Keeping it Kaohsiung – Day 6: Pier2 Art Center and Departure

Final day of this entire holiday because my husband refuses my delusion that we were instead flying out to Busan for a further week. With a 5 hour layover in Bangkok before another 12-13 hour flight back to London, this is going to go down as one of the longest bits of travelling I’ve needed to undertake.

That still meant we had a full morning and a bit of early afternoon before getting on the very convenient Kaohsiung MRT to the airport. This meant a proper time to walk through and explore the revamped old harbour area of the city. We’d walked through here en route to our boat to Cijin, back it was good to have some proper time here. Especially as this maybe my favourite area of the city.

The morning started out at the Hamasen Cultural Railway Park. This used to be a essential part of the Kaohsiung harbour and some of the lines are now part of the tramway loop. Now, you can walk around the now dormant tracks. Some old trains are standing here resting whilst in other parts there are some modern art pieces made from old bits of rebar or other reclaimed materials.

At this point it was just after 10 am, but the sun was so intense that my umbrella was up and I was playing the classic juggling game and the other classic game of ‘find the shade before I expire’. If it had been cooler I think I would have tried to persuade my husband to ride the little train that goes around the whole park. Thankfully the next place was inside and fully air conditioned.

Next was the Hamasan Museum of Taiwan Railway. This is a small museum housed in some of the old harbour warehouses (much like everything in this area) that takes you through some history of Taiwan’s railway. I think the Kaohsiung Museum of History did a better job, but that didn’t have one of the coolest rooms I’ve seen all holiday.

This museum has a massive room featuring model railways, split into multiple connected sections for different cities in Taiwan. It had a full day-night cycle complete with light-up buildings and it had working signals and level crossings. I am not a train person – that’s my husband’s area of joy – but wow this was a room I could have spent more time in.

We then entered the main Pier2 Art area. This is a large section of repurposed warehouses that have been renovated to be shops, cafes and homes for art. As you roam around the outside you’ll come across wall art and sculptures of all different styles and sizes. Including another big robot. I thought this was a Japan thing mostly, but Taiwan is really all in on these guys.

Whilst we were here, there just happened to be a warehouse with a temporary creative installation about that Dutch cultural icon: Miffy (or Nijntje in The Netherlands). As well as having the obligatory gift shop, the warehouse was full of Miffy dressed up or made up by local artists. Some of them were really cool and others, like the Hellraiser Miffy, were a bit odd. All added to the fun though.

It was after this where we ticked off the final food item from my list: pineapple cake from Sunny Hills. What we did not know was that the piece of pineapple cake and cup of oolong tea was free. It’s a taster to see if you’d buy more cake. That was deliciously confusing. The cake was like if candied pineapple was wrapped in soft almost shortbread. Once I realigned my expectations of what the cake would be, it was very delicious.

The rest of our time was the spent going around the different warehouses. Browsing the shops, taking pictures of art and enjoying the kismet of being here when there was a festival going on. I don’t know what the Megaport Festival is about, but it sure meant a lot of people, live music and huge selection of stalls (food, shopping and corporate sponsorship from the delivery brand Foodpanda).

If we lived in Kaohsiung, other than investing in some kind of all body cooling system, this is one of those areas I would want to come visit regularly. Even if it’s just standing on the Harbour Bridge and enjoying the views both towards the main city and towards the nearby mountain.

We had a final bubble tea (lemon and winter melon) before making our way to the airport. I do feel a bit sad leaving Kaohsiung. This feels like a city that, despite their tallest building laying abandoned, feels like it is moving forward in such a great direction. I can only wonder what the next 10 years will hold with all the works that are still going on. Maybe this will be one of those places I got to before it’s properly discovered by the West? Who knows.

One thing I do know, however, is that as long as China doesn’t make any rash decisions – there is plenty more left on this island to discover and I would love to see it. So who knows, maybe in another 5-6 years I’ll be writing about my trip to Taichung or somewhere else.

Keeping it Kaohsiung – Day 5: Tainan’s West Central District

Our last day here in the hot south of Taiwan. It was a bit of a later start as the list for our second day trip to Tainan was a lot shorter and more walkable than what was on the docket for the previous day. Being a Saturday, everything felt busier – which was typified by us having to wait for a while for a train that would allow us on.

Hey ho, all that meant was that we had a proper excuse to try a Taiwanese train bento. This was a pork chop bento, which also came with an egg, fish cake and a piece of tofu. Was it the best bento I’ve ever had? No, but I would easily buy this if it was available in the UK. Especially for this price.

So we ended up in Tainan a bit later than we’d first expected, but we’re here to make the most of it. The first destination was Chikan Tower. Together with the Anping Old Fort, this is one of the iconic buildings in Tainan. If you can’t guess where this is going considering the past few days… let me reveal that this too was covered in scaffolding. There’s a saying that things come in threes, so I guess this was bound to happen once more before we left for home.

A smaller building was left out to actually make sense of paying the regular ticket entry to go in. It was fine and the surroundings were nice enough, but when you got a peak at the actual tower through the scaffolding… well it just made things feel a little bit sad as it really is just that much grander. I think maybe if it was less humid, I would have been in better spirits to make the best of it but, for now, I’m just glad I didn’t get a Tainan souvenir with the tower on it from the Anping Old Street market.

Across the road is the Tainan Grand Mazu Temple. Mazu is everywhere in this area, which makes sense since this is a coastal city and she is a water deity. The temple complex itself is deceptively large with many smaller temple buildings all nestled into each other.

Like the Luerman temple we saw yesterday, there is a room to ask the gods for help in matters of love – complete with a wall of pictures of successful and in love couples. This is, again, next to a room where a many-armed deity is front and centre – so I am assuming this is a common pairing that I need to learn about. Something for the 5 hour layover tomorrow evening maybe.

Since it was very hot and sticky we tried to find some bubble tea… but a bit of confusion at the checkout meant we ended up with a taro milk instead. It was still nice though, especially since it had actual taro chunks blended in rather than the powder we get back in the UK.

We also took this as a chance to get some lunch from a very busy bakery. All the signs were in Chinese characters, so we took a punt and got four rolls to share completely at random. The first was a sausage bun, slight crispness because it had been finished out with a bit of a melted butter sear. The second with the seeds on top turned out to be a red bean bun. The little ones where there were two in the pack was something akin to a soft French toast kind of a bun. The largest one is… still a bit of a mystery. I think it was like some kind of chicken and pineapple curry bread with cheese – it was nice but I just want to know what it was!

I won’t dwell too much on our visit to Shennong Street. This is meant to be an old shopping street worth having a peruse through. We walked through, and didn’t really feel the need to stop. Moving on.

A bit of a walk away was a really lovely patch of Tainan, the Blueprint Cultural Park. It’s about a block of buildings that is completely pedestrianised, there is plenty of art work and the shops are all crafty and independent. That also meant some of the prices were a bit steep, but we found a lovely shop to get some presents for the family. Not going to elaborate further as I found out today that my mother-in-law will probably be reading this before we can give her the gift.

I wish there were more spots like this in Tainan as it really was this beautiful patch of quiet and harmony – all with cute blue robots. Still, it is good that this exists and maybe means that more spaces like this can have the room to develop.

Our final stop in Tainan was the Hayashi Department Store. This was an old-style Japanese department store that is still in operation and, in places, really feels like you are shopping somewhere that is a bit out of time. I really loved a lot of the things for sale on the ‘Innovative Designs’ floor – something where I can imagine that, if I were more local, there are plenty of things I would want for my home.

At the very top of the store is an observation rooftop and a Shinto shrine that was completed within the first year of the store’s operation. It is a shrine to the patron God of the store and is just a nice and simple reminder of this store’s origins.

The fifth floor of Hayashi has a café and, since we had some time to kill before our reserved train back, we popped in for a cooling dessert. This pineapple shaved ice was massive and was pretty incredible. Thanks to it having a mix of pineapple syrup, candied pineapple and jelly cubes at the bottom – there was so enough variation in the textures and strength of flavour that it never got boring to eat.

We made it back to Kaohsiung by five in the afternoon. Whilst we knew this had an anime store, we didn’t quite get that it had most of a floor of general geekery. So, we ended spending a bit too much on geek stuff, but more on that in a bit.

For dinner, we just wanted a sit down dinner – so we went to Hanshin Arena, where there are a wide selection of restaurants to pick from. Originally we tried to get into the hot pot restaurant, as that’s something we’ve not done in Taiwan before, but the queue was ridiculous. This is how we ended up going for a restaurant that provided one of my favourite Japanese things: okonomiyaki. Specifically the Hiroshima style of okonomiyaki.

Between us we shared some takoyaki, a pork yakisoba and a cheese topped mixed okonomiyaki. I do not believe that everything tastes better with cheese on… but this certainly did. Especially as okonomiyaki sauce contains a lot of similar flavours to Worcestershire sauce. Definitely one of the nicest versions of okonomiyaki I’ve ever had.

That leaves me with what has become a picture of our souvenir haul over the last week and a half. This picture does not include the presents we have gotten for other people, but honestly this picture shows enough. Unpacking these is really going to make things easier as try to readjust out body clocks.

Tomorrow is an almost half day in Kaohsiung, so there will be one more post in this series. Also going to be another scorcher, which makes me glad I thought ahead on laundry day to make sure I had a clean set of clothes for flying. Hopefully we’ll be able to tick off the last bit of food I was hoping to try whilst here.

Keeping it Kaohsiung – Day 4: Trip to Anping

So here we go with our first off two day trips to Tainan. For the sake of convenience, we did consider just having an overnight stay. However, with the right train, it’s like 30-60 minutes and the tickets are quite cheap. So it just made more sense to turn this into two individual day trips.

For this one, we aren’t going to be in the main part of Tainan city, instead we are going to be out in the Anping District. The more central Tainan day is due to be tomorrow.

To make sure the itinerary worked, we got a train just after 9 am from Kaohsiung main station. Interesting fact, nothing edible was open at the station when we were getting the train. They just open later, except for the convenience stores. There is even a bento place here which we weren’t able to try. Maybe tomorrow we’ll take a later train.

Once in Tainan, we took a bus out to an old fort called the Eternal Golden Castle. We found out the night before that it was under renovation, but this still worked as a starting point… even if the front was mostly cordoned off by the construction work. Oh well.

From here, we traced the coastline north through the different parks to end up in Anping itself. On the way, you can see some nice statues including one of Mazu and a really cool whale. Also walked by an old war boat that they had placed some Transformers on. Taiwan really seems to enjoy Transformers.

Once in Anping, we had a peek in on the Anping Guanyin temple, which is fairly small, before going to the big temple in the old town – Anping Kaitai Tianhou. At this point, we came to realise that this must be one of those days where a bunch of schools get to take their students on trips. I’d almost think this was a Good Friday thing… but this isn’t exactly a Christian country.

After the temple, we wandered the streets of Old Anping to do some shopping and maybe get a small bite to eat. I had two things to look for whilst here and managed to get both. First was shrimp crackers, which are so ubiquitous that we got to try them as a free sample. The other thing was coffin toast – think a coffin made out of fried bread which is then filled with corn and other vegetables before spooning in a thick fish soup. It was delicious and I wish I had bought two for myself.

Next on the list was Anping Old Fort aka Fort Zeelandia. The original fort was built by the Dutch when they came to Taiwan as part of their wider colonial trading network. What remains of the original fort is just two walls. The rest is mostly of Chinese or Japanese construction as the fort changed hands multiple times.

Of the additions, the tower is by far the best and I can see how this has become a bit of an icon for the area. We didn’t go up because it was hot and, honestly, I wasn’t too sure if Anping from above was going to give the best photos. Overall, this is an interesting thing to see – but it was a bit strange how much they made of the Dutch when so little of the original structure is left.

They even sell potato snacks using edits of classic Dutch paintings!

Our last site in Anping was the one we were most looking forward to: the Anping Tree House. On paper, this is a bit of a weird thing to preserve as a tourist attraction, an old storehouse that has been overtaken by local banyan trees – but this is just such a weird and cool place to walk around. There’s a reason that this is one of those things in Taiwan that a lot of ‘influencers’ will get photographed in.

To get the rest of this day to work, we needed to start using some local taxi apps. The buses can be super infrequent and even when they are running, they turn a 10 minute drive into an hour where you have to change buses. For two people, it just made sense to do this.

So that’s how we got to Sicao for the Green Tunnel boat ride. Sicao is within the Taijiang National Park, the home of a wide area of mangrove forests and wetlands. This boat ride takes half an hour and takes you through some mangrove areas and through a green tunnel of overhanging trees. Okay so the tunnel isn’t 100% natural, but the little crabs and the egret we saw were. It was just a lovely way to spend a half hour, especially as we all kept having to duck for some of the extremely low hanging branches.

Following this, we popper into another taxi to the Luerman Temple. Temples have been there for centuries, but when the current complex was completed, it was the largest religious complex in East Asia. It must also have some of the largest guardian deity statues in the world as those two gentlemen were massive.

The temple complex itself is like a warren of altars and incense. Also it’s basically a Taiwanese super church. The amount of money poured into construction and maintenance of the complex must be massive. Of the whole complex, I developed a soft spot for the building at the back that was devoted to those praying for love. It was three floors tall and the walls of the stairways were decorated with the photos and wedding invites of those who found love. Some of these photos were so old that they’d been sun bleached to white in the following years.

In the car park on the way out, we saw the second of two mini processions (the first was when we were waiting for the bus to get us to the Eternal Golden Castle). This second one, however, had the soundtrack of a whole bunch of firecrackers. Given how many of those involved were teen boys, and there was a fair bit of instruction involved, it almost looked like a bit of a rehearsal. It’s Children’s Day soon… so maybe it’s related to that.

Finished off at the Wusheng Night Market. This might be the last night market of the trip depending on how long it takes us to get through our list of things to do on our second Tainan day. We’d barely eaten today so was ravenous, it was early so most of the stalls were still setting up when we arrived. The highlights of this particular food haul ended up being a curried chicken kebab roll, a Korean style pork wrap and some fried pork dumplings. I was hoping the takoyaki stall would have finished setting up before I got full, but alas that wasn’t to be.

Tomorrow is the last full day of our holiday and we will be looking at some more things in central Tainan. It’s a return to the very hot temperatures and sun, so hopefully some of these places will have air conditioning for me to escape into.

Keeping it Kaohsiung – Day 3: Indoors in Kaohsiung

So last night we scrambled a bit to make sure we had an itinerary that would work with rain between 10 and 4 with most of the hours showing between 70 and 100% chance of heavy rain. When we woke up, the forecast hadn’t changed so we got on with the planned day. In the end, the thunderstorm got downgraded to a light drizzle that was pretty much over in under an hour. I wouldn’t change much of what we ended up doing though, it’s been a pretty nice not-quite-rained off day in Kaohsiung.

The day started off with us visiting the Kaohsiung Museum of History, so we could get to know a bit more about this city we’re staying in. About a quarter of the rooms were closed off to make new exhibitions, but all the overviews of the city’s history were open to view. First thing, in a previous post I talked about the rebranding of Love River as a bit of a blatant tourism ploy (as that’s how an Expedia video on the city made it sound). Not true – it originates from a journalist’s nickname which has just stuck.

Other than that. The parts of the museum that were translated into English were really interesting. It shows just how much investment has been put into making Kaohsiung function as a city. From the construction of vast networks of canals to massive railway projects to the huge land reclamation schemes made to properly exploit the natural lagoon to turn it into a major harbour. Depending on where you are, you can see just how much is still being invested into modernizing the city – just makes you wonder where it will be in another 10 years.

Time for brunch. One of the main things we wanted to get was beef noodle soup. This is one of the big Taiwanese dishes, so you need to get it whilst you are here. Last time we got it in a night market, this time it was from one of the many small food places that are everywhere you look. This time I wanted to get a thicker noodle and, since they were only a quid, we shared a plate of dumplings. Absolutely delicious.

We wanted to get some bubble tea for after, so just walked to the nearest place with a good rating. This just so happened to be us stumbling upon the cutest store I have seen since being in Kaohsiung. Everything is bear themed and the furniture is from an old elementary school. For an extra $49 dollars, you can get your bubble tea in a souvenir bear bottle with your choice of strap and bow tie. That’s like just over a pound, so of course I got him for my hazelnut bubble tea.

This place also did shaved ice, which is something I have wanted to have since getting here. We were able to pick four toppings and, again, it felt like a total steal. So with our little bear spoons we ate shaved ice with condensed milk, roasted wheat powder, taro and passion fruit jam. It was such a delicious mix of flavours and if I am ever back in Kaohsiung, this is getting a special visit.

Full to bursting, we rode on the tram line to get to the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts. Not entirely sure what makes ‘fine art’ distinct from ‘modern art’ in this context because, in effect, this was a museum of modern art.

One thing I have to say about the Taiwanese museums I have visited over both trips: the buildings are beautifully set out and well looked after. Not necessarily the easiest to navigate, but that just becomes part of the fun.

Over the four floors we saw some truly brilliant pieces of art. Some that come to mind include a partially pixelated wooden sculpture of a stork, some whimsical pieces around perspective showing people looking into the distance when what they are looking for is right there beside them and this political art piece around a chicken puppet that was entered into a Kaohsiung election as a protest against politicians being voted into power for life.

The top floor felt very special. There is a yearly Kaohsiung art competition and the top floor was dedicated to showcasing the winning entries as well as some special mentions. I guess this is like an equivalent to the Turner Prize in the UK. I really enjoyed seeing just how different the pieces were to fit the loose brief. I especially enjoyed the entry inspired by the ending of The Truman Show, a mixed media piece that combined woodblock printing and jade-like islands and a video piece centred around trying to drill a hole straight through a piece of chalk.

I really do love visiting art galleries in countries where I know nothing about the art scene. Like with my visits to Riga and Ottawa, I saw some fantastic works of art that I feel enriched by.

On the complete flip-side, we went from a fine art museum to Kaohsiung’s Dream Mall. This is the largest mall in Taiwan as well as being one of the largest malls in Asia. It’s 11 floors including a small rooftop theme park.

The theme park… well it’s seen better days. I think when it really gets going, it would feel a bit less haunted. But this is a Thursday afternoon where someone was having a banana boat ride for one and the model dinosaurs made everything that little bit more ridiculous.

It does have a Ferris Wheel though, which meant we were able to get another birds eye view of Kaohsiung. I am a sucker for a good Ferris Wheel, especially when there is an observation tower to make use of.

We had a good look around the mall and made a few purchases here and there. We also used our mall time to have a bit of a sit and grab a snack from one of the bakeries in the basement food court. Three purchases were shared between us to make up a starter (Russian bread with garlic), a main (pork floss bun) and a dessert (sweet potato brown sugar mochi bread). The dessert was the best bread and is one that I don’t think I’ll ever have again.

Some time later we got to having some dinner at the Ruifeng Night Market. This is not a street based night market, instead being set up in a specific area. This is a mix of food vendors, clothes, accessories and carnival games at this market, but we’re here for the food.

The top bite of the night was a Korean-inspired bite that was a take on tteokbokki, but with added chicken, flame-grilled cheese on top and with more of a rose sauce. It was delicious. We also had some watermelon juice and Taiwanese sausage. I also got to try some of the famous fried chicken made by Angel Chicken whilst husband got some flame grilled steak cubes.

Was this the end of the evening? No, we had one more stop to make at Sanfong Temple. It looked beautiful at night with the lanterns all lit… and what can only be described as a puppet show rave happening in the parking lot. If possible, it’s really special to see some of these Taiwanese temples all lit up at night. It just adds a bit more to the experience, especially if they are known for having lanterns out.

So, that’s it for what was supposed to be a nearly rained off day. It is so humid at the moment and it’s not going to relent tomorrow. This was the final full day in Kaohsiung, with the final two full days being spent exploring the nearby city of Tainan thanks to the train tickets being so much cheaper than back in the UK.

Keeping it Kaohsiung – Day 2: Fo Guang Shan and Lotus Lake

It’s the second day of this part of the holiday and the first of a few days where we’re in Kaohsiung proper. Before getting into the day, there is something that needs to be said about the city as a whole: it was not designed for pedestrians. At every point where we needed to walk between places, there was so much needless frustration.

For many smaller roads there is just not a pavement, instead you are walking as close to the edge of the road as possible. For a lot of them that do have some kind of walkway, you are actually ducking through shopfronts. There was a stretch of this where we went through multiple food preparation areas for smaller food places. Even when you do get to a major road with pavement, the number of mopeds and motorbikes makes crossings difficult as they are turning in. Just something worth keeping in mind when making plans for this city.

With that out of the way, let’s look at what we did today.

When looking up big things to do in Kaohsiung, there are two activities that repeatedly come up – so today was designed to check off both of the big hitters. This meant an early wake up time so that we could make an early shuttle bus for Fo Guang Shan. These buses are fairly infrequent and, thanks to us being half an hour early, we were not one of the poor souls left behind to wait for the next bus an hour later.

Fo Guang Shan is a massive complex affiliated with the monastic order of the same name. We started out at the end with the monasteries and worked our way north. Starting off, we made the climb to ‘Great Buddha Land’ to see one of the two massive Buddhas in the complex. Setting the tone for the rest of this visit, it was like we had the entire area to ourselves. It was so quiet across the complex that it actually got a bit eerie.

From here we explored the monastery area: visiting the Avalokitesvara pond, passing through the Gate of Duality and crossing the bridge to see the Great Compassion Shrine. Again it was so quiet in so many areas that it sometimes did take a while before we saw another person be they a monk, nun or tourist.

Then game the main shrine. Sadly, this is one of those situations where photography is not allowed because the three bronze Buddhas and the light jewel towers standing either side of them were truly beautiful. It was here where we got the first of some very friendly people working at the complex being incredibly helpful. By the end of our visit, we had someone thrusting religious literature at us and trying to get us to light incense… so I think there was a definite charm offensive going on.

We had a nice brunch at the place on the complex. Between us we split an order of sesame noodles and a thick butter biscuit toast. As we ate we were surrounded by some very nice Buddhist nuns who were seemingly here on a pilgrimage and were having a lot of steamed dumplings between them.

After visiting the Sutra Repository, with it’s beautiful calligraphy wall carvings and embalmed body of the order’s founder on display, we arrived at the Fo Guang Shan Buddha Museum area. As we didn’t come in from the main entrance, we didn’t the full effect of seeing one of the world’s largest Buddha statues looming in the distance as you walk through the pagodas – although we did see him peeking on the walk through the gardens.

The museum itself is very much aimed at being accessible to all and teaching the story of Buddha’s life and the many festivals of Buddhism. For me the interesting parts were the sections containing treasures and talking about a recently discovered underground palace in China. There was also a beautiful (and sadly unphotographable) reclining Jade Buddha statue flanked by two massive art pieces also made out of various colours of jade. This was definitely one of the highlights.

Finally, we made our way to the top floor and see the Big Buddha up close. There is no denying how impressively large he is, sat high above us as we stood on the sun baked roof having to smile and just take a bunch of religious literature after venturing into one of the four stupa.

Time was marching on and, given the infrequency of the buses, we took our leave and went back to Kaohsiung proper.

It took us two days, but we got our first bubble tea of the holiday – a brown sugar panda tea with two types of pearls. I think we needed this extra fuel for the amount of extra walking we were about to do.

The second of the two big destinations was Lotus Lake. When we first became aware of Kaohsiung as a potential destination back in 2018, it was the dragon and lion pagodas on Lotus Lake that made the biggest impression – this whole holiday (including the side mission to Okinawa) all spun off from seeing these pavilions.

So it took me a good 15-20 minutes to get over the fact that this was the state of them when we visited. Completely scaffolded over, pretty much closed entirely. I’m probably never going to make it back to this city given how many other places are on the wish list. So it was a bitter pill to swallow that this was it.

Thankfully they are far from the only things to see on Lotus Lake and it was far from a wasted journey. For one thing, there are the Spring and Autumn Pavilions next door. Here you are able to make believe what it is like to be eaten up and pooped out by a very long dragon. Honestly, it was this dragon sculpture that really helped to get me back in a good mood after the other disappointment.

Opposite is the Chi Ming Tang temple. Here you can see statues of Guan Yu, many carved dragons and the best view of the Spring and Autumn Pavilions that you can get. This was followed by visits to the Yuandi Temple and it’s huge sculpture of Xuantian, then the Confucian Temple.

Before leaving the Lotus Lake area, we stopped by the Chingshui Temple right across the pond. This small temple was utterly deserted, despite having a huge statue on the roof that, thanks to an elevator up to the fifth floor, you were able to get up close and personal with. There were also beautiful carved dragon columns and some impressive art pieces of a dragon and peacock made of cups, plates and other kitchenware on display.

Being in Taiwan, dinner had to be a night market. The one near Lotus Lake is closed on Wednesdays (we had to shuffle our itinerary for reasons I’ll mention at the end of the post) so we went over to the Liouhe Tourist Night Market. Tourist or not, we had some incredible food and filled our bellies on about £5-6 each.

The big highlight was a pork belly roll with kimchi, but we also had some Taiwanese fried chicken, a Taiwanese hot dog with rice bun, scallion pancake, papaya milk and some sugar-coated strawberries on a stick. This will hopefully not be the last night market we do whilst we’re here, I want to try more of the things

One of the bonuses of going to the Liouhe Tourist Night Market is that you need to stop over at Formosa Boulevard station – the home of the Dome of Light stained glass sculpture. When we first arrived, before going to eat, it had been switched off in preparation for a ‘show’ – but post-food it was on and looking absolutely gorgeous. I can see why this is one of those things people recommend to see whilst in Kaohsiung.

We finished the day with a boat ride on the Love River. They call it the Love Boat. It’s a whole thing and was hoping they would at least make a nod to the US show of the same name. For about £3.50 you get a 25 minute boat ride and the chance to see some really lovely buildings lit up at night. It was worth a bit of an extra walk to have this cap off the day.

Tomorrow is a bit of a bummer because it’s thunderstorms all day with properly heavy rain forecast until just before sunset. That’s why we ended up visiting these sites today and swapped night markets around. Still working out a final itinerary as nearly everything we want to do is outside – so seat of our pants time it is!

Keeping it Kaohsiung – Day 1: Cijin Island

We arrived in Kaohsiung late last night and the first thing that struck me was just the immediate change in humidity levels compared to Okinawa. This city’s weather is definitely not planning on playing nice with our week here, but they sure did look lovely on the ride from the airport to the hotel.

So here we are with the first official day. If the current forecast is to be believed, this was the warmest day we are going to get, although the UV Index is going to stay in the realms of ‘death from above’. Needless to say, I spent the majority of the day with an umbrella open to shield me as much as possible. Looks like this actually worked well in tandem with my super sunblock and so I guess this will be me during the high-sun hours until I am back in the UK.

The bulk of the day was planned to be on nearby Cijin (or Qijin) island. This is a long and thin island that acts as a natural breakwater for the city itself. To get there, you need a very short ferry journey which, if you can find the right place (aka Gushan Ferry Station) departs very frequently.

To get there from the hotel, we took a stroll along the Love River – actual name that works as a bit of a cynical bit of rebranding. For most of this walk, the path was basically devoid of other people. I know this is a Tuesday in the off-season, but I couldn’t believe how we had huge stretches of this river to ourselves.

On the way, Love River provided many photo opportunities with modern art pieces and the futuristic honeycomb structure of the Kaohsiung Music Center.

You also need to cut through the Pier 2 Art Center – something we are going to properly explore on a future day. But if the parts we saw today are anything to go by, it’s going to make for a good final morning before we leave on Sunday.

Once we got onto the island, we got immediately side-tracked by the sight of a beautiful temple in Cijin Old Town. I had forgotten this about temples in Taiwan, they go hard on the decorations. It acted as an appetizer for a temple we visited later in the day, to the point that looking at the photos now – this temple that wowed me looks more normal now. More on that later.

Given that the temperature still had a few degrees to climb, we decided the best option would be to do our own climbing now as we were fresh and willing to do so. Up this hill you find Kaohsiung Lighthouse. The lighthouse itself is pretty, but the draw are the views over the island and back over Kaohsiung itself. Another interesting tidbit is that the original lighthouse was designed by British engineers just like…

… the neighbouring Cihou Fort. Seeing British names being mentioned as part of the design of this building was truly bizarre. Equally bizarre was finding out that the fort was built as a reaction to the same incident that caused Japan to fully take over and incorporate Okinawa. This holiday that I have been thinking off as being two separate entities suddenly have this weird connective tissue of the Mudan Incident.

After descending back to ground level, there is then Cijin Tunnel – an old tunnel made during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan that is now decked out in LEDs and referred to as the Tunnel of Stars. On the other side? A gorgeous viewpoint looking onto Coral Reef Cliff and the sea itself.

At this point we had gone through multiple bottles of drink and it felt like the right time to take a break with a local beverage. Somehow we ignored the call of bubble tea and instead enjoyed a lemon jelly winter melon drink whilst staring out at the black sand beaches of Cijin. Truly, if it was a bit cooler, this would be a version of a beach holiday I could get on board with.

So began our leisurely walk alongside the black sand beach with its coconut palms and occasional tiki-styled huts. This is one of those areas where, in high-season, I can imagine how packed it would be. For us, it was so quiet and so we could get pictures of the Rainbow Church art installations without waiting for too long. Apparently it can really be busy.

Since neither of us were too hungry, we had a small lunch at a nice restaurant looking over the beach. We shared a plate of tofu skin wrapped shrimp balls and let some time pass while the sun was at its height and we were in an air conditioned space.

Our final destination before turning back was the Cijin Windmill Park. An open space that has a lovely view over the sand and sea but, in terms of windmills… only had a single one turning in what was quite a strong wind. Not quite the end to the walk I was hoping, but apparently this is where people come to fly their kites on busier days and I can imagine that being a sight to see.

We left some places for the way back so it would just be a route march. First we happened across a small war memorial museum to the Taiwanese victims of the Second World. It’s tiny, but it’s always worth a short diversion to learn more about the history of the country you are in. Again, I don’t think I properly realised how long the Japanese occupation of Taiwan was. Quite sobering.

The final stop was Cijin Tiensheng Temple. This is one of those places where it’s hard to know where to fix your eyes. There is just so much going on everywhere that I am sure that I will end up looking at some of my photos and spot details I previously missed. It was so extravagant and was a perfect final piece of eye candy for this part of the trip. Makes me so glad that there’s a fair bit of temple hopping in this section of the holiday.

It’s a long walk back to the pier, especially when there’s no real pavement and you’re sharing a road with the thousands of mopeds that live in the area. Doesn’t stop the street vendors though. On the walk back, we just kept smelling delicious food and drink – we gave in eventually with a pork and spring onion bun. It was so juicy and would keep us going until dinnertime.

Then just like that, we were on the ferry back to Kaohsiung proper. We had enough time before our dinner reservation that we grabbed something from the list of overspill activities – a trip up to the Love Lookout and the Kaohsiung Martyrs Shrine.

Without a motor-vehicle, there’s no easy way to get there. It’s either winding major roads with all the mopeds or its small alleys through some of the poorer areas of the city. We did both and it makes me wonder what happens in the main season. These narrow paths through people’s front yards must get clogged with random tourists.

The view from Love Lookout is worth the climb though. It is also the best view you are going to get over the city after the abandonment of the city’s tallest building. It was probably a stupid hike to do after so much walking, but I’m a sucker for a good viewpoint.

For dinner, we actually went to the dim sum restaurant in the hotel. The rating was really high, the prices reasonable and I jumped at the chance to enjoy dim sum from a trolley once again. It was a lovely meal at a fraction of the price of London and, thanks to not eating much all day, I was able to put away more than I normally would have. Got a good variety of plates in with the turnip cake and pork and oyster sauce buns being my favourites.

If that wasn’t enough walking, I wanted to see the Love River at night. It was a short walk, to be further elaborated on tomorrow when we plan to go on a boat ride. Night feels like the best time to see this river and the lights of the surrounding city, so tomorrow should be something special.

Such a packed first day here in Southern Taiwan. Tomorrow is set to have some pretty amazing landmarks on the itinerary, so it’s an early start and I am way past my bedtime.

Okinawa Paradise – Day 5: Naha and Goodbye

So here we are. The time has flown by in what has almost been a week long stint in the subtropical and of Okinawa. As indicated in my previous post, I did in fact end up going back to Don Quixote this morning to obtain that plush. I also bought a back up umbrella so I will be well sheltered as the UV index climbs to 11+ during the second half of the holiday.

It was an evening flight, which means we had a morning and most of an afternoon to tick off some final things before leaving. All pre-airport transportation will be our own legs, just to make sure we don’t wander too far off.

So, after mailing off some postcards we arrived at Fukushuen Gardens. These gorgeous stunning Chinese-style gardens are partially here because of the strong relationship between Okinawa and the Chinas, so it gives visitors something familiar to enjoy. At least that’s what I saw online.

These are some really lovely gardens where the landscapers have been able to fit in three different seasonal concepts into a comparatively small space. In keeping with the style, you have central carp filled ponds, pagodas and running water to fill your heart.

What I appreciated most about this set of gardens was the use of height to give that additional element to the beauty. In the Autumn/Winter section, there are two rock formations with pagodas on top. These give birds eye views of the garden, but also look especially beautiful from ground level, especially the one where the rocks form an almost grotto-like tunnel.

We took a dip into a supermarket where I, once again, lament at the variety on offer in many other country’s markets compared to the UK. We left with some cheap drinks and the knowledge that Japan produces fish cakes with the face of a tsumtsum Mickey Mouse on it. Just because you can do something, it doesn’t necessarily mean you should.

Then it was the final tourist destination of the trip, Naminoue Shrine. I had to take the beauty shot from the motorway bridge to fully show off the location of this shrine standing on a cliff overlooking pale sand and a crystal clear sea.

The shrine itself is a bit small, but it is so well situated that you just have to pay a visit. Afterwards, most people would probably want to take a walk along the sands or put their feet on the ocean. But most people aren’t vampire pale and suddenly realising a shoe may eventually break completely before the end of this trip. Sadly a detour via a shoe store didn’t resolve this issue as I have a UK size 13 foot, which translates to 31.5 in Japan… where 28 is XL and most places seem to have that as an absolute upper limit. So fingers crossed these boots last six more days.

Detour failed, it was lunchtimes and it was finally time to eat a spam and egg onigiri from the Instagram loved Potama stand in Naha. We split a classic one whilst having our own that incorporated tempura bitter melon and bonito flakes. The bitterness of the bitter melon definitely took me off guard, but it made for a good texture contrast with the fresh of the ingredients. Must say, I’ve been very happy with the food I’ve had in Okinawa.

Final shopping stop of the trip! This time it was an Animate store where I was finally able to find some merch from my favourite anime of recent years: Frieren. It wasn’t a lot, but enough to keep me satisfied until the next time I am in a larger Japanese city and go on the look out for a proper miniature of Frieren being eaten by a treasure chest.

Fast forward a few hours and we are at Naha airport. All over Okinawa, we have seen a lot of some very particular pieces of Pokémon imagery, mainly Arcanine and a floating Pikachu attached to balloons. In the airport, the Pokémon amount escalated even further. One airline is plastered in Pikachu whilst one of the larger seating areas is covered in images of different tropical themed Pokémon and some fan favourites.

Alas, it is our final meal in Japan and I went a bit against the foodie vibe as I finally found an excuse to visit Royal Host. I first saw this on a YouTube video a few years back and been wanting to go to one ever since. For the uninitiated, Royal Host is a “family style” restaurant much like Denny’s in the US or… I don’t think there’s an equivalent in the UK.

Dinner was a greatest hits of Japanese foods on one sizzling plate: Hamburg steak, crab cream croquette and a fried shrimp. With a shared side of basil bread and access to the limitless soda bar, I can’t think of a better restaurant to kill some time in. The menu is vast and I really hope I come across another one in a Japanese airport so I can find out what on Earth a ‘German Yogurt’ is.

Tomorrow we restart the clock as I enter the second part of this holiday. This post was written on the flight where my husband and I were the only non-Asians on the plane. Second time that’s happened now and it’s even more of a hoot considering the last time was a commuter flight between Tokyo and Hiroshima.

It’s going to be hotter and a bit longer as for the next week we will be based in Kaohsiung for our second bite at Taiwan. It’s been over five years since our last visit, but this time we’re going to see how the south of the island is and actually have bubble tea in the country of origin.

Okinawa Paradise – Day 4: Some Okinawan History

Here we are already, the last full day in Okinawa. To be fair, we have most of a day tomorrow as well, but things are always that bit different when you having to factor in travel and early arrival for an international flight. At 26 degrees and a UV Index of 6, this is the final of the ‘mild’ days for the rest of this trip. My pale ass is going to be carrying an umbrella for the rest of this trip. Maybe I should have bought a spare for when I eventually leave it on a bus.

Anyway.

On the penultimate day, we stayed closer to our base of Naha by investigating the sights of the surroundings. Powered by a convenience store rice ball, we made our way over Shuri where once stood a beautiful castle that is currently being rebuilt following a fire. This was one of the seats of power back when Okinawa was called Ryukyu and, whilst you can’t see the castle, you can roam around the castle grounds and get some lovely views over the surroundings. It really was the best place to build a castle.

Rather than having a traditional lunch, we ended up having soft serve in the Shuri Castle cafe. This was a vanilla soft serve with brown sugar syrup and crushed Okinawa biscuits over the top. Exactly what I fancied and amazingly kept me going until our dinner later on.

Next on the list was the nearby royal mausoleum known as Tamaudun. Having been restored since the Americans bombed it in World War Two, this 16th century royal tomb still contains the remains of many Ryukyuan kings and queens and is now a World Heritage Site. This is one of those things I can easily file under both impressive and unlike anything I’ve seen before. There’s something very primal and ancient about this site, which is weird considering how it dates from the 16th century.

We then took a walk down (most) of the Kinjo Stone Road. This is rated as one of the top 100 roads in Japan (yes I was surprised this list existed too) and is one of those old walkways that lead up to the Castle from nearer sea level. Since we would have to walk all the way back up again to get to our next location, we instead did about three quarters and then turned back and retraced our steps.

Final stop in this section of the trip was the Sairaiin temple, also known on the Internet as the Daruma temple – for reasons that are painfully obvious. It’s a small and compact temple, but boy it’s a lot of fun to see all the Daruma dolls everywhere. You can buy Daruma dolls and various votive tablets depicting daruma.

There is also an inari shrine preceded by a large number of torii gates. So given we haven’t done any religious buildings so far this trip, we definitely got our money’s worth with this complex. I didn’t want to buy a third daruma for the souvenir shelf, so we got a cat dressed up as a daruma because that is something completely different.

After a trip on the monorail we were in Urasoe. Here there used to be another castle, which is now just some reconstructed walls housing a 13th century mausoleum. Again, this is because of the Second World War – in this instance this is the site that is more widely known in the west as ‘Hacksaw Ridge’. If you’ve seen the film, or know of the battle here – it’s little surprise that the castle was utterly destroyed.

We did get a bit lost between parts of Urasoe park thanks to a tree trimmer blocking off our ability to go back on ourselves. A long detour and a trek through a modern day cemetery led us to Wakariji (also known as Needle Rock). It was a bit of an idiocy that led us here, but we would have never come here otherwise and that would have been a shame.

Especially as it meant we were able to go on some lovely nature trekking to try and find our way back to familiar territory and then to the monorail station.

The final stop of the day was at the Okinawa Prefectural Museum. After all, we’d spent a number of days here and still had a very minimal idea as to this region’s history. Now, if you are after a balanced account of history – a Japanese museum isn’t always the best place to go to. All countries like to paint themselves in the best light, but I know from experience that whilst domestic history is usually okay it is usually a bit patchy when their international relations are concerned.

All things considered, this wasn’t too bad in terms of the storytelling – although it glossed over the opportunism that lead to Japan finally conquering the Okinawa island group and how it was a bit of a loophole that allowed them to trade with China despite there being official rules in place forbidding it. Truly, if not for this arrangement, Japan would have been unable to modernize. So it’s a very weird situation.

The museum is interesting enough and gives you a good basis in some of the basics of the local history. However, I do think I’ll need to follow up with my own reading – something I would still need to do if there was more English translations available. Still, it’s a cheap way to learn some things (like how Okinawa only entered the Iron Age in the 12th Century) and there are some lovely artifacts on display.

So ended our sightseeing for the day, which left us with getting dinner and some shopping. We went into a mall near the museum which had the recently rebranded Hands (previously Tokyu Hands). My husband then took me to a bookstore near our hotel, which ended up having an anime outlet store in the basement… so I spent too much money again. There was also a trip to everyone’s favourite Japanese discount store: Don Quixote. I managed to not buy a plush, which is something I am currently regretting, so may end up buying him tomorrow.

Finally there was dinner. When you look up Okinawan food, there are two noodle dishes that come up. Okinawa soba, which we had on our first day, and soki soba. This was allegedly invented in a restaurant nearby and so we went there to try it out. I know that past me would have been a bit put off by the cartilage still being attached, but that texture difference once it’s softened in the hot broth makes for something really delicious. I know there are other Okinawan dishes I have eschewed in favour of this, but I am happy with my choice.

Tomorrow marks the final day in Okinawa before we fly out to part two of the holiday. It’s going to be the first of many incredibly warm days. Hope I don’t melt before I make it home.

Okinawa Paradise – Day 3: Whale of a Time

When I wrote yesterday’s post, I didn’t want to mention what the first and central activity of today was. We had planned to go whale watching and, in the past, when I’d done these kinds of things – nothing happened. So this time around, I was honestly going to be happy if the whales showed up, blew some air and generally let us know about their presence.

So it’s super early in the morning and we get on a hotel pick-up to the boat. We are life-jacketed up, given a briefing and then on our way at about 9 am. The woman opposite me is sick in a bag and one of the marines in the tour similarly is complaining of seasickness. So far, so expected.

When we reached the whale spotting grounds, we were one of five boats floating there and most of us were moved to the front of the top deck to start looking for whales. Didn’t take too long before the first water spout was seen and then a bit of the back of a whale. At that point I was more than satisfied. I had finally seen a whale on one of these trips and the third time really was the charm. Little did I know at that point, things were far from over.

We must have been out there in the whale watching area for over an hour. In that time, we ended up seeing three whales: a mother, her calf and what was described as a male escort. At the beginning it was all small spouts of water and some back. Then we started to see tails as they did some diving and, eventually, the baby wanted to play with mama.

I fully did not expect to see a full whale display including tail slaps and actual breaches executed by a mother and her baby. Of course very little of this is on video because you just want to be there in the moment… and there’s no warning for the breach. Whales will suddenly just decide to jump out of the water and we were lucky enough to see their play time. We did get some decent videos of tail slapping. But wow, there was some extreme luck here today.

Since neither of us wanted to be seasick, we had no breakfast and so were absolutely ravenous when we were making our way to the next stop of the day: Mihama American Village.

This is essentially a large outdoor entertainment complex with restaurants, plenty of shops and classic Americana-style kitsch. It’s a bit of a weird place, but also a lot of fun when you realise the moustachioed US Marines here from the local base are greatly outnumbered by Japanese visitors.

Given the context of the area, this felt like the perfect place to have one of the remaining Okinawan foods on my list: taco rice. This is exactly what you expect it to be, the filling you’d expect in a stereotypical TexMex taco – but on rice instead of being in a shell. I think this may be the first time I have had food in Japan and thought that I could easily make it at home with the right flavour packet. It was a good hearty meal, especially when in a set with some Fanta Melon.

We finished our time off with a long walk around the shops and along the boardwalk, before ending up in a Blue Seal to try some more local flavours. This time I tried the Beni-Imo Cheesecake and was pleasantly surprised by the amount of biscuit crumbs swirled throughout the scoop.

Our final stop of the day was another bus ride away to the city of Okinawa or, more specifically the Aeon Mall there. After all, we are in Japan and we need to get some merchandise that we’d otherwise be unable to get back in the UK. This started off with some lovely stuff from the Ghibli store and then some special cards from a TCG shop, before we ended up at the main reason for us visiting this particular mall.

This is the home of the Pokemon Center store on the island of Okinawa. This is one of the bigger ones I have been into, but more importantly it has some very unique merchandise. We are talking about Pikachu dressed in local costume and other localised paraphernalia – so of course we had to buy some of this. I then got the second biggest shock of the day when I spotted a massive plush of Bellibolt (who may be my favourite Pokemon). This is something I have never seen for sale online, so must be pretty new to market. He is big and at the moment I am hoping we will have space in the bag for this bundle of froggy joy.

Before leaving the mall we went to the food court for dinner. There were so many options we were torn between, but ended up getting a meal set from a sutadon place (I am not sure how this is different from butadon) which included a pork bowl, fried chicken and a mountain of cabbage salad. I have definitely eaten too much today.

The last thing before turning in and getting to writing was another visit to Blue Seal to make up for yesterday. Rather than a regular scoop, I went for a salty milk soft serve – which is my favourite of their ice creams so far.

Tomorrow is the last full day in Okinawa and the first day of this holiday where we are not setting a super early alarm. Hoping that I won’t be nodding off on any buses for a while.

Okinawa Paradise – Day 2: Ocean Expo Park

It’s the first full day in Okinawa and I can say, with a great deal of certainty, that we could have easily had double the time here compared to the three full days and two partials that we budgeted for. I guess that’s the issue with bolting this onto another holiday. Still, I am incredibly grateful that I am here at all and able to enjoy what is looking more and more like the stereotype of paradise I am so used to in visual media.

Today’s trip took us out of Naha and across the island. For an island with no trains, this is a long journey at about 2-3 hours each way depending on which bus you end up taking. Doing this trip one way is an absolutely gorgeous way to spend some time. If you weren’t falling for the island already, seeing the forests and coastlines on a mini-road trip should help.

We took the earliest one we could stomach and ended up at Ocean Expo Park at just after 10 am. This left us with 7 hours before our return bus and, well the time just flew by.

Starting off, we went into the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium. This aquarium is one of the big things that put Okinawa onto my radar, back in the days where I was researching how I could go and see a whale shark. It wouldn’t be a proper break if there was not some kind of zoo/aquarium element to it – at least not for me anyway.

One of the big joys of Okinawa’s aquarium is how they really focus on showcasing the local fauna. So many of the displays featured creatures that I would have never seen before and some where, due to Okinawa breaking ground on displaying deep-sea creatures, I will likely never see them again.

The obvious jewel in the aquariums crown is the main tank that features Jinta, the whale shark alongside manta rays and a number of other sea creatures. There are a lot of places to get views of this tank, including the famous big panel view where you see the entire tank from top to bottom. Since Jinta was swimming close to the surface, we got the best view from the currently out of commission educational theatre. It was truly amazing to see another one of these gorgeous creatures in the flesh.

Other highlights of the aquarium really were the many things I had never seen or heard before. There was a section showing off bioluminescent creatures like comb jellies which particularly took me by surprise. I guess I’d always figured that the Blue Planet documentaries exaggerated the lights and colours these jellies gave off.

Since we aren’t scuba people, it was great to see the bright colours of the local tropical fish on display, including some vibrantly pink and purple fish where I don’t think I’d see such shades on anything other than a flower before. This is definitely an aquarium I would heartily recommend people to check out… despite how hard it is to get to this island.

We spent a good few hours in the aquarium, and could have easily spent more time, but it was now after midday and there was a certain lunch place that I wanted to check out. To get there, it was a bit of a walk, which took us north and away from Expo Park.

Despite never being a beach person, I had to see some of the beautiful white sand beaches on the way to food. Like the tropical fish, this one of those things I’d only ever seen on TV and never expected the reality to actually look like the photos. The thing that surprised me about this beach, other than the colour, was that there was actual pieces of broken coral mixed in the sand. I knew that white sand beaches were because of eroded corals, but I didn’t expect to see pieces of it mixed in. Made for a bit of a crunchy walk in places.

Further north and we reached the village of Bise and their beautiful tree lined roads. We even saw a traditional ox-drawn cart slowing taking a group of tourists through the trees. The number of trees made for some much needed shade from the midday sun, the reduced number of people helping to make this walk all the more beautiful. We passed many small businesses on the way, with decorated walls and fences, but we had a restaurant to visit.

Back on our honeymoon, we visited a shabu-shabu place in Kyoto and didn’t get around to finding another one when we returned to Japan last year. Since my husband really wanted to try it again, I found this one that had some ridiculously high ratings, served the local Agu pork and whose whole vibe felt like an older couple decided to run a restaurant out of their gorgeous traditional home.

We, of course, had the Agu pork shabu-shabu set. But I was not aware that this set would also mean appetizers and a dessert of mango jelly. Thanks to this, I was able to try ‘sea grapes’ a local type of seaweed that I have been seeing all over the place for not too cheap prices. Feels like something that could have been on the 1001 foods longlist. I can see how this is referred to as seaweed caviar (although the server referred to is as seaweed sashimi, which was a cute way of naming it).

Then out came the shabu-shabu equipment, a tray of vegetables and the selection of agu pork belly, leg and loin. In the initial stages, I played mother – adding in vegetables to be cooked and monitoring them so we could both enjoy them. In this plate was some bitter melon, another local favourite that I was hoping to try here. Definitely a worthy name, although it was tempered by the lovely sesame dipping sauce.

By the time we got to cooking the pork, the water was very hot and all we needed was to shake the pork slices for a few seconds until they were perfectly cooked. What can I say, this was an incredibly delicious meal and, sure, it did eat up a bunch of our time being a leisurely affair, but this was such a worthwhile experience. I’m glad I could find such a good place.

After lunch, we went a bit further north to a viewpoint. During lunchtime, the clouds had come in and so I think the pictures don’t quite show how good the view could have been. When we clambered down and took a look in the nearby waters, we actually saw some incredibly vibrant blue fish having a bit of a swim. It’s those little unexpected things.

Cut to us back in the Expo Park after a long walk and, before getting some souvenirs, we visited the outside manatee and sea turtle enclosures. There was even a juvenile manatee who just looked so small compared to the fully grown adults next door. It was sweet to stand there and watch them eating their lunch, using their hand flippers to waft in any greenery that was floating away.

The final segment of our visit to Expo park was to visit the Tropical Dream Center. Think of it as a tropical themed set of gardens and greenhouses, with a lot of focus being put on orchids and edible plants. Not since being in Singapore have I seen so many orchids in one place, one of the orchid houses smelling particularly fragrant.

The edible house is one of those places where, depending on when you arrive, you will see different foods on display. On our visit in late March, we saw cacao pods, jackfruit, breadfruit and jabotica – but other times you’d see other things like avocado and durian.

Other than the plants, there were some things for people who like insects. In one room, there were paper kite butterflies flying everywhere and getting very close to us visitors. It even gave the chance to see the golden chrysalises where future butterflies would spring from.

Then, as a temporary exhibition, the Animal Crossing player in me got to enjoy a room full of beetles in enclosures. Massive beetles, like the Hercules beetle that I spent many hours collecting on my personal island on the Switch. These are truly massive creatures that I would not want to have suddenly flying at me. Really thankful for the plastic.

Before the bus ride home, we had just enough time to walk through an area of the park that showed recreations of traditional Okinawan houses. It gave a little bit of history, albeit one that glosses a bit over their eventual takeover by Japan, as you see what these structures used to look like.

Three hours and a long nap later, we were back in Naha where the sun had set and the number of restaurants still open was dwindling. So, we did what we seem to do in these circumstances – we went for dinner at MosBurger. I mean, this is something I cannot get back in the UK, so why not just have the prawn burger and get my joy that way. I didn’t go for the set as we made dessert plans.

Sure, I didn’t have any Blue Seal ice cream today, but I think a plate of these ultra fluffy beni-imo pancakes from Midnight Sweets more than makes up for it. We split this and a plate of mango pancakes after waiting a while for them to make fresh batter. I’m not an Instagram person usually, but I just had to get these up on there.

What a first day and it is another early start tomorrow. It’s going to be interesting tomorrow, but I don’t want to write anything about it now just in case it jinxes anything. Also, it’s late and time for bed.