Home to one of the world's most gorgeous metro stations, dazzling open-air art installations and seriously addictive night market eats, the Southern Taiwanese metropolis of Kaohsiung was the fourth stop of our self-guided round-island tour of Taiwan by train.
This was a beautiful Sunday at the Giant Luggage by the old industrial port, now one of the city's most attractive green spaces where dating couples stroll next to a whale-sized brass trumpet and evocative steam engines preserved on the decommissioned tracks.
Quaint cafes like Hey Go pervade this former industrial quarter, a contraction of Kaohsiung's past century of transformation from a Japanese colonial port to a vital export hub during Taiwan's economic miracle of the 1970s to a 21st century international trade centre.
Better known for its charming public art than industrial sprawl nowadays, Kaohsiung was just 28 minutes on the express train from our previous stop of Tainan, a stark contrast between Taiwan's Qing Dynasty capital versus contemporary urban planning and aesthetics.
Kaohsiung is one of several Taiwanese cities with its own metro system, allowing us to deviate from our usual routine of booking our hotel next to the train station. IMHO the most convenient area for a short tourist stay is Formosa Boulevard where two metro lines intersect, making it one metro ride away from TRA trains (Kaohsiung Station), high speed trains from Taipei and express buses to Kenting (both at Xin Zuoying Station), as well as the plethora of tourist attractions at the Sizihwan / Pier-2 / Cijin Island area.
Our room at Centre Hotel turned out to be slightly noisy and small, though quite clean and very cheap when booking a few months in advance (we saw other guests paying almost 50% more for later bookings). More importantly we were five minutes away from one of Kaohsiung's most popular night markets.
This was our third night market in three nights, at three different cities.
Conveniently located at the centre of Kaohsiung, Liuhe Night Market once enjoyed immense popularity as one of Taiwan's most visited attractions until the recent period of ice-cold diplomacy between the ruling anti-communist DPP and Beijing. As visitors we certainly enjoyed this breathing space with the lack of Mainland Chinese tourists, who would inevitably return if a KMT government returns to power. Enough about politics, onto the food.
ZHUANGJI SEAFOOD CONGEE (Liuhe Night Market, Kaohsiung)
Location Map
This is Liuhe Night Market's absolutely unmissable stall, if you trust former president Ma Ying-jeou who was spotted dining here on New Year's Eve, sitting on the same wobbly chairs and chowing down on Kaohsiung's signature peasant dish, the Seafood Congee.
We're talking a savory thick rice porridge, full of Umami flavors with generous helpings of de-shelled crab legs, shrimps, clams, calamari and best of all, little baby oysters. To be honest I still prefer our wonderful Fish Congee in the morning at Tainan's A-Tang, but this night market stall features an even more delicious (as per my tastebuds) creation.
This dish was one of my favorite memories of Kaohsiung, an entire plate of de-shelled baby oysters, traditionally seasoned with fermented black beans, julienned onions and my favorite herb in Taiwanese cooking, the aromatic Asian basil. I wasn't sure if I should be surprised by the freshness of the oysters at a cheap open-air eatery, but this was the most worthwhile TWD 150 (CAD$6.5) spent at Taiwanese night market stalls, which aren't always cheap.
TSAI JIA MULLET ROE (Liuhe Night Market, Kaohsiung)
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A more expensive delicacy beckoned next stall in the form of Sun-Dried Mullet Roes, the famed Black Gold of Kaohsiung harvested every winter when schools of spawning mullets swarm pass the local shoreline yielding its luscious caviar, highly esteemed by the Taiwanese as Wuyuzi and the Japanese as Karasumi. Tsai Jia is known as a farm-to-market outlet with a night market presence, but that doesn't mean the caviar gets any cheaper.
The price was TWD 50 (CAD$2.2) for a 2cm x 2cm square, brushed with Sorghum liquor, lightly roasted on the spot and garnished with daikon radish and green scallions to balance the oiliness of the caviar. Exceedingly rich-flavored and slightly chewy, its popularity as a classic drinking snack is easily understandable.
HONGJIABAO BLACK PEPPER BISCUITS (Liuhe Night Market, Kaohsiung)
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The mullet caviar was a little rich for my working class palate to be honest, and I much preferred these no-nonsense Black Pepper Biscuits (Hujiaobing), hand-wrapped in front of your eyes and baked in a special barrel-shaped roaster engineered into the mobile cart.
Scrumptious sesame pastry on the outside, savory minced pork with a heavy dose of black pepper inside. Don't get scalded by the bubbling hot meat juices -- bite a small hole off the pastry and wait for the meat juices to cool down like the locals do.
HOME OF BARBECUED MEATS (Liuhe Night Market, Kaohsiung)
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If queue length is the most reliable indication of quality, the plainly named Home of Barbecued Meats (Kaorou Zhijia) should certainly rank among Liuhe Night Market's best. Everyone has to queue twice -- once to get to the stall to choose your favorite ingredients, then waiting another 20 minutes on the sideline until your choice gets expertly barbecued by the chef.
Akin to the now-elusive Yakitori stalls on Japanese streets, Taiwan's night market version mainly serves various cuts of chicken such as wings, skin and gizzards but complemented by a wider range of ingredients including pork belly and even okra. Here we ordered a chicken leg (TWD 80), a pork skewer (40), chicken skin (25), green beans (30), okra (30) and shiitake mushrooms (30). Drenched in a sweet glaze characteristic of Southern Taiwan and perfectly charred, our selection of meats and veggies served as a filling dinner entree for about CAD$10.
ZHENG LAOPAI PAPAYA MILK (Liuhe Night Market, Kaohsiung)
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Last but not least, there is one legendary stall at Liuhe Night Market that nobody should miss.
This modest yet extremely popular stall, now more than a half century old, is said to have pioneered Papaya Milk Smoothie before it became THE signature drink at all Taiwanese night markets. Look closely at the signatures of local celebrities on the highly treasured store sign, and you'll spot names like Ma Ying-jeou and Lien Chan, some of Taiwan's most powerful politicians of the past generation.
Options were aplenty from wax apples to guavas to sugar canes, and we chose the local favorite of white bitter melon, believed by the Taiwanese to return the body to a balanced Yin Yang after too much oily night market grub.
LAOJIANG BLACK TEA AND MILK (Liuhe Night Market, Kaohsiung)
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While not officially part of Liuhe Night Market, this 60-year-old fixture, just a couple block south on Nantai Road, churns out a killer Black Tea Latte with a noticeably brown sugar-flavored and stronger tea compared with relative newcomers like the omnipresent 50 Lan. Our final tab for an evening at the night market piled up to more than TWD 700 for two hungry travelers, certainly fulfilling but not as cheap as one might think!
Bill for Two Persons
| Seafood Congee | TWD 120 |
| Steamed Salted Oysters | TWD 150 |
| Roasted Mullet Roes x 2 | TWD 100 |
| Black Pepper Biscuit | TWD 40 |
| Assorted Barbecued Skewers | TWD 235 |
| Bitter Melon and Honey Smoothie | TWD 60 |
| Black Tea Latte | TWD 40 |
| TOTAL | TWD 745 (CAD$32.4) |
Still thirsty? Taiwan's national beer draws from its 100-year-old Japanese-inherited brewing tradition and occasionally comes up with innovative (though not always successful) flavors like pineapple, orange or grapes. I was really liking the honey beer at 4.5% alcohol -- it was just like mead to my tastebuds!
The next morning we left our heavy luggage at our hotel and starting our day at the neighbouring Formosa Boulevard MRT Station, Kaohsiung's quintessential landmark and one of the world's top 10 most beautiful metro stations according to CNN Travel. Proclaimed as the world's largest glass work of art, the Dome of Light and its 4000 glass panels took over four years to manufacture and assemble.
A few minutes from the terminus of MRT's orange line is the little ferry for historic Cijin Island, a natural breakwater for the port of Kaohsiung and possibly the city's first Chinese settlement, now famous for its 19th century lighthouse and Mazu Shrine.
For us Cijin's main attraction was a water's edge panorama of Kaohsiung, stretching from the 19th century British Consulate at Takow to the 21st century skyline dominated by the 85 Sky Tower, once Taiwan's tallest building before Taipei 101 stole its glory. We did watch some beach volleyball and sampled some deep-fried cuttlefish balls and coconut water, before taking the 7-minute ferry back to Sizihwan.
This was colonial Kaohsiung's earliest city centre, the southern terminus of a rail connection to Tainan still known by its Japanese name of Hamasen (i.e. Shore Line), or at least the Sinicized pronunciation of Hamaxing. The old Takaw Station and its antiquated switching yard have since been reborn as the so-called Hamasen Railway Cultural Park, adorned with family-friendly open-air sculptures and crisscrossed by a new state-of-the-art (and controversial) Light Rail tram.
IMHO this is Kaohsiung's best attraction for tourists and local families alike, a beautifully reclaimed green space adjoined by one of Taiwan's most successful art districts. Consisting of several disjointed groups of formerly abandoned warehouses, Pier-2 Art Centre has been reinvented as the city's hotspot for art exhibitions, artisan workshops and charming one-of-a-kind retailers.
Everyone's favorite part of Pier-2 is a miniature version of Taiwan High Speed Rail -- or JR's Shinkansen N700 to train buffs -- running on a 5-inch guage and carrying children and grandparents alike around the old shipping warehouses every 30 minutes as part of the Hamasen Museum of Taiwan Railway.
Surrounding these 4-storey murals is an ecosystem of performance theatres, an Eslite bookstore, trendy cafes and a mixed bag of independent stores from up-and-coming fashion designers to eccentric stationery goods to craftsmen for handmade guitars.
Occasionally repainted in conventional white or oiled brass in this case, the 9-metre-tall Gundam model towered over an adjacent swap meet today where film camera collectors came to trade their prized Hasselblads and Minoltas.
Art installations appear to be added and removed on an sporadic basis. The popular new addition during our visit was an igloo-like structure known as the Musical Score of Chairs, a touchable, navigable circular fort assembled from more than a thousand stacked wooden chairs.
Upon entering the sculpture's interior one would notice the name of the elementary or secondary school where each chair originated, providing a warm dose of nostalgia for every Taiwanese visitor and a second life to the recycled chairs.
The charming combination of Pier-2, Hamasen and Cijin Island should occupy most visitors for a half day or more and likely require fueling up with some authentic local eats. Here is what we found.
MIAOHOU SEAFOOD CONGEE (Kaohsiung)
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Next to Sizihwan MRT Station is a no-nonsense, semi-open-air eatery housed in an unattractive steel-framed shelter serving the same seafood congees and fish soups as most of the tourist-themed eateries on Cijin Island. Except that no waiter would try to up-sell you on some exorbitantly priced live seafood at this location.
While the rice porridge wasn't quite as umami compared with the aforementioned Zhuangji at Liuhe Night Market, the assortment of seafood including milkfish skin, shrimp, oysters, calamari and clams made it a filling brunch along with a plate of marinated beef and tendons and some stir-fried yam leaves.
NARA KOJIKI (Kaohsiung)
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In the midst of Pier-2's warehouses we stopped at the Japanese-Taiwanese cafe of Nara Kojiki, which served up a decent shaved ice in the classic combination of Matcha and sweetened Azuki beans, topped with cubes of milk pudding and a ball of ice cream for TWD 150, not the cheapest by local standards but quite reasonable by Taipei standards.
We were happy to encounter a Sunny Hills until we discovered that this was solely a cafe serving its signature juices and Kyushu-influenced sweets like Honey Kasutera, and not a retail outlet for its popular pineapple cakes.
Bill for Two Persons
| Seafood Congee | TWD 120 |
| Marinated Beef and Tendon | TWD 60 |
| Stir-Fried Vegetables | TWD 50 |
| Shaved Ice with Matcha, Azuki Beans and Condensed Milk Jelly | TWD 380 |
| TOTAL | TWD 380 (CAD$16.5) |
Our 24 hours in Kaohsiung was nearly up as we took the metro back to Formosa Boulevard for our heavy luggages, then onward to Xin Zuoying Station where we would temporarily veer off the main train route. Continuing anti-clockwise around Taiwan on our 11-day journey by public transport, the next logical stop would bring us to the National Park of Kenting.
IF YOU GO
Kaohsiung is less than 2 hours from Taipei by high speed rail which terminates at the suburban Xin Zuoying Station with a metro connection to city centre, or about 4 hours by conventional TRA trains which stops at Kaohsiung Main Station closer to downtown. If you're on a round-island trip like us, large luggages can be left at coin lockers or attended luggage rooms at either Xin Zuoying or Main Station.
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