DAY 04 - 高雄

Yipee !! Today is 高雄 Day !! We will be going to 高雄 for 2 days and on the 3rd day back to 台北, we will drop by 台中 to have a one day tour, sounds happening ya ?? =)

Travelling to 高雄 is much easier nowadays with the launch of the Taiwan High Speed Rail Service. Travelling time is only 1 hr 40 mins and has provided great convenience to the locals as well as tourists. Taiwan aims to link up the major cities by high speed rail in future and we definitely look forward to that day. By then, Taiwan will be like Japan, everywhere and anywhere will be easily accessible.

Our train will arrive at 942am. As we were not familiar with how the rail system works, hence to play safe, we reached super early at the Taipei Train Station. Guess we were too early, there was no one in sight and we had all the waiting seats to ourselves haha ..

Details of the trains were reflected timely on the board and ours was Train No. 121 hehe ..

Being kiasu Singaporeans, we were on standby at around 932am and coincidentally, the PA system announced that Platform 2 was opened and we can proceed to the platform.

There you go, this is our train to 高雄 !! Cabin 5 .. =)

Our reserved seats number were 13D and 13E. Similar to Japan’s Railway System, you can choose to pay a bit more for reserved seats or pay lesser (and bear higher risks) for non-reserved seats.

Till now, I believe you guys can feel my excitement as I shot practically everything about the train haha .. what’s so fascinating about these seat numbers anyway .. haha ..

Running out of subjects and I turned to Eugene to be my victim haha .. irritated the hell out of him haha ..

The train departed on time and the entire train ride was smooth and fast. Both Eugene and I were very impressed by it.

More info on Taiwan High Speed Rail (HSR):
o http://www.thsrc.com.tw/en/
o Taipei Train Station → Zuoying Station
o Duration: 1 hr 40 mins
o Cost: NT$1070 (Unreserved economy class); NT$1265 (Reserved economy class)

YES YES YES !! We had reached Zuoying Station !! Looking forward to explore 高雄 City, the 2nd largest city in Taiwan hehe ..

Upon exit from the train gantry, what welcomed us is the steely infrastructure of Zuoying Station. Looks like Hong Kong International Airport right? Seems like the Taiwan Government really invested a lot in the High Speed Rail .. ooh ..

Turn right from here and you will see the ticket booth selling HSR tickets. We bought our HSR tickets to 台中 as well as HSR tickets from 台中 to 台北.

On the left of the ticket booth, you will see Exit 2 which will lead you to the MRT Station.

There are 2 options to get to 高雄 Main Station which is the centre of 高雄 city:

Option 1: Kaohsiung Metro (red line)

o http://www.krtco.com.tw/en

o http://khh.travel/en/theme/KMRT.aspx

o Zuoying → 高雄 Main Station

o Duration: 10 mins

o Cost: NT25 / NT$200 (One-day traveler card)

Option 2: Taiwan Railway Administration local train

o New Zuoying Station→ 高雄 Main Station

o Duration: 10 mins

We chose Option 1 as it seems to be the more convenient mode of transport.

Unlike 台北, 高雄 does not use EasyCard (a stored value card which is similar to Singapore’s ezylink card). Instead, blue tokens are used.

I thought I get to keep the token at the end of the trip but NO, the smart gantry ate my token *cry*. If not it will be a very nice souvenir isn’t it haha ..

高雄 Main Station is merely a station away from Zuoying Station and our hotel, Riverside Hotel, is located within walking distance from the station. It is a newly refurbished hotel and some taxi drivers were not even aware that this hotel exists.

At the exit of 高雄 Main Station, we saw the solemn 85 Tower greeting us. The design of 85 Tower is very unique and interesting. It meant to resemble the Chinese character, 高. The 85 Tower is not as tall as Taipei 101 but is definitely the tallest building in 高雄 and from the top floor, you can see the skyline of 高雄.

Direction to 85 Tower:
o 三多商圈站→ Exit 1 → 5 to 10mins walking distance
o Cost of Entrance: NT$100

Checked in the hotel and could not wait to check out the room. To our delight, the room was much bigger than that of Lio Hotel and it was clean too. The hotel staff even told us the popular 六合观光夜市 is within walking distance of the hotel, Hurray !!

More info on Riverside Hotel:
o http://www.kha.org.tw/en/store.aspx?storeid=48
o http://www.kha.org.tw/webs/hotela2/rooms.aspx?menuID=1721
o 高雄Main Station → Exit 1 (5-10 mins walking distance)
o View-side Suite (NT$$980 per rm per night)

Up to this point, so far so good and everything went on smoothly.

As we will be staying in 高雄 for 2 days, hence we decided to cover the shopping area today and the scenic area tomorrow .. =)

Our first shopping stop: 三多商圈!!

三多商圈 is a shopping district and there are a lot of shopping centres here. But to our disappointment, it is not as happening as 台北, in fact, it is a dead town! *yawn*

Direction to 三多商圈:
o http://www.krtco.com.tw/b-map/R8.html
o KaoHsiung Main Station → 三多商圈站 (R8)
o Duration of train: 10mins
o Cost of train: NT$20

Decided to pop by the nearby 兴中夜市 to check out the good food there but alas, a lot of stalls were not opened yet *sigh*.

Direction to 兴中夜市:
o Within the 三多商圈 district, directly opposite SOGO

Alright, never mind, since there was nothing to eat and nothing to shop, let’s check out 高雄 skyline! 85 Tower would be a good and cheap choice to see the skyline of 高雄. But the sky was super duper hazy, think it will be a wasted trip.

Gosh, is 高雄 really that boring? There seem to be nothing that we can explore *cry*.

Looks like 三多商圈 is an empty shell and we decided to move out of it and proceeded to 后驛 and 大连商圈. 后驛商圈 is similar to 五分铺, it is a wholesale centre selling a lot of clothes and accessories at very low prices. 大连商圈 is the next lane after 后驛商圈 and it is a shoe haven. Sounds good right ? Haha, finally there are some places in 高雄 worth our exploration .. =)

Direction to 后驛商圈:
o Alight at 后驛站 → 20mins walk → Near KaoHsiung Train Station, 后驛安寧街

高雄 weather is much hotter than 台北 and walking under the scorching hot sun for 20mins is no joking matter. For Eugene who has chronic backache problem, that can be very killing and hence without hesitation, he popped 2 painkiller pills which is called Nurofen. These painkiller pills worked wonders and after a short while, his backache was eased.

FINALLY, we reached 后驛商圈, HURRAY !!

But sigh, the clothes here were not as fashionable as that of 五分铺 and to make it worse, display was messy and if you ask me about the shopping experience here, sorry, I will not even give it a pass .. very disappointing.

Just at this moment, Eugene started to have some drug allergy symptoms. Gosh, his eyes became swollen and he can’t even see clearly. I have to rush him to a nearby clinic and after a jab, his swell still did not subside. By then, his symptoms worsen and his breathing passage was blocked. The drug allery was quite bad and upon the doctor’s advice, we went to the hospital, 高一.

Just like any A&E, 高一 A&E was like a warzone !! There were a lot of patients and luckily we only waited for a while and got to see the doctor after about ½ hour. The doctor said Eugene’s drug allergy was very serious and he need to be on drip for 3 hours ! It must have been very unbearable for him as he could not see, could not breathe and could not even drink water as he need his mouth to breathe. So poor thing ..

While waiting for him, I chatted with an uncle and digged some travel info from him hehe. He is a local from 高雄 but yet he strongly recommended us to go to 台中. He even asked why do we even bother to come to 高雄, haha. Taiwanese are really very friendly and they really know everything about their country. Hmm, shame on me, it's high time for me to find out more about the places of interest in Singapore =P

I got bored and hungry and decided to explore the vicinity. *sigh* expectedly, there was nothing much around this area except for a Carrefour.

Luckily Eugene felt better after the drip even though his eyes were still very swollen. We took a cab back to our hotel and had beef noodles at a stall nearby. Surprisingly, the beef noodles tasted great ! Taiwan’s beef noodles is really NUMBER ONE.

*sigh* what a day, nothing seems to go right today BUT never mind, the worst is over and tomorrow will be a better day !! =)