Day 39 - Jade, Flowers and Kaoshiung Art

I thought I got out of my hotel way too late to see the best of the flower and jade markets, turns out that Taiwanese are not morning people so they were still setting up their stands when I got there mid morning.

Both markets are well worth a look and seem great for buying souvenirs, the jade market probably more as I don't think flowers will survive a flight back or my round the world trip intact. The markets are fairly big and are right under a elevated highway, the flower market even has a cool air humidifier system. As mentioned before, you don't need to get up early for either as most sellers seem to arrive at around 10 am to set things up in the jade market.

After exploring the markets and the nearby park, I got to the train station and bought a ticket for Kaoshiung in the fast train, this only takes 90 minutes to go from north Taiwan to the south of the island. During the train ride it occurred to me that the island is not very big given that even the slow train gets from north to south in 5-6 hours.

In Kaoshiung my first stop after checking in to the hotel was the Formosa Boulevard station to see the Dome of Light. I have to say it's pretty cool with some nice motives and colours. It's definitely worth a look and it's central enough so you will be going past when in Kaoshiung.
Everything was set up for a wedding of sorts so there were banners and a piano in the way but I tried to include some of the decorations and piano in my pictures. If you can't get rid of it, might as well make use of it.

The next stop was meant to be Cijin island but I got sidetracked by the Pier 2 Art District, the Lovers Pier and Banana Wharf. After spending quite a bit of time walking around there and taking pictures, I decided Cijin Island would have to wait for tomorrow.