~ 23rd March 2014 ~
The moment we stepped out of the ferry, we saw so many people walking around and also riding on bicycles~! We took a map and it was not that big an area. The way they drew the map like some kids' activity book, the whole place looked like you can finish it in 20 minutes by walking. Actually it was a big place and if you were to Google map the entire island, it was a very long island and you would end up going towards the airport, at the end of the city. We were thinking of renting bicycles but the travel buddy and mi madre both couldn't cycle. Funny how mi madre could ride a motorbike but couldn't ride a bicycle. The travel buddy *sigh* totally couldn't balance herself on anything with two wheels.
We were given only 2 hours but I trusted my gut feeling that 2 hours wouldn't be enough so I asked for kindness from the person in charge and he extended another half an hour for us without extra charges. *Thank you Lord for such kind person* We were contemplating whether to take the quad-cycle where the four of us would work our legs but after a second of serious thinking, we decided to take the surrey bike. There were so many people that we had to leave the front of the shop at very low speed. Then, when the coast was clear, we fired up the engine and lo and behold, it would only go 5 km/h. Dang!~ It was so slow any long distance power walker could have overtaken us. It was so slow to an embarrassing level that I was very sure if it's in Penang, I wouldn't bother riding on it.
While the travel buddy had a good try on the surrey bike, the guide was reading the map. We couldn't decide where to go because at first we thought that with this motor-powered bike we could go anywhere and conquer the whole island. But with such sloth speed, there's no where to go and the straight road was so long, it took forever to reach a destination. There were just too many places to go to. I checked out those who went to Cijin Island, and most people went to the tunnel with stars and most went to the beach. I couldn't stand sand in my shoes so let's forget about the sandy beach.
The whole place looked like our Penang Heritage area with so many stalls selling this and that. Reminds me of the Guangzhou morning market which I went to years back with so many stalls along the road, it felt like walking along a highway and there's nothing that I would like to buy. I'm not a shopper. So, we drove straight while I took photos from the left and the right.
When we came to where we wanted to stop, thank God our guide knew how to lock up the surrey bike using the bicycle lock. Not that I don't know how, but when I'm on holiday, I hardly use my brain in case of emergency. I can't even remember some of the English words when I'm in Chinese-speaking mode most of the time. Since I was the one riding, I decided to park the surrey bike at one of the lots meant for cars. I couldn't figure out where else to drop such a huge bike for four.
Finally, we got to see what was at the Wind-Power Park. The park is using wind to power for electricity? I'm not very sure about that but the sight of those yellow beams with three-blade fan looked beautiful and there were so many kites flying high up in the sky. Now, I feel like flying kite in front of the house since it's so windy everyday. But I also feel like buying for the hubby a quadcopter so that I can play with it, too. Anyway, this place is filled with tourists, tell me which part of Taiwan isn't?
Looks cute. Never seen this before. There's none in my village. We're from the village so we were fascinated by the sight of fans powered by the sea and land breeze. If only we could have it here.
I went to have a good look at the sea. It's the South China Sea, the same as the one which mi amigas and I had a good dip in for 4 days snorkeling in Big and Small Perhentian Islands plus Redang Island. I'm still wondering until today why was the shoreline being barricaded. The waves must be pounding hard? There's no sandy beach to walk on like the other end of the island.
We saw this egg-ed ice from the night markets. We didn't try any because it looked kinda lame. But when the weather was so hot, why not get one? I thought it can only be found in Taiwan until I went to Malacca and saw the exact same thing there and I think I saw it in one of our night markets *faint*
We left the place and then we got ourselves lost even with a map. That kiddy map was not good enough. We came to this Fishing Port and I thought we're gonna see lots of 'exotic' fish for dinner. But ended up the road was so secluded which then we confirmed that we were totally lost. We stopped by to ask some people who looked like they were locals there. But after asking for directions to get on to the main road from where we came from, we just couldn't understand where.
In our midst of being lost, we gained some experience in sight. It was definitely my first time seeing an unused fishing vessel being torn to bits and pieces. The body was being scraped part by part. How much was the vessel when first bought? Well, it became an old junk after serving its master and working hard on sea.
We found our way out and we were so smart. Our guide has a good sense of direction. I had none, I would have used other roads to get myself out of the maze of t-junctions. The more I looked at this country, the more I don't see anything different from our heritage area.
We came to this night market with lots of stalls and tourists, of course. There's this stall spinning out fancy looking cotton candy. It was so fancy and he was really good that the travel buddy had to get one which I suspected she wouldn't be able to finish on her own.
It was so huge and yeah, it was beautiful but it's not meant for photography purposes. It started to melt after 3 photos so we had to help eat that flower power cotton candy.
We decided to find our way back to the rental shop because we were almost reaching to 2.5 hours. The moment we saw another surrey bike we knew we were on the right path. It's our first and last experience on such slow bike. Well, we're tourists so tourists ought to do what tourists ought to do.
We came across this sundry shop. A thought just came into my mind that a Chinese, will always have the Chinese way of thinking. No matter from which country's Chinese, they have the same kind of thinking. How did our sundry shop looked like theirs if none of them were ever in contact? This must be the Chinese style from the ancestors.
The houses looked like those in town but I think our pre-war houses looked nicer. I'm bias. And they also hang their clothes outside. No need dryer, just need sunshine. When we have upgraded to using steel poles to hang our clothes, they're still using bamboo sticks? Or did it just happen to be those staying in rural areas? I prefer to adopt the China's Chinese mentality of everything needs to be big but at the same time... I don't know what I'm thinking.
That's the National Kaohsiung Marine University and I thought it looked like a hostel. Maybe that's the university's hostel?
We found the rental shop and returned the surrey bike and walked towards the jetty and we ended up in a long queue way behind where the jetty was out of sight. The sun was setting and we had not find our transport to get to the southern most county. Yeah, we're really brave tourists with no plan A or plan B. Totally no transport and we had already checked out from our minsu. We didn't have anything to eat except for a few bites of the cotton candy. I'm wondering how come we didn't get any food on skewers to munch along the way. While mi madre and I stood in the queue, Pinky and Patty went to look for cabs.Yeah, again we're rich. We can travel with cabs all the way to another county. Only the biggest problem now was no cabs were willing to take us to another county which required a two-hour plus drive and back. Money wasn't the issue now so it's okay, we just continue to stand in line with no cares at all.
After an hour plus, we could see the building of the ferry terminal. But it was still far from us. We just stood there, hardly moving to conserve energy. Our stomach started to rumble by then but there's no way we could jump out of the queue to get some food. The night market was damn far away and we would need a surrey bike again or a bicycle to get there and plus some time to get ourselves lost.
The ferry looked overloaded. That's the most it could carry and it had to go back and forth with another two plying the same route. It was a great relieved to be on board the old ferry.
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