Hint - I am not holding a nice word

I kinda forgot that I had a blog and spent another day in Kaohsiung. So, my bad?

I booked the trip a bit last minute, so unfortunately I couldn't find the same hostel for two nights in a row. Not to worry though, as I did find another not terribly far away. It turns out, it was right next to the artsy area down by the pier. Funny how that works out!

This hostel was definitely the smallest I had ever stayed in. In fact, I'm 99% sure it's just someones house and they decided to have the 2nd floor be a hostel. There were only two rooms, each with (presumably) 4 beds. It gave it a very homey kind of feel, especially when they offered to make me coffee in the morning and loaded me down with maps.

The agenda today was one I had missed yesterday. I had heard that there is a mountain nearby called Shoushan. (Not to be confused with Xiaoshan, my home in China) This mountain has monkeys living on it. Yes, you heard right. I get to see and possibly have my things stolen by monkeys. I was pretty damn stoked, so off I went. Also, another mountain climbed. Check.

And I am ever so sorry to disappoint, but I did not see any monkeys. I did however, see a lot of cats. In fact at the base of the mountain three of them surrounded me, maybe in hopes I would drop my backpack of delicious sweaty socks. However, it was not meant to be. I was a bit surprised, after coming to the top, to find a very well maintained road. Also it had the characters for what I thought said zoo. I followed it, and sure enough, I could have taken the nicely paved road with a sidewalk to the top. Also there was a zoo there, but I haven't even been to the Taipei Zoo - no reason to go to the not as good one here. But they did have a bus, which saved me time from walking down the mountain.

Back at the subway, I had another two spots to hit up today. One was the Sugar Refinery. I know what you're thinking, but all the books I saw said "no for real, this place be cool". They did not disappoint. Right outside the subway was a cool artists village, full of crazy things, a few theme park rides, and a Spanish lady selling empanadas. Wowowowow! Amazingly delicious, I wish I didn't eat all day before coming here. They also had baozi the size of my frikin head, filled with mushrooms no less. I went to the sugar refinery, which was basically a cool old factory they opened up. I kind of got mixed in with a large group walking in at the time, and these two little girls in front of me said "Wow look, theres a foreigner behind you!" The other turned around, and stared at me, mystified. I replied "A foreigner? Where?!" They pointed at me and the rest of the group had a chuckle.

The star of the show was though, the strange little shack I found on the way out. There were two parrots out front, which I thought warranted further investigation. Turns out it was an oddities museum, with a bunch of "aliens", strange pig fetuses, that sort of thing. I thought it was hilariously awesome, and well worth the 50 kuai entrance fee. Also I got to hold a snake.

I only had one stop left in Kaohsiung, and that was Lotus Lake. It was fortunate that it was near the train station as well. Lotus Lake is a very nice, scenic place, which is worth visiting once but has little to have you come back. It's basically just a bunch of old temples around a lake, some more interesting than others. They do have a water skiing rope in one section, which was kind of cool. I was told it would take 3-4 hours to see all of Lotus Lake. I arrived around 2, my train was at 6. I was done by 4.

I didn't really have time to go anywhere else, so I thought I might as well eat. I got some ham fried rice, but then the lady just apparently decided to throw in other stuff as well. In addition to ham, there were pigs feet, shrimp, octopus, and what I think was chicken. I don't know if she just liked me, or it was refrigerator cleaning day. I noticed in the fridge though, very large bottles of beer. Larger than any other I had seen. I asked her how much, she said 100. In comparison, a beer at 7-11 is 40-50. I thought I had time to kill, so why not?

Upon further inspection, this was a 1 liter bottle of beer. Did you know they exist? They do exist. I sat along the lake, drinking a comically large sized bottle. I asked a few passerbys to help me out, but nobody seemed interested. Anyway I started walking back towards the train station, obviously drunk, and thinking "I am the biggest idiot for not using the restroom before I left." By the time I got to the station, I was about to burst. Slept like a baby on the way home, though.

Om nom nom nom!