I had one day to travel from Fangliao to Lugang, but I had decided to stay extra nights in Fangliao in search of clear skies. This made one free day. Fangliao is famous for its mangoes and fishery. As I like visiting fishing ports, I should probably visit Fangliao Fishing Harbor and its Fish Market, but according to the forecast, it would be raining lightly in Fangliao on the third day of the travel. It seemed better going to west, Kaohsiung was said to be cloudy. I had not planned going to Kaohsiung this time but decided to visit Kaohsiung.
I love making travel plans, so I try not to travel haphazardly. I hurriedly started researching about Kaohsiung. I was not interested in museums and skyscrapers that appear in general tourist guides. After searching, I decided to visit a vegetable market, an old sugar factory, and a lighthouse.
Breakfast at the hotel in Fangliao starts at 8:00 a.m., which is probably a good thing in a quiet town. Breakfast is a selling point of the hotel, and they provide very good breakfast. Unfortunately, such a big breakfast did not fit with the schedule of Taiwan Railways. Besides, I am not the type of person who eats breakfast every day. From this day on, I asked the staff to change the breakfast to fruits and bread only. I was well-prepared for the journey to Kaohsiung.
I got off the express train at Kaohsiung Station and took a cab to the vegetable market. I thought it would be a chaotic Asian market, but it was quite orderly. After taking time to go around the market, I called Uber and headed to a restaurant for lunch. Since I had chosen Fangliao as base of place for the trip, travel time took longer and not enough time for dinner. This was the most expensive restaurant of the trip.
After an elegant lunch, I took subway to the old sugar factory site. I thought it would be nearby since it was accessible by subway, but it was far away. The factory, which had been built during the Japanese colonial period then shut down, was quite huge. The machinery from those days is still there and it is very impressive, but it is more like a ruin than a tourist attraction. This was not bad to me though.
The last stop was Kaohsiung Lighthouse (高雄燈塔). I returned to the city by subway and took a ferry to the lighthouse. This lighthouse was built during the Japanese occupation period too, but it has been well maintained and remained in beautiful condition. While the weather was not clear at dusk, it was not a concern from a photographic point of view.
This was a much more touristic place than the old sugar factory. Even though it was a weekday, it was difficult to find a moment that people were out of the frame. I stayed quite for a while. I even enjoyed the night view and took the ferry back to the city.
I had some time before the return train, I decided to go to a bakery to buy pineapple cakes. The bakery is said to be a famous, award-winning bakery, but the accessibility by public transportation is not so good.
I got off the ferry and found a cab stand, and one car was parked. Cabs at this kind of stands are more or less problematic in terms of fares and communication in English. However, I knew that Taiwanese cabs were generally safe, and nowadays I can talk via an app.
The driver was a Japanese enka loving man. He drove through the streets of Kaohsiung while listening to enka songs, and talked with him via app. Moreover, thankfully he said he would wait for me until finished shopping at the bakery. As a result, I was able to return to Kaohsiung Station with time to spare.
Since I had a little time to kill, I searched for a place to buy a pork rib bento (排骨便當) using Google Maps. It was the first time for me to buy the bento outside of Taiwan Railway station. I was not sure how to order, but one of customers told me.
Although the plaza at Kaohsiung Station was marked “No Eating or Drinking”, there were few people eating their bento. As a typical nature of Japanese people, I judged it was ok to eat as long as others were doing it. I was able to finish my dinner before boarding the return train.
It was fortunate that it did not rain in Kaohsiung even though I did not have a chance to see Fangliao Fishing Harbor and Fish Market. With the help of the locals of Kaohsiung, all’s well that ends well on this day too.