2006-10-26 – Day 3 – Taroko Gorge – Kaoshiung
Taroko Gorge (太é²é˜)
0830 After breakfast and half hour bus journey, we arrived at a local doctor’s shop to view Wild Ling Zhi that’s picked from the nearby Qi Lai Moutain. Apparently, consuming Ling Zhi involves immersing slices of 天 (horizontal cut) and 地 (vertical cut) into hot water to make tea. Ling Zhi has the effect of detoxifying the body (takes 100 days to change the immune system and 300 days to raise the level of immunity). Its pretty expensive stuff since it takes a long time to grow in the wild.
1000 We headed towards Taroko Gorge and visited 长春桥 and 天祥庙. It was a pretty interesting short walk and took the opportunity to take some photos. 天祥庙 was built to commemorate the engineers who built the bridge at Taroko. Well worth a visit if you happen to be headed towards the area.
1230 After a hearty lunch, we travelled doing Hua Dong Road towards Kaoshiung.
1600 Lots of country side farms and small towns later, we’re finally near Kaoshiung but there’s still more travelling to go! We even passed a place where there is white water rafting.
Kaoshiung (高雄)
2000 We’re finally in Kaoshiung.. After a brief rest stop, we finally got into the city area and headed for dinner at a restaurant. Food was so-so with a tiny morsel of lobster as the “highlight”.
2100 One of the tourist spots is Shinkuchan Shopping Centre (新掘江商场) on Wufu Road (五ç¦è·¯). Its pretty much like any other night market so can’t say we really enjoyed our hour there. We did however catch sight of a building that looked mysteriously like Vivocity!
2230 Since the previous night market didn’t quite satisfy our curiosity of the city, we headed out right after unloading our lugguage into the hotel room. This time, our destination was Liuho Night Market(å…åˆå¤œå¸‚). It was brisk 15 minutes away although we did ask for directions once and realised it was just one street away 
Liuho is a long road of food stalls and definitely very lively at night. After a nice supper of 豆花, it was time to head back and get some rest.