Before we headed to meet them, Lily and went to get some lunch and then picked up a few groceries. There is a major tropical storm/typhoon that is hitting Taiwan today so we wanted to make sure we had a few supplies (and no, I did not buy an abundance of toilet paper and bread like we see in the states). Here is one of the items that stood out...
Look closely.....
Ummm....what would be the "original flavor"?
They look pretty though don't they? I think I'll leave the purchase of these for another time.
On our walk I took a couple of pictures of things you see all around the city. First, when there is construction on the road the men at work sign is...
Don't you love it!? What you don't see, as I went to the left, is the group of workers sitting in a small group enjoying their lunch and a thermos of tea.
I tried to capture the blaring of the speakers on this little car but it stopped the second I started filming. Little vehicles like this are all over the city blaring who knows what in Chinese. This particular vehicle, I believe, may be representing the workers union or some type of politics. There are some elections coming up and you see these going up and down streets blaring away. In many ways I'm glad I don't understand what they are saying.
Finally we made it to the MRT (the local subway). I had not been on the subway yet so I was excited to see the stations. A new line is being built in my neighborhood so I'll be able to take the train to work starting in the spring! Yippee! No sweaty bike ride to work when it's hot out.
The train stations are so beautiful and clean (even the bathrooms were clean). Many of the signs are in English too so you can navigate your way through it pretty easily. It cost just over $1 for a round trip to the mall where we were seeing the movie so cheap enough.
There are only two lines right now but you can travel to many places in Kaohsiung including the airport. Unfortunately the closest station is about a 30-40 minute walk so it's not convenient for me but it will be next spring.
Sorry it's a bit fuzzy but you can see the Chinese characters on the bottom and the English labels above. So easy!
I'm told that each station has amazing artwork or something that makes it unique. I guess this station is mermaid themed.
This is an image at the Formosa Station - Gorgeous!
This is what the trains look like on the inside. Nice!
We went 4 stops to the Mega Mall where the subway stops beneath the mall itself. The Mega Mall is massive - a 17 floor department store filled with shops, a bookstore, restaurants and more!
We made our way up a series of escalators then took an elevator to the 11th floor. Then more escalators to the cinema. This blurry picture is of the line in front of us. There were about 100 people in line before us but it's all so organized and calm. When you get to the counter, you order your tickets and they assign seats in the theater. You also order the food you want and pay for everything at once. Then you go further down the counter to pick up your items. They gave me a free chocolate bar and little notebook as a token gift. Seriously!
There are these mascots everywhere. Here is the movie theater mascot with TW, a fellow teacher. Cute but still a bit creepy.
We saw the movie "Lucy" in a very comfortable theater. The movie was in English with Chinese subtitles. When the previews were in Chinese, they had English subtitles. I see many movies in my future now that I know how easy it is to get there. It cost us about $25 U.S. for 2 tickets, 2 drinks and popcorn. Not too bad...better than the states anyway.
We made our way down into the mall, had Thai food for dinner and walked around a few of the levels on the way to the bottom level where we caught the train back to our original station. It was a nice way to spend a hot and humid day in Kaohsiung!
This is wonderful! I can't believe how beautiful the subway stations are. The ones in NYC are nasty!
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