Kaohsiung is a fun city to visit in Taiwan for a few days. Here are some of the activities we did while visiting.
Hello from Kaohsiung, Taiwan! I’m currently visiting Mr. JOC’s family and my whole family is here to attend his brother’s wedding this weekend. I want to share some pictures of my trip so far since we’ve been here for the past several days. Some of these pictures were shared on my Instagram.
Breakfast in Taiwan
Taiwan street vendor breakfast is amazing. There are so many breakfast shops and vendors on the streets open in the morning. Typically, you see a line of office workers arriving on their motorcycle to pick up their breakfast on the way to their work.
The foods are inexpensive compared to the US standard (about US $5 to feed the entire family!), and there are many kinds of breakfast to choose from. Some include fried potstickers, scallion pancakes, steamed buns (my favorite is one with stir fried vegetable filling (菜包)), baked sesame seed coated cakes, egg pancakes, and my favorite Taiwanese-style club sandwich! Don’t forget to pick up milk tea or soy milk made fresh. Every day I look forward to waking up in the morning to go get breakfast while I’m in Taiwan.
Food in Taiwan
If you come to Taiwan, you must visit Din Tai Fung. Kaohsiung, the 2nd largest city in Taiwan where we are staying, finally opened a branch last year. My all-time favorite item on the menu is Crab Xiao Long Bao. I think this is one of the best food in the world, soft tender crab and meat filling soaked in a savory broth and wrapped in very thin skin. The broth is super hot so don’t try to swallow in 1 bite. Break the dumpling skin first to drink the soup and enjoy it with some vinegar and ginger. I am getting hungry just thinking about it.
There are several dishes that Mr. JOC likes to eat when we’re in Taiwan. These salty rice cake served with warm thick soy gravy on top (picture on the bottom left) is one of them (not my favorite though. shhh!). I like the noodle soup called Dan Zai Mien which is a popular noodle originated in Tainan (台南), the city north of Kaohsiung. And when you’re in a tropical country, shaved ice (with mango and mango ice cream) is a must-have!
Sightseeing in Kaohsiung
There are a few places we like to visit when we’re in Kaohsiung. Dragon Tiger Pagodas (龍虎塔) is a fun place to visit with children. They are twin pagoda towers with a dragon and tiger at the bottom, and you enter the tower from the mouth of the dragon or tiger. The 7-storytowers have a double spiral staircase, one each for ascending and descending visitors, and have a 360 degree view at the deck from each level. From the deck, you can see many temples, Spring and Autumn Pavilions (春秋閣), the Confucian Temple (孔廟), and the Lotus Lake.
Kaohsiung Lantern Festival
This was my 2nd time seeing Kaohsiung Lantern Festival and the opening fireworks were quite spectacular. We parked the car under the Ambassador Hotel and saw the fireworks right outside the hotel. The kids were so excited as this was probably the closest they have been to fireworks. However, I was quite disappointmented as there weren’t too many lantern displays compared to the Lantern Festival I saw 9 years ago.
What We’ve Been Doing in Kaohsiung
My personal highlight of the past few days was to get to meet my Aussie food blogger friend, Daisy of Never Too Sweet. Who would imagine that two people – one living in Melbourne, the other in San Francisco – see each other in Kaohsiung, Taiwan?! We didn’t even realize that we could be in the same place until Daisy saw my Instagram. She is exactly how I imagined, super sweet and nice! We had a lovely chat over afternoon tea in Grand Hi Lai Hotel.
My daughter will be a flower girl at my brother in law’s wedding and she’s so excited! Kids also loved spending time with their grandpa in his hospital. The kids (and I) are having fun seeing interesting things on the street such as ducks being dried before being baked. Mr. JOC and I like to go to foot/whole body massage at night after kids go to sleep. When you’re in Taiwan, try the famous foot massage! It’s quite painful but you feel really good after. There are motorcycles everywhere and once in a while you see a family of 4 riding on one motorcycle!
I hope you enjoy these photos. If you want to read a little bit more about our Taiwan Trip 2012, click here.
Hope you stay in touch with me on Instagram for all the latest updates from Taiwan!
Oh yay! Your trip looked like a lot of fun and your kids are so adorable! This post made me miss Taiwan and all the food I had there. >_<
I really want to visit other Asian countries besides Korea. Food is really cheap in Korea as well! Don’t you just love it? It’s funny though…coffee/tea/fruity drinks cost twice as much. It’s so awesome that you got to meet Daisy! I’m a bit jealous…hope we will run into each other one of these days 😉
Make sure you didn’t skipped foraging for etchnic and extreme food Tami…
Taiwan it’s heaven for bizzare food, LoL
You were there for Lantern Festival – how fun!! I didn’t see too much on IG while you were there – the time difference always messes me up when we are in China, so I’m glad to catch up here 🙂 So wonderful that you were able to connect with Daisy – hurray for social media!
Our last trip to Taiwan was in 2011. My hubby and I travelled around the island. We loved Kaohsiung and Taipei very much. We still miss the food and there are many more places we have not covered during our 14 days stay. Planning a next trip f possible. Beautiful photos of Kaohsiung brings back the time I spent at Love River in the night
Lovely photos Nami. I’ve never been to Taiwan… looks like such an interesting place, and so beautiful. So much food too… I miss street food. It seems to be such a big deal in some countries but in France it was non-existent, and here… well, you can get a hotdog maybe, but that’s about it!
Sounds super fun! I went there when I was 12. Can’t remember much. Your food pictures look so good! I would love to go there and eat street food all day.
The street food is the best part of visiting Asian countries like Taiwan. I’m sure it’s so much fun eating these delicious food. 🙂
I had to stop by today to get caught up on your adventures in Taiwan! The food looks amazing and I love the idea of the breakfast carts. So convenient! What a wonderful trip you had and how fun that you got to meet up with a food blogging friend while you were there. I hope we can make time for coffee one of these days 🙂
oh friend. It looks so much fun and such a wonderful time of sites and sounds and food:))) I am so glad you shared it with us. I may never get to experience Taiwan except through you:))))
Oh FOOD! Street food at its best!:) Awesome post, Nami! As I told you before, amazing pics! Thank you for sharing bit of your trip with us!
When we were in Tainan late last year, we wanted to visit Kaoshiung but alas…we did not. Maybe it’s time, next year.
Looks like the crab XLB in DTF is famous worldwide. We had them in Singapore once and they were good!
What a wonderful time you and your family enjoyed together 🙂
Wow! I would LOVE to visit Taiwan someday. This is really cool!
fantastic trip, i love all the pictures you shared with us.
I`m so incredibly jealous you`re visiting Taiwan!! It`s definitely a country I hope to visit one day!