Blogs from Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Asia - page 7

I had another early wakeup today, even earlier at 4:45. I did, however, manage to get back to sleep until 8:00 and finally feel somewhat refreshed. I’d need that today as I would be all over Kaohsiung. After a quick breakfast at 7-11, I made my way up to Lotus Pond, a few miles north of the city center. At Lotus Pond, I visited the large Confucius Temple and walked around the large man-made lake, seeing several pagodas along the way. At the end opposite the Confucius Temple, I climbed up both the dragon and tiger towers and was treated to views overlooking the pond from six stories above. I took the MRT (subway) back into the city and walked through Central Park on my way back to the apartment. At the apartment I regrouped for ... read more

Arrived in Taipei on January 21st, 2010. It was hot and humid in the morning but became cold and damp in the afternoon when a cold front came in. Visited the TaiPei University which covers several city block in Taipei City. Motorcycles or Mopeds are every where. Halmet not always worn by motorcyclist. I have seen baby being carried by his/her mother in the front or the back seat of the moped. It was a hairy moment for me when I Got to ride in the back seat of a motorbike, and I almost fell off the seat. Not much room for my big bottom!!! I was driven to the south of Taiwan, Kaohsiung to meet my sister and her daughter. It was a long ride because my brother- in- law took a scenic route via ... read more

~~***~~ THE STORY OF LITTLE LIOU CIOU ISLAND ~~***~~ *********************************************************** First, we rode on the WORLDS FASTEST train from taipei to kaoshung. next morning we went to the bus station, we need to get to the city of dong gan to catch the ferry--Not many people speak English in kaoshung No biggie..we can do this! who cares if we dont speak the language right???... well as the confusion escalated, i noticed a white girl in a group of asian people was watching us...we were trying to ask the chinese speaking people "which bus to dong gan" TURNS OUT her and her friends were headed to Little liou ciou island just like us. They pointed us to the right bus, we all boarded together, and got to talking (they all spoke awesome English). We ended up spending ... read more

For more of my photos, or to buy my book, please visit www.nickkembel.com New Year's Eve for me this year had nothing to with the countdown; and getting stuck in a huge line-up of people trying to get on the MRT to downtown Taipei wasn't my cup of tea either. But taking advantage of four days off and getting out of the city for a little road trip to southern Taiwan is what was on my mind. After some midnight beers and shots with close friends at the pub, we caught a 4am bus to Kaohsiung, Taiwan's second largest city. We were happy to find that our bus of choice offered enormous lazy-boy style chairs as well as fold out TVs with a variety of Nintendo games to pass the the time. I enjoyed having ... read more

In the last post I mentioned I would give you a run down of who from Houston I am attending this conference with: We have two Venerables from our temple in Houston attending the conference with us, Vens. Hong and Yuan Chuan (The departing Abbess of our temple). From the BLIA chapter there is Brad and his wife Yvonne (The couple in the picture from the last post), Robert (who lives in Houston and Spokane Washington - he has been with the temple since it was built), Jun Lao Sher (the temple's resident Chinese language teacher) and Mei who has just recently moved from Houston back to Taiwan for work. So with everyone introduced, on with the remainder of the day... We stayed at the tea house for quite a time discussing details of the Abbess' ... read more

I am on my second day of this trip and had the bright idea to start this travel blog - better late than never I guess. I got to Kaohsiung Taiwan via China Air and almost 24 hours of travel. To catch you up on the details... Houston Intercontinental to San Francisco San Francisco to Taipei International Airport Taipei to Kaohsiung Airport Kaohsiung to Fo Guang Shan (My current Location) I am attending the World Conference for the Buddha's Light International Association (BLIA) which is the lay person's organization of the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist order. I'll try to provide some links and details in later blogs. The plane trips were uneventful since members of my party were spread all over the plan I sat alone the entire trip. We arrived at Kaohsiung airport around 6:30am ... read more