Taiwan Day 1: Kaohsiung Day 1

At the start of July I set out for 3 weeks of travelling by myself in Taiwan. It would be my longest travel, as well as my first real solo travel (I feel like day trips hardly count). Considering I love planning things, I spent about 3 months making detailed plans for what I wanted to make sure I saw and did. So, when July 9th rolled around, I was ready to go! I took the plane from Shanghai to Kaohsiung, arriving about 3pm.

My first stop was the Central Park metro station. I’d heard it was quite pretty, and thought maybe I’d check out the park. I went straight from the airport, so I had my big bag on me and everything. Some guy followed me up the escalator (and no, I was not paranoid, he also tried to follow me back down), so I decided I’d just check into the hostel instead.

My hostel was located near Formosa Boulevard Station, so I took a look at the Dome of Light while I was there. Quite beautiful. From there at checked in at my hostel and heading back out to visit a cat cafe!

 

The place was called Mona’s Cafe and the menu was all in Chinese, with some pastas and hot pot and things. And if you added some money you could make it a set, with a drink and a soup. I did that, and and above you can see my milk tea and corn soup.

For the main dish, I chose a pumpkin chicken pasta. The chicken was a bit strange tasting to me, but it was still pretty good.

 

There were lots of cute animals in the shop. People even brought their own there for a meal! These are the cute cats of the restaurant.

And there was also a little dog. I think the dog had a problem with his legs, because he moved a little funny and was kept on the 2nd floor. I think the poor guy was sad he couldn’t be with everyone else, though.

One night thing about the Taiwanese metro is that they have spots for women to wait at night (as well as some female-only cars in Taipei). Safety first! 🙂

I don’t like being out too late when I’m travelling by myself, so I headed back early to grab something sweet at the Liuhe Night Market, conveniently located near my hostel. I settled on some papaya milk and called it a night. It was a good first day in Taiwan!

Chartres Garden

Meeting a friend for lunch, there was a bit of confusion. He had meant Chartres (which is on Huashan) and not Chartres Garden (which is on Fuxing Xi Lu). But, having sat in the restaurant a bit waiting for him, we ended up just staying here instead. There was a choice of dishes in a lunch set menu. Choose 2, 3 or 4 courses.

Complimentary bread with butter.

Chicken liver. Especially good with the orange.

Cream of mushroom soup. A bit on the light side.

Pork shoulder with apricot glaze. Wow, that was a LOT of meat. I couldn’t finish it.

Apple tart. Not what I was expecting, but pretty good.

Coffee to end.

I had been a bit nervous about this place as I waited, but the food was more than decent for the price and the service, while a bit slow, could have been worse.

What: Chartres Garden
Where: Fuxing Xi Lu, near Huashan Lu
Cost: I think 4 courses was 128 rmb or so?

Aniseed

When I first moved to Shanghai, I missed pho greatly. I used to have it at least once a month in uni. So I searched online, and it seemed like one of the best places was Aniseed in Xintiandi.

I like how their Vietnamese iced coffee came with coffee-infused ice cubes 😀

And I got the beef pho. Slices of raw beef that get cooked in the yummy broth. I still haven’t had better pho in Shanghai (though Cyclo probably ties). If anyone knows another place, please tell me! 😀

And some spring rolls. Yum!

What: Aniseed
Where: Xintiandi
Cost: Pho is about 50 rmb

Pho Asia

After having the Vietnamese cold noodles a few weeks prior, I happened to be craving them again. My friend wanted to meet for dinner in People’s Square, so I suggested Pho Asia. I had had some disappointing pho there the year before (so-so broth, wrong type of noodles), but I hoped the cold noodles would be better.

Vietnamese coffee 😀

My friend got a seafood fried rice which had a bit too much octopus and other strange looking things in it to appeal to me. We also split some spring rolls, those were good. And my noodles, while I didn’t enjoy them as much as at Mekong River, were still pretty good.

What: Pho Asia
Where: Raffles City
Cost: I think most dishes are about 30-40 rmb?

Southern Belle

For 4th of July, we had to go somewhere very American. Southern Belle was chosen by my friend.

A coffee and a ginger ale. You can see the ad for 4th of July behind it.

For food we got chili cheese dogs and biscuits and gravy. The chili cheese dog was pretty good, but the biscuit… Not so much. The biscuits were a bit dry and the gravy wasn’t very flavourful.

Decided to get a cookie at the end. Pretty good, but I still prefer Strictly Cookies.

I hear they have some nice, strong drinks here, but I wasn’t drinking that day. I’d consider coming back for a drink on their nice porch, but maybe skip the food.

What: Southern Belle
Where: Changle Lu
Cost: I can’t remember. Things were on special, too.