Very fun, busy day

KAOSHIUNG

It was foggy and remained hazy for a good part of the day. The ship enters this busy harbor through a gap created between two long wooden extensions from shore.

Since we had our customs materials all ready, going on shore and onto the busses was quick and easy. We were off by 8:10 and our bus was not due to leave until 8:30.

Motorcoaches

These are really nice. Two stories. I have no idea what’s on the first level except the driver and a shot gun seat. And it has two exit doors.

The windows have drapes and valances with fringe balls. We were given water and encouraged to drink it liberally. And they weren’t kidding. We knew we were sweating a little, but he weather was in the 70s with occasional breezes and so we didn’t think much of it. We did drink however without making many contributions back to the environment except perhaps through sweat evaporation.

The city

Is a bustling metropolis with lots of scooters with separate lanes and parking spaces. In fact, I don’t really recall any specific auto parking lots.

There are many modern, elevated freeways with many bridges and interchanges. Hot Water tanks are atop all the homes, something often seen in other sunny countries. I like the idea but it is unsightly.

7 elevens abound here. But I didn’t go into one to see if they sold lottery tickets and were run by India folks.

Housing is small and very expensive.

Monastery

This was such a beautiful place and you certainly get your exercise going up 150 stairs and then winding your way around the mountain and eventually to a very tall, lovely, female looking Buddha that reminded me a little of Christ the Redeemer in Rio. It is a calm refuge and redolent with many large Buddha statues, niches for Buddhas, flowers and wonderful gardens everywhere, statuary every where. Buddhist nuns (I saw only one monk) were everywhere in their brown cassock looking clothes and with shaved heads (what a time saver).

We were here over an hour learning about the numbers of stories in the temples and the number of doors/windows to each side. Yellow painting is the emperor as an example.

Bathrooms

This one is for ladies. Unlike other places I’ve been where Chinese hole-in-the-floor toilets were the only option, here they had both options. It took me a while to realize that there is often a little icon on the door to indicate whether it is Chinese or Western toilet. As you may expect, the Western toilets were always full. I’m not choosy and took my turn at the Chinese ones and without grab bars can still get up and down. You must carry your own toilet tissue here and it has to be put into an adjacent trash can, never down the commode. I was told in China, this is because the toilet water is called night water and goes to the fields. Don’t know how true that is.

Museum

From the monastery we took a bus ride a few miles around and stopped at the opposite end of this enormous property where there are 8 pagodas and the largest sitting Buddha in the world. The property is expansive and wonderful to walk. It reminds me in some instances of the Forbidden City in Beijing. We walked it seemed forever. Finally we reached a building with so many rooms, layers, and temples inside that I lost count. All lovely.

Temple socks.

I forgot to bring ours. You must take off your shoes to enter temples and so we usually carry socks with gripper soles for this but just went in our stocking feet for today. But it is a pain to take off and put your shoes on again and again as we wear sneakers for outings.

Vegetarian lunch

Prior to going into the museum, we wandered around a small mall with a few shops (none you’d know except for Starbucks!). they had things like jewelry, crystal items, ice cream cones, shirts with roosters on them (it is the year of the rooster), and so on.

The luncheon was all vegetarian but other than Bok Choy and some cheese, noodles, and red bean curd, I couldn’t begin to tell you what we actually ate. But overall it was not bad and very creative. We ate Chinese style at tables of 10.

Stadium

This stop was to the see the World (some sport) stadium which is made like a dragon. Quite impressive actually. Hard to describe actually.

Lotus Pond

This is a large man made lake with great walking paths. The original city wall surrounds much of it. It had two large pagadas on one end and it is said that you will have good look if you do the following. A dragon guards one pagoda, a tiger the other. So you enter through the dragon’s mouth and then exit via the tiger’s mouth. There’s not much to see inside except some murals of Chinese history.

There are lots of lily pads outside and I saw a big heron and got some interesting shots of him/her. Barely moved…

Then across the street was another temple where I could hear, but not see, monks  chanting.

Made curfew

We drove up to the pier right on time and went through the ship’s terminal where there were some vendors (no idea what was being sold) and where we saw many folks from the ship using the good WiFi in the terminal. We had been downloading stuff all day but really must get caught up in Hong Kong as the apps are hanging up our Apple devices.

Supper

I had my photo taken with Lucian as he is leaving us in Hong Kong. First he put his back to the camera and then he finally turned slightly. It looks like we’re doing something illicit.

We had been talking about how rough the seas were last night when the Captain came on saying we’d have 1-3 meter waves after we left the gap. Lucian remarked in his dry way: Double it. That means the waves with bee twice as high tonight.

Oscars

The ship taped it for rebroadcast this evening in the Cabaret Lounge so that’s where Ed went. They have an ice carving of Oscar, a grungy looking gold poor substitute for Oscar, and many gold and silver balloons around. The staff are all dressed in tuxes and designer dresses to welcome you as you go in.

Oscar, our matre de, dressed in a gold lame suit tonight for the occasion. He is such fun with his high pitched happy little voice always resonating around the ship: “hall-llllooowww”. Such fun.

We have a day at sea and then two days in Hong Kong. We are looking forward to all. Of them.