During our family trip south this summer we drove to Guanshan [關山] in Kenting National Park to catch the sunset. Guanshan is a 150 meter tall mountain and last year was mentioned on a list compiled by CNN as one of thirteen superb sunset spots. Here’s a trio of photos from our visit.
Footpath
X Marks the Spot
Ants
For information about the Ten Drum Culture Village [十鼓文化村] – Check out their official website.
Fill my eyes with that yellow vision
Last Saturday we made a spontaneous decision to visit the Giant Rubber Duck in Kaohsiung City during its final weekend down south. Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman has been spreading joy around the world since 2007 with his massive floating duck sculptures. The duck has already left Kaohsiung and will be making stops in Taoyuan [Oct. 26 – Nov. 10] and Keelung [Dec. 21 – Jan 31].
Here are a handful of pictures from Pingtung’s Long Chuan Brewery [龍泉觀光啤酒廠]. I visited the brewery during a company trip last year. The tour began with visitors being corralled into a small theater to watch a video introduction of the brewery. After the video, guests were pointed down a few long hallways and rooms. Some visitors have the opportunity to view the bottling machines in operation at the plant. All the machines were off when we went as the local demand for Long Chuan and Tsingtao Beer doesn’t necessitate having the plant run on Saturdays. Instead, we got to see a small LCD screen featuring a looping video of what happens on the floor of the bottling plant. The end of the tour brought us to an area selling refreshments, souvenirs and giving away plastic cups of beer.
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Taiwan High Speed Rail’s Zuoying Station – Kaohsiung.
Keeping an Eye on You
It’s often mandatory during company trips to stop at various locations either to or from the destination to shop for local specialties. After an employee outing to Kenting we were dropped off in Donggang [東港] in Pingtung County to go seafood shopping. I’m not much of a seafood fan so I didn’t walk away with any fresh seafood. I did however leave with a few decent photographs.
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Mailboxes
Zizhu Village [自助新村] is a military dependents’ village located in Kaohsiung City’s Zuoying District. In an attempt to save the village from demolition, a group of students have decorated the village’s buildings and roads to attract visitors. Like Taichung’s Chun An Village, this village has been receiving a lot of attention lately and even has its own Facebook page created by the artists where visitors can post photographs from their visits.
Military dependents’ villages [眷村] are communities throughout Taiwan built in the late 1940s through 1950s for the original purpose of providing provisional housing to Nationalist soldiers and their dependents after the KMT retreated to Taiwan. However, they ended up becoming permanent settlements of mainlander enclaves in Taiwanese cities. These communities were haphazardly constructed and often poorly maintained. Since the 1990s, most of these villages have been bulldozed and replaced by high-rise communities. There are efforts to preserve some of the few remaining dependents’ villages as historical sites.
Here is a small collection of photographs from our visit to Zizhu Village:
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Tunnel Vision
While my nephew was visiting Taiwan we took him to the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium [國立海洋生物博物館] in Pingtung County near Kenting National Park. The first time I visited the museum was four years ago when I had far fewer wrinkles around my eyes. The museum is a blast and a must see for anyone visiting southern Taiwan. I had a great time during both of my visits.
The South Gate [南門]
Hengchun [恆春鎮] is Taiwan’s southernmost township and hosts the most completely preserved city gates in Taiwan. This historic city is a great stop for anyone visiting southern Taiwan.
While in Pingdong, we checked out an area of the coast during low tide. We visited a lovely spot adjacent to Bitou Fishing Port [鼻頭漁港]. The small road leading to the fishing port is directly opposite the entrance for the Uni-Resort [統一墾丁] on HWY 26.
