Kaohsiung Metro is having a collaboration with Chibi Maruko Chan so there are Chibi Maruko Chan decorations at Yanchengpu Station, the station nearest to our hotel. I am not a fan of Chibi Maruko Chan but since it was my last day, I just went all out with the shamelessness and the photos.
We took the train to see the Dome of Light. We arrived in quite a nice time as not long after we arrived, tourists (read: photobombers) started to arrive. This place is famous for being insta-worthy and wow.. looking at the things that people do to have those insta-worthy shots, I am still consider 'very mild' in comparison.
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| I am not into Instagram but I can understand the craze about this |
Although it was drizzling slightly earlier, the weather turned into bloody hot when we reached Lotus Pond. Sigh.. I should not be complaining since sunny is better than rainy but it was so hot that I was not even ashamed to open my umbrella to protect me from the heat and the same time to dry the rain drops.
Despite the name, the Lotus Pond is actually very big and there are plenty of temples/pagodas around the pond. We only visited three before we decided to retreat from the heat to a shopping mall. Hahaha.. First was the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas. There is a belief that people should enter the dragon's mouth and exit from the tiger's mouth for good luck. We walked along the pond to Spring and Autumn Pavilions (the one with the statue of Guanyin on a dragon) and Pei Chi Pavilion (the one with a giant statue -I don't know what statue since it was too hot and I could not be bothered to walk closer to the statue).
We took a cab to Dream Mall which is the biggest shopping mall in Taiwan. As huge and nice as it is, to me it is essentially just a shopping mall. Having said that, there are large promotional areas for Aladdin and Toy Story 4. I took photo with them and it was purely coincidental that I was wearing Aladdin t-shirt today. I completely ran out of cash as I bought a green colour sandals and a t-shirt with Wing Gundam Zero picture.
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| The funny thing is that the LCD is promoting Toy Story 4... |
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| While Toy Story 4 promo area has the LCD promoting Frozen 2... |
We had lunch at Chun Shui Tang which is regarded as the inventor of bubble tea drink. I don't have the tongue of an angel so I can't tell if the bubble tea here is special or unique. In fact, as long as food is not "ew" for me, I will just consider them as OK.
We went back to the hotel to re-pack my luggage. I already checked out so I did it in my friends' room. My room last night is actually even bigger than theirs since I got a corner unit. Plus I was alone and they were 3 people. Lol. At about 430pm, I left for airport. The driver asked me something and my goodness, there was no way I would survive travelling here alone since English is so rarely spoken. I told him international terminal but he was asking if I was travelling to China or to somewhere else. I did not know why he asked that but thank goodness he was tech-savvy and used his phone app for translation of his question.
That is the end of my visit to Taiwan. I am quite averse visiting Mandarin-speaking countries so this visit has been an eye opener. No doubt I still prefer Japan for the attractions but I will not mind visiting Taiwan again to explore other areas. However, I personally do not think it is worth spending a week of annual leave for Taiwan. Hahaha.. For 4-5 days during a long weekend or a public holiday is okay but not any longer than that.
I am very thankful of my friends who allowed me to tag along. They did not really take pictures and they had to entertain me taking photos instead. Haha.. Win-win arrangement. I would not survive without them for the communication and although my intention was only to tag along, I felt that they were becoming my tour guides since they made sure I tried the famous food and visited the 'must-see' places in these 4 days. In return, I was the extra stomach to help them with the food. They always over-ordered with the variety and I ended up having to finish. Hey.. that is also another win-win arrangement.
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