Camp starts tomorrow morning which means that updates might be a little more sporadic. Hang in there and keep checking. I’ll do my best to post regularly. There will be one more post upcoming on my Kenting trip, then a post about the Museum of Taiwanese Literature, the Confucius Temple, and a bunny on a leash in Tainan, and more on their way.

So, after we dropped Miki’s grandmother off, Miki drove us to Kaoshanyan Temple near (and/or on Guanshan).

The view from the temple was spectacular. You could really see a lot of the Kenting area from there. For reference, we started our day in Elunabi (the far right of the 2nd sign), went to the beach near Kenting (closer to the middle of the 2nd sign), and would end our day in Hengchun (far left on the 1st sign).

You could even see the nuclear power plant from there. (Look to the left of the three windmills. The nuclear power plant covered a bit in haze, but it is there.)

The temple was beautiful on the outside….

and apparently built around sea caves on the inside. So cool!

As we were wandering around a tour bus full of people came up towards the temple. According to Miki, they were from a similar temple in Taipei.

When they reached the temple grounds, they proceeded to set up some fireworks. Everyone started to hold their ears. I couldn’t quite do that since I wanted to film it…

which I did (though I did get a little shaky, okay, a lot shaky, when they first went off). They lasted quite a while, were quite loud, and put out a tremendous amount of smoke. I was amazed that I was able to film as long as I did, considering my hatred of firecrackers/fireworks.

This was the scene shortly after the noise died down.

After leaving the temple, Miki drove us down to Hengchun. I think I’ve mentioned that the garbage trucks here sound like ice cream trucks back home. It’s an oddly disappointing and slightly surreal feeling to watch people throw garbage into what sounds like it should be dispensing ice cream to children. I took a couple of pictures while Dwayne and Kristen were getting some fried chicken and french fries. They really didn’t eat a lot at the food stand we went to earlier.

Once they had their chicken, Miki took us up the block to get dessert for the two of us.

I decided on this giant mango ice for 80 NT$ / $2.67 US. It was delicious. They actually took a giant block of ice, shaved it, put the cut up mangoes on it, and added some kind of yummy sauce(s). I wound up sharing with everyone, because it was way too much to eat.

Miki got this…. I think it is called do-fu, which is confusing, because I’m not entirely sure that it is made of tofu. It is, however, made of yum. Maybe someone reading this can let me know what it is…. If not, I’ll ask Miki to let me know the next time I see her.

Once our bellies were full, Miki took us to check out one of the four gates that used to be connected by walls and at one time surrounded the town of Hengchun.

All four gates are still up (and some are still used to this day, as you can see in this picture).

However, for the most part, the walls are gone. This section has a fairly extensive wall still attached to the gate. The smaller holes in the brick are where soldiers would put their guns to shoot at enemy combatants.

Finally, there was this really cool M41 tank. I haven’t had time to research why it was there. I’m assuming it is from WWII, but I will try and find out if anyone if interested. That pretty much ended our day. We went back to Miki’s house to rest. Miki went into her family’s restaurant to help out since it was super crowded when we passed by on the way to her place. Around 9:30, we drove back to Hengchun with Miki and her aunt and got some yummy noodles. I ate livers and intestines and found both surprisingly good. After dinner, we headed back to Miki’s house to go to shower, hang out, and sleep.

Up next: Kenting, Part 3