Koahsiung our first night

1. Michelle...."strawberries and custard.....fresh OJ.... it couldn't get better"











2. A woman busking in Koahsiung. She played beautifully.









3. Shrimp? fish? beef? snails? Frog? anyone intersted??
Check out the frog in the bottom right.......we figured we'd pass.









4. Should we or shouldn't we? If only we could speak Chinese we could find out what he's got on the BBQ.
However....this is the night we finally bought a 'teach yourself Chinese" kit.
Ni Hao!






5. The night market wasn't that busy really......yeah right! We were scared we'd lose each other as we waded through the thousands of people on this street. It was definitley intense. But we did find the best pork and vegetable dumplings ever!




Our hotel was great! We couldn't believe it when they said the price of the rooms..it was exactly what it said in our travel guide. Every other hotel on the island had inflated their price for Chinese New Year....but not the good old 'Hotel Skoal" It was spotlessly clean, dark (we couldn't figure out how to turn on the light" and tiny....but the clean made it perfect.
We got ourselves unpacked and dressed for the evening and headed out to check discover the city. Our first stop was the night market. It was great! We were so impressed that they had tables set up in the middle of the street to sit and eat at and even garbage bags placed strategically throughout the street. We bought some fresh Orange Juice (this is getting harder and harder to come by...the end of orange season I guess), and some delicious strawberries with custard. It was a great appetizer. Then we found pork and veggie dumplings which were great, an extra large chicken somosa and some breaded fish soup. Although the broth was more like a thick gelatin than a broth. I just ate the fish. I must tell you though...that between all of the great smelling food booths we had our first experience with stinky tofu. This is the worst smell I've ever smelt in my life. I would way rather take in the raw sewage smell on our doorstep in Homei than the smell of stinky tofu. I almost started gagging......It's a thick and rotten smell...somewhat of warm vomit. sorry.....but man. I almost start choking just thinking of it. I couldn't even imagine eating it.
Anyhow- the market was great and once we were finished there we thought we'd head down to the Love River. This is a river that cuts through Koahsiung. Our guide book told us that it was once a stink hole, but that the new mayor had put alot of effort into creating a beautiful area to attract tourists. The Mayor would like to make Koahsiung the "Hawaii" of Asia. They had a pretty good start I'd say. The river was lit beautifully with lights in all of the trees, boats to take you on rides down the river, street vendors and performers. It was loverly. (hee hee). We enjoyed our time there. Then we headed down to find a pub but ended up finding a bookstore instead. It is there that we bought our "teach yourself Chinese" kit. We've made it through the first chapter. We have a lot of work to do.
We were getting a bit tired and decided that since the night market was on our way home we'd stop by there again before we went back to the hotel. I'm not sure if that was such a good idea or not. We realized once we got there that our first visit had been right when the market had opened - for the number of people had doubled (actually probably quadrupled), there was garbage everywhere, the smell of stinky tofu was strong, and I was feeling a bit claustrophobic. We still made it through and had a few more dumplings and ended off with a delicious papaya banana smoothie. Man their fruit smoothies are so delicious.
When we got back to the hotel (we got lost and walked an extra half our finding it) a Jim Carrey movie was on - so we hung out and watched t.v. for a while and then headed to bed.
We walked for a total of about 5 hours that night. Our feet were starting to feel the effects of this vacation.
M.