Cathy’s grandfathers were war heroes, pilots, to be specific.)

Today

We are at the Kaoshiong airport (with free wireless!), where we’ll be flying to the small island cluster of Peng-hu (澎湖) off the western coast of Taiwan (no, not pingu. It’s pronounced Pong-huu.) Peng-hu is made up of several small islands arranged in a semi-circle, and will mark the Western-most point of our around-island trip. (Technically, there is another tiny island further west call JingMen (金門), but since it’s closer to China than to Taiwan, it’s pretty much just a military base)

Peng-hu gets blasted by the Northern monsoon winds from October-March, and combined with the calm waters thanks to it’s semi-circular shape, Peng-hu has recently become one of the most world-renown windsurfing destinations.

While we won’t be windsurfing, we will be renting scooters and driving around the islands- eating and drinking along the way. We plan on coming back the next day and visiting with Cathy’s uncle again before heading back up the Taiwan west coast on our way back to Taipei. We have been feeling a little under the weather lately, and may very well be getting sick so we’re resting up, and trying to stay healthy.