{"id":14486,"date":"2013-04-26T08:00:53","date_gmt":"2013-04-26T14:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/?p=14486"},"modified":"2013-04-15T23:00:57","modified_gmt":"2013-04-16T05:00:57","slug":"the-gushan-ferry-near-kaohsiung-is-a-fun-fling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/the-gushan-ferry-near-kaohsiung-is-a-fun-fling\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gushan Ferry Near Kaohsiung is a Fun Fling"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"one<\/a>
one of the Gushan ferry boats<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When we rode Taiwan High Speed Rail (HSR) to Kaohsiung<\/a><\/strong>, on the southwest coast of Taiwan, we wanted to do a little sight seeing. \u00a0Our friends in Kaohsiung recommended the Gushan Ferry for our Sunday afternoon diversion. \u00a0That sounded better than hiking the mountain trail with escaped monkeys from the nearby zoo. \u00a0The Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) has a line that ends just up the road from the ferry dock. \u00a0Since the HSR and the MRT share the station we had walked from to visit our friends, it was easy to make our way south on the MRT.<\/p>\n

The ferry was a popular<\/strong> destination for the Taiwanese, so there was a flow of foot traffic we could merge with. \u00a0There were also signs in English pointing to the ferry. \u00a0Still, we tried to make note of a couple of landmarks and read the street signs to make sure we could get back to the MRT. \u00a0It was possibly a 10 minute walk.<\/p>\n

A right turn<\/strong> where the road ended brought us to the loading dock. \u00a0Exact change of 15 New Taiwanese dollars (NT) was counted by a man as he watched it fall into a long, clear plastic box. \u00a0Kind of like an automatic machine, only with fewer bells and whistles?<\/p>\n

Scooters and their drivers<\/strong> entered via one ramp, and walkers via another. \u00a0Scooters stayed on the bottom level. \u00a0Above, there were hard plastic school chairs strapped to the deck in a large cabin area. \u00a0There was some room to stand outside of the enclosed area, but there were also a lot of windows, so much could be seen while seated.<\/p>\n

\"the<\/a>
the festive atmosphere on Qijin Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The ride was<\/strong> short and smooth, hardly taking 5 minutes. \u00a0At least 4 ferries were in constant operation taking people back and forth. \u00a0When the ferry landed on Qijin Island, there were about 3 streets to choose from, the island being very narrow. \u00a0One street seemed to have a carnival atmosphere. \u00a0We set out to find a seafood dinner.<\/p>\n

It didn’t take long\u00a0<\/strong>to find a restaurant with their menu in bins and tanks in front of the kitchen. \u00a0A friendly young man was happy to use his 5 English words to help us order. \u00a0That covered items like shrimp and asparagus. \u00a0We weren’t sure what barb-b-q meant in Chinese, since we had never run across that term being used in restaurants when we lived there. \u00a0The fact is, we had no idea what most of the critters were, but Greg chose a couple of huge prawns. \u00a0I decided on about the only normal looking fish fillets.<\/p>\n

\"fresh<\/a>
fresh seafood on display<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"lobster<\/a>
lobster tanks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We were handed<\/strong> a scrap of stiff paper, apparently recycled from something in the mail, that had a number and a Chinese character drawn on the blank side. \u00a0Then, they showed us to a cafeteria style round table in the corner, looking out through a plastic window onto the street life. \u00a0We sat and wondered aloud about what we had actually ordered.<\/p>\n

For about $10<\/strong>(US) we ended up with delicious sweet and sour fish, scrumptuous prawns, sticky rice, a tasty asparagus dish, and orange quarters. \u00a0We couldn’t finish all the generous portions. \u00a0They seemed quite pleased to have satisfied our American palates.<\/p>\n

\"better<\/a>
better than any Chinese food I’ve had in the USA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Greg's<\/a>
Greg’s monster prawns<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There was still\u00a0<\/strong>sometime before dark, which comes pretty close to 6 PM all year long in Taiwan, so we explored further on down the street. \u00a0We walked quickly past the stinky tofu, laughed at the fried squid on sticks, gave in to deep-fired oreos, and finally made it to a huge black sand beach.<\/p>\n

\"fried<\/a>
fried squid on a stick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"deep-fried<\/a>
deep-fried oreos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Unlike other beaches\u00a0<\/strong>we have visited in Taiwan, there were a few people in the water here. A handful were trying to surf on waves that would fit in a bathtub. \u00a0It looked like pure frustration. \u00a0No one was laying in the sun, but it wasn’t that warm. \u00a0The beach was wide and long, and there was an extensive cement area attached to it. \u00a0Here, there were a couple of musicians and a few people walking their foo-foo dogs.<\/p>\n

\"black<\/a>
black sand beach near Kaohsiung, Taiwan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"surfing?\"<\/a>
surfing?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We didn’t have time\u00a0<\/strong>to settle in, and were soon on our way back to the ferry. \u00a0We saw some people riding two and four seater cycles with canopies. \u00a0If we had had more time, I would have liked to try that.<\/p>\n

\"everyone<\/a>
everyone looked like they were having fun riding the 4 seat bicycle<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Do<\/a>
Do you think Greg would have ridden the pink two-seater with the canopy?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On the ferry<\/strong>, I enjoyed taking some photos of the cityscapes. \u00a0I noted that I didn’t get sea sick on either leg of the boat ride.<\/p>\n

\"looking<\/a>
looking at Kaohsiung just after we leave the island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now on\u00a0the<\/strong> main island again, we were a little confused. \u00a0We thought we had turned down the same street to head back to the MRT, but the street signs were definitely sporting more and different Chinese characters. \u00a0All of a sudden I had a suspicion and decided to turn around and look at the signs from the “coming” direction. \u00a0Ha! \u00a0It was the same signs. \u00a0I couldn’t figure out why they would be different on one side. \u00a0They didn’t seem to be saying anything like “welcome” and “come again.” \u00a0It really just looked like street names, but we were obviously missing something.<\/p>\n

Back at the MRT station<\/strong>, we got our first clue that we were in for a Sunday evening rush, but I covered that in the report on the HSR experience. There were no regrets, though. The unexpected journey on the Gushan Ferry was an excellent addition to the day’s adventures.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we rode Taiwan High Speed Rail (HSR) to Kaohsiung, on the southwest coast of Taiwan, we wanted to do a little sight seeing. \u00a0Our friends in Kaohsiung recommended the Gushan Ferry for our Sunday afternoon diversion. \u00a0That sounded better than hiking the mountain trail with escaped monkeys from the nearby zoo. \u00a0The Kaohsiung Mass […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[68],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14486"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14486\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}