Weekly Updates
After a year-long work together with the ex-cos of the Malaysian Student Association, we actually planned a trip to Kaohsiung, a southern city in Taiwan, sometimes more seen as a southern rival of the northern Taipei City, as you really do see a lot of people from Kaohsiung comparing themselves with Taipei and vice versa.
I have been to Kaohsiung once, though not really of a tourism nature, I went there during my first few days in Taiwan as I have left some important documents back in Malaysia and I went there to retrieve it from my brother. Back then I only had a few hours in Kaohsiung, not really able to explore the city much, and finally, after two years of confining myself in Taipei and New Taipei City, I finally flew out of the cage and travelled.
To be honest, I wasn't really enthusiastic about travelling inside Taiwan because I thought that everywhere in Taiwan is more or less the same, and I am not really a nature kind of guy so most of my travel happens in city bounds, and to me, cities looks the same inside the same country, more or less. If it wasn't because I take this trip as a trip to strengthen bonds between my fellows that worked our ass out for one whole year, I really would not want to go.
Well, we've are in Kaohsiung City while we speak, and although it is a city, with a population of about one-third of my residence New Taipei City, it was much less crowded gave me a serene vibe in an urban setting. The roads are considerably wide even for alleys, those super-tight alleys that are very common in Taipei are less of a view here in Kaohsiung, in fact, I have never seen those during the times I am here, and I thought, this is how a planned-city looks like!
But urban-planning wise, there is one thing about Kaohsiung that is kind of annoying to me - the climate. I have long heard stories about how Kaohsiung is very hot especially during summertime, almost unbearable kind of hot. Well, I am here during times when it's not really summer yet but it's not really spring, and it got hot, really hot. Well, just to keep it simple, all of us got sunburnt quite bad after only two days under the sun, some even with sunscreen on, which really says something about Kaohsiung's sun.
The trip was planned as our "consolation" or something as such after one year being together working on and going through so much together as a team, although the attendance wasn't 100%, but at least most of us are here already, which I don't think after this we can gather together like this anymore since everything will be caught up with their future planning and stuff, of course, it is impossible to have everyone coming together again, well, sounds really familiar.
The trip was really fun, we got our first-time stay at a backpacker's hostel, and lucky our group has just enough number of people to occupy two full rooms all for ourselves, at least for our first-time experience, we don't have to be stuffed with strangers. But overall, the hostel was quite acceptable, equipped with a common room that has tables to take to people, or we can enjoy 24/7 movies at the lounge, or we can have games and beer and stuff at the rooftop lounge, although a little hot. We had quite some beer as well as games together on the first night since we were still energetic enough. The hotel itself is really cosy enough that we really enjoyed our stay there.
For food, Kaohsiung City really does have some good offering for food. We went to Ruifeng night market there, which is quite well-known, considering that when we got there, it was cramped as hell, like it was totally the first time in my life where I really experience people cramping like sardines trying to walk, it's really like a full-scale grid-lock traffic jam, except replacing cars with people; and we came across this presumably Filipino woman (I caught her Filipino accent) pushing her way out of the crowd without considering the fact that it was so packed literally no one could move. I almost fell down because of her pushing, well, that was a little bit of bad experience but back to the food, the night market was really different from what they have back in Taipei.
Night market in Taipei although much more spacious with much more stalls, a lot of the stalls sells the exact same thing, even having identical stall banner and design, so to me, Taipei's night market offering is really lacking in terms of variety, and I got sick of it real quick for the fact that they sell the same thing every freaking where; if you'd try taking away all the identical stalls leaving only one left in the night market, I'd say half of the night market would now be empty. But, this isn't the case for Kaohsiung, there was just so much more variety inside, although still with some repetition, I was really spoiled with choices! Considering the prices aren't really too high there, I had a ton of food really, especially with those sweet sweet oysters which I couldn't really find in night markets in Taipei, I really enjoyed it. I ate like 20 plus oysters in one night and I'd say that I really, really enjoyed food and night market in Kaohsiung.
We went to quite a few places of interest though, in Kaohsiung, we actually made plans for the trip, due to some delays and the weather, we skipped quite some of the plans for good. We visited Ruifeng Night Market, Qijin Old Street and places around Qijin as there are quite some popular tourist spots there. We rented 3 4-seated, electrical-powered bicycles to go around the old street, it was fun, the weather is so good that despite getting sunburn, we got to travel freely around the old street, and took quite some nice group photos, it was really fun, especially when we were on the bicycle, we talked and laughed, having the time of our lives after a hectic year together.
Overall, the trip was really a successful one to me as everything went very well. Yes, it is the last time that most of us are able to come together and do something as one, to come together and talk, play, laugh and really have fun and bond together. Really, to me, this is the best kind of ending for this team that got together for only a year. Although from this on, at least for me, the team has been officially dissolved.
Anyhow, for the first time travelling out of Taipei and actually have a trip in Taiwan, the trip has been really unforgettable, it's been so long since I had a road trip with friends and I really was enjoying the experience again, let's hope we would have more time together in the future! Here's to our friendship and more trips together!
#17 Trip to Kaohsiung!
Trip to Kaohsiung
After a year-long work together with the ex-cos of the Malaysian Student Association, we actually planned a trip to Kaohsiung, a southern city in Taiwan, sometimes more seen as a southern rival of the northern Taipei City, as you really do see a lot of people from Kaohsiung comparing themselves with Taipei and vice versa.
I have been to Kaohsiung once, though not really of a tourism nature, I went there during my first few days in Taiwan as I have left some important documents back in Malaysia and I went there to retrieve it from my brother. Back then I only had a few hours in Kaohsiung, not really able to explore the city much, and finally, after two years of confining myself in Taipei and New Taipei City, I finally flew out of the cage and travelled.
To be honest, I wasn't really enthusiastic about travelling inside Taiwan because I thought that everywhere in Taiwan is more or less the same, and I am not really a nature kind of guy so most of my travel happens in city bounds, and to me, cities looks the same inside the same country, more or less. If it wasn't because I take this trip as a trip to strengthen bonds between my fellows that worked our ass out for one whole year, I really would not want to go.
Well, we've are in Kaohsiung City while we speak, and although it is a city, with a population of about one-third of my residence New Taipei City, it was much less crowded gave me a serene vibe in an urban setting. The roads are considerably wide even for alleys, those super-tight alleys that are very common in Taipei are less of a view here in Kaohsiung, in fact, I have never seen those during the times I am here, and I thought, this is how a planned-city looks like!
But urban-planning wise, there is one thing about Kaohsiung that is kind of annoying to me - the climate. I have long heard stories about how Kaohsiung is very hot especially during summertime, almost unbearable kind of hot. Well, I am here during times when it's not really summer yet but it's not really spring, and it got hot, really hot. Well, just to keep it simple, all of us got sunburnt quite bad after only two days under the sun, some even with sunscreen on, which really says something about Kaohsiung's sun.
The trip was planned as our "consolation" or something as such after one year being together working on and going through so much together as a team, although the attendance wasn't 100%, but at least most of us are here already, which I don't think after this we can gather together like this anymore since everything will be caught up with their future planning and stuff, of course, it is impossible to have everyone coming together again, well, sounds really familiar.
The trip was really fun, we got our first-time stay at a backpacker's hostel, and lucky our group has just enough number of people to occupy two full rooms all for ourselves, at least for our first-time experience, we don't have to be stuffed with strangers. But overall, the hostel was quite acceptable, equipped with a common room that has tables to take to people, or we can enjoy 24/7 movies at the lounge, or we can have games and beer and stuff at the rooftop lounge, although a little hot. We had quite some beer as well as games together on the first night since we were still energetic enough. The hotel itself is really cosy enough that we really enjoyed our stay there.
For food, Kaohsiung City really does have some good offering for food. We went to Ruifeng night market there, which is quite well-known, considering that when we got there, it was cramped as hell, like it was totally the first time in my life where I really experience people cramping like sardines trying to walk, it's really like a full-scale grid-lock traffic jam, except replacing cars with people; and we came across this presumably Filipino woman (I caught her Filipino accent) pushing her way out of the crowd without considering the fact that it was so packed literally no one could move. I almost fell down because of her pushing, well, that was a little bit of bad experience but back to the food, the night market was really different from what they have back in Taipei.
Night market in Taipei although much more spacious with much more stalls, a lot of the stalls sells the exact same thing, even having identical stall banner and design, so to me, Taipei's night market offering is really lacking in terms of variety, and I got sick of it real quick for the fact that they sell the same thing every freaking where; if you'd try taking away all the identical stalls leaving only one left in the night market, I'd say half of the night market would now be empty. But, this isn't the case for Kaohsiung, there was just so much more variety inside, although still with some repetition, I was really spoiled with choices! Considering the prices aren't really too high there, I had a ton of food really, especially with those sweet sweet oysters which I couldn't really find in night markets in Taipei, I really enjoyed it. I ate like 20 plus oysters in one night and I'd say that I really, really enjoyed food and night market in Kaohsiung.
We went to quite a few places of interest though, in Kaohsiung, we actually made plans for the trip, due to some delays and the weather, we skipped quite some of the plans for good. We visited Ruifeng Night Market, Qijin Old Street and places around Qijin as there are quite some popular tourist spots there. We rented 3 4-seated, electrical-powered bicycles to go around the old street, it was fun, the weather is so good that despite getting sunburn, we got to travel freely around the old street, and took quite some nice group photos, it was really fun, especially when we were on the bicycle, we talked and laughed, having the time of our lives after a hectic year together.
Overall, the trip was really a successful one to me as everything went very well. Yes, it is the last time that most of us are able to come together and do something as one, to come together and talk, play, laugh and really have fun and bond together. Really, to me, this is the best kind of ending for this team that got together for only a year. Although from this on, at least for me, the team has been officially dissolved.
Anyhow, for the first time travelling out of Taipei and actually have a trip in Taiwan, the trip has been really unforgettable, it's been so long since I had a road trip with friends and I really was enjoying the experience again, let's hope we would have more time together in the future! Here's to our friendship and more trips together!
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