Day 16 - Kaohsiung (New Year)

Today started off relaxed, we took the metro to Dream Mall. It's a huge shopping center with a Ferris wheel on the 10th floor and several other adventure units for kids. Uwe and Carolin took a ride on the Ferris wheel while I took a break 🫣.

Carolin and I wanted to buy some sneakers, but we couldn't find any in women's sizes larger than 40. It's kind of discriminatory, but money-saving at the same time🙈. After that, we wanted to take the train to Fisherman's Wharf, but there were masses of people rushing onto the train and crowds of people everywhere on the pier. So we thought, okay, let's go to Cijin City Beach instead. We took the ferry across and when we arrived on the other side, we saw a long line of people waiting for the ferry to go back. Oh my God, was it a mistake to come here? There were also crowds of people here. We somehow made our way through the market and the crowds towards the beach. By this time, it was already late afternoon and we wanted to see the sunset. We bought a can of Gold-Cider from 7 Eleven, found a seat on the pier, and simply watched the people. The sun was shining brightly, it was very warm today. But unfortunately, just like in Kenting, the clouds came back at sunset.

To avoid waiting in line for the ferry, we went to the beach bar for dinner and a farewell cocktail.

When we were ready to return, we didn't have to wait anymore and we were able to take the first ferry. We took the metro towards the hotel, but unfortunately, the New Year's market was still open at our stop. There were still crowds of people at the market. We somehow made our way through the market towards our hotel.

So - the Taiwanese people go to the temple in the morning and go shopping in the afternoon. They give out red envelopes filled with money as gifts to the children. The whole family gets together for 2 days and they go to the night market for dinner, shopping together, or other sightseeing activities.

There are not many firecrackers like you would expect from the Chinese. Just a few firecrackers and fireworks that go up into the sky - that's about it. So our expectations were not met or fulfilled. 😂