When we were invited to do 5 weeks pet sitting in Taiwan we couldn’t believe our luck. We’ve wanted to visit Taiwan for a number of years now and the chance to do so was really exciting. Somewhere new, a different cultural to experience, new food, people, places, we couldn’t wait to get there.
When you think of Taiwan you probably think of computer chips, China and you might have heard of Taipei the Capital if you know your geography. But have you heard of Kaohsiung? Probably not.
As always I started looking at other peoples blogs about it and stumbled across this one at Planetbell.
The couple at Planetbell call Kaohsiung ‘The coolest city in Asia you’ve never heard of’. What? Why haven’t I heard of it before (just like the blog said huh?) and what is this coolness they speak of. Needless to say our excitement was notched up another level after we started reading into it more.
With some £60 flights from Malaysia direct into Kaohsiung we headed off to see just how cool this city was.
Kaohsiung is the biggest seaport city in Taiwan and when we came in to land it looked huge. A sprawling city on the South West coast with a mountain range backdrop to the East.
Annoyingly our big bags hadn’t come on the flight with us and we had to hang around the airport for a couple more hours filling out forms before we were finally out in the city and on our way to our pet sit digs.
Jeff and Kristi who we were sitting for were very relaxed and laid back about it all. We dropped our small bags in our room, had a quick catch up to meet their cats, Claire and Cooper and were given some keys. We then headed out so they could finish packing up and get on their way back to the States for a holiday. An hour later they messaged to say they had left and we could head back to settle in if we wanted to.
That was it, it was all incredibly quick and simple. We were suddenly in Taiwan with our digs for 5 weeks and two cute kitties to keep us company, great stuff.
This pet sitting lark is incredibly cool and we love how trusting and relaxed people can be with their pets and homes. It suits us really well and its taking our way of traveling in a new direction.
We spent the next few days settling into our digs, getting to know Claire and Cooper a bit more and starting to explore the city.
Our first impressions of Kaohsiung couldn’t have been better and over the last few weeks our feelings for the place have grown and grown. It’s impossible not to be impressed with this city and I’m now in full agreement with the folks at Planetbell that Kaohsiung is indeed the coolest city in Asia that you’ve never heard of, we love it here!
Kaohsiung – The little big city
When we first headed out in Kaohsiung we were pleasantly surprised. We knew it was a big city, we could see that when we flew in but we didn’t expect it to feel so open and spacious.
Other cities we’ve been to in Asia such as Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh and Kuala Lumpur are crowded, bustling, dusty and a gridlock of traffic. Kaohsiung couldn’t be further from that. It reminds us a lot of Vancouver.
When you step out onto the streets it feels open, it’s clean, there isn’t a lot of traffic crowding the roads. You can be stood on any street no matter where you are in the city it doesn’t feel like a big huge metropolis.
For a start the roads are very wide here. Most streets are at least dual carriage way. There is a gap of grass or plants then another road at the side just for the scooters. You then have the pavement which is split into two. Closest to the road is for bicycles and then you have the pedestrian pavement next to the buildings.
The traffic system is incredibly well organised and smooth and it makes it all feel like there isn’t much traffic on the roads at all. Everything just flows nicely. Pedestrians always have right of way at the well signed crossings, bicycles nip through it all effortlessly and it just…works.
The entire city is incredibly clean, probably the cleanest city we’ve ever been in. It confused us a lot at first.
When walking around you struggle to see a single piece of litter anywhere, there is literally nothing but there also aren’t any bins either and we spent the first couple of days wondering what the hell to do with our rubbish.
They don’t have public bins on the streets so that nothing is really spilling out or attracting birds or rats etc. what they do have in Taiwan though is an incredible amount of convenience stores. They are everywhere, almost on every street corner. You keep hold of any litter that you have then pop into a 7-11 or FamilyMart and drop it off there. Businesses and apartment blocks all have their own rubbish collections that they pay for and somehow this system seems to really work in keeping the streets incredibly clean.
As well as being spacious and clean the city also boasts a lot of parks and open green spaces. This really helps give it an open feel. Yes there are some huge buildings here. Massive shopping malls, amazing public buildings with incredible architecture but because everything feels so spaced out and uncrowded, this city of over 2.7 million people really does have a small and spacious feel about it, it’s pretty impressive town planning.
Transport
The transport in Kaohsiung is like nothing we’ve experienced before. It’s like some perfect city from the future that you see in a sci-fi film. Electric scooters and e-bikes glide past with a hum that makes you think your somewhere in the Star Wars universe.
Everything is so well thought out and planned. It starts big and gradually reduces into smaller and smaller efficient micro methods of transport. Taiwan is the perfect example of how Nationalised transport can be a fantastic thing.
When we arrived at the airport on our first morning we bought an ‘Easycard’ at 7-11. We knew this is what we needed to take the MRT (Metro) from the airport to Jeff’s place. When you buy the card you top it up with whatever amount you want to. We stuck a fiver on each card and off we went.
Over the next few days and exploring a little more using other modes of transport we discovered that this little card is used for every form of public transport. MRT, which is a subway/underground train that cuts through the city in various directions radiating out from the centre.
Next there is the LRT (light rail) which is a modern tram that circles around the edge of the city intersecting with various MRT stations and bus stops.
The buses ease through the rest of the city on the spacious open roads, connecting yet more dots on the map and they come incredibly regularly. Sometimes our fare on the buses was free! I’m not sure if it was a certain time of day or something, but quite often we would ‘tap out’ with our card and there was zero charge.
Finally you have Youbikes, our favourite form of transport of all. These are rental bikes that are dotted about on stands on almost every street corner. They are comfy bicycles with a basket on the front. Each individual bike stand has a tiny solar panel on it that gives the bike a small amount of charge for the lights and the GPS in it.
You get off a bus or MRT/LRT and there is stand with bikes waiting for you. Hop on one, pedal to wherever your going along your little safe cycle path and then drop it close to where you need to be.
They are incredibly cheap to rent. You pay by the minute for how long you use them. The first 20 minutes is free! After 20 minutes the cheapest fare is just 12.5p and goes up to about £3 for pretty much a full days use. We loved getting around the city on our Youbikes.
All of these modes of transport are paid for with a simple tap of your Easycard. Tap on and tap off, simple and efficient. Need more credit? Pop into the convenience store that is no more than 50 yards away.
You can even use them to pay for your train fare on the inter city trains. Nationalised transport can be a great thing when done correctly. No messing about with different passes for different bus companies, trains etc. just the one, that’s all you need.
Compared to the UK’s privatised transport which pays billions of pounds in profits each year to the Dutch state, Candian pension fund etc. Nationalised transport is more affordable and profits are reinvested into maintaining and improving the infrastructure.
On top of the state network above there is also a private company called Gogoro. I’d read about these a while ago before we knew we were coming to Taiwan and their philosophy and system really impressed me.
They offer full sized electric scooters that seat 2 people. You can buy them yourself outright or they also operate a hop on hop off rental system. With these scooters you don’t even need to find the nearest stand like the Youbikes, you can simply park up anywhere and check out through the app which then locks the bike again ready for the next person.
The beauty of these electric bikes is that you swap the batteries in and out at the many charging stations that are dotted about all over the country.
If you buy a new bike it’s much much cheaper than those that come with their own battery built in. The battery itself is a decent chunk of the expense of buying a vehicle. With this system the bike itself is much cheaper to buy than normal ones.
You rent a battery for a very small fee, use it until it’s getting empty then grab a full one from a charging station and pop your empty one in to charge up for someone else. It’s a very smart system that is great for the environment and great for you pocket.
People
If there is one thing that makes or breaks how you feel about a place it’s the people. I could visit somewhere with the most amazing natural beauty, a city with incredible architecture and character, a country with the most amazing food I’ve ever tasted and if the people are rude or unwelcoming then I’m not going to hold that place in high regard at all.
The people of Kaohsiung have been incredibly friendly and welcoming to us. They are some of the nicest friendliest people we have met and are amazing hosts to their country. We discovered a local market recently with an tasty array of food and every interaction with one of the locals was incredibly warm. We’ve now been their several times, it’s our favourite place to shop for food and we haven’t seen another single tourist or Westerner there.
You walk round and people are smiling and nodding at you. Your trying to ask a question or buy something and if there is a language barrier somebody who speaks a little English will suddenly appear next to us to help. The warmth and helpfulness is genuine here. Every restaurant we’ve been to has been a great experience and the folks of Kaohsiung have helped us settle in given us a warm welcome to their city.
I also need to mention how safe Kaohsiung and Taiwan in general is. I doubt we’ve been to a safer place. Kids play out in parks on a night until whatever time. Old people are out exercising and taking midnight strolls by the riverside. I can be in a bar and need to pop down the road to use the ATM and I just leave my phone on the bar with my pint and know that it will be there when I come back.
I was in a 7-11 a couple of days ago and a bloke came in to cool off and have a beer on his way home from work. He came over to the seated area, decided which seat he was going to sit at and plonked his expensive Samsung phone on the table to keep his place while he went to get his beer and pay for it. Using a £1,000 phone to keep your seat at a table, that says it all!!
Taiwan is an incredibly safe and trusting place. When we rent the Youbikes and head off to a market we don’t lock them up, we come back an hour later and they are still there. I could leave my bag in the basket as well and I know it would be there when I get back. It’s exactly how a good modern society should be and it feels great to be in a place like this.
Food
When we knew we had nailed the pet sit in Taiwan one of the first things we looked up was the food. We love food and when we are headed somewhere new we get excited about trying new things.
The food in Kaohsiung hasn’t disappointed.
We must have pinned around 30 different places to check out on our map and we got round as many of those as we possibly could. Food is more pricey here than what we are used to in South East Asia so we’ve had to be a bit more selective about where we eat. If we had a bigger budget some of the fine dining options in the city look stunning but we simply can’t afford to do that. That said you can still find some fantastic fare for a reasonable price if you search hard.
As you’d expect for Taiwan a lot of the food is Chinese and as you probably know most of the Chinese food you get back home in the UK is nothing like the food you get in China or Taiwan.
You get loads of the stranger stuff such as animal intestines and stinky Tofu which really does smell horrific and puts Durian to shame. But then you also get some amazing delicate dishes such as soup dumplings. Soup dumplings are the most incredible little steamed pockets of joy.
Inside their Noodlesque shell you find tasty fragrant balls of minced meat. Somehow they then manage to fill the rest of the dumpling with a tasty and delicate soup. You pick them up from the steamer with your chopsticks and pop them in your mouth whole. You can’t bite into them or your going to lose your soup down your chin. You let them burst in your mouth and then enjoy the release of flavour combined with the seasoned minced meat. They are incredible. I really hope the person who came up with the idea of putting soup as well as a filling inside a dumpling has some big kind of statue somewhere or there is a days National Holiday dedicated to them. They deserve it.
I’ll do a full post just for food in Kaohsiung at some point, but yeah, it’s been a bit special some of the things we’ve had the pleasure of sampling.
What to see and what to do
Plenty is the simple answer. I’ll write some posts about some of the things we’ve done and seen but Kaohsiung is a huge modern city that has a lot going on.
You can get your fill of old Chinese temples, museums, art galleries and more all within a half hours ride on some form of public transport.
A myriad of art instillations occupy the trendy new waterfront area at Pier 2. The waterfront in general is just a great place to hang out for the day. Quirky street art and old warehouses mingle with sleek new architectural wonders. The LRT snakes it’s way between them all with its stations handily located next to the various galleries and temples along the way.
Get bored of the art and there is some modern mall to pop into that has incredible foodcourts and fun video arcades with crazy Asian games. Grab a beer at the 7-11 in the mall if you want and generally just mooch around the city seeing what you can find.
If you get bored of the city life then hop on a Youbike and go for a lazy ride along the river, through parks and along cycle paths that feel a million miles away from city life. Rent a scooter and spin out to the coast if you fancy a bit of wind in your hair and some fresh sea air or pop over to Cijin Island on the ferry and grab a sunset beer and some island life. There is something for everyone here.
Kaohsiung and Taiwan have really won us over in a short space of time. It’s become our favourite modern city and we now understand why it’s been called ‘The coolest city in Asia you’ve never heard of’.
Taiwan feels like some kind of lesser explored hidden Asian gem. I mean we all know it’s here right, but when thinking of a trip to Asia how many people think of visiting Taiwan? It really should be on your list as it’s an impressive place for sure with lovely welcoming hosts. If your looking for something a little bit different you could do a lot worse than Taiwan.
