SUNDAY, APRIL 3, 2016
We woke up and we had lunch with Ariel’s family. They were so nice to cook for us! And it was delicious!!! People in Tainan are also known for their hospitality. Anyways the plan today is to go to Kaohsiung. Ariel’s cousin was going to meet up with friends, so we hitched a ride with him to Kaohsiung. Tracy has been to Kaohsiung many times, but it’s always been to monkey mountain. Ariel and Tracy haven’t been to Lotus Pond. Although I’ve been there before in the summer, I didn’t mind going again. This is actually perfect because I didn’t have my blog up when I went last time, so I get to tell you guys all about it now.
HOW TO GET THERE
Lotus Pond is really close to the Zuoying High Speed Rail. There’s a shuttle that stops all around the pond, but that only runs once every hour, so plan accordingly. We were actually able to catch a public bus that also stops close to the pond. It was only a 15 min ride on the public bus. The bus dropped us off next to the dragon and tiger pagodas.
DRAGON AND TIGER PAGODAS
Pagodas are as Asian as you can get. If Asia were to have a symbol that represented its culture, I’d probably assign it a pagoda. There’s just something about pagodas that I really like and find beautiful. The dragon and tiger pagodas are no exceptions. The weather was fairly nice when we went in April, a little cloudy, but beats the extreme heat in July/August. The myth/story behind the pagodas is that you walk through the dragon’s mouth. It is said that the dragon will scare off the bad spirits and as you walk through, around, and out the tiger’s mouth, your soul will be cleansed. If you’re up for it, you can also climb up about 6 flight of stairs to the top of the pagoda. There’s great views up there.
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SPRING AND AUTUMN PAVILION
There’s 3 main “pagodas” at Lotus Pond. They’re all right next to each other. The second one had this large dragon, similar to the dragon pagoda, but this one was longer and it was more up and down because of the body. I could definitely see myself feeling claustrophobic if I were to stay in there too long. Ariel was super fascinated that she came out the rear end of the dragon, LOL. The views were spectacular though. The sun was setting and it was just so serene and beautiful. You got water around you, lotus, a beautiful sky, and shadows of beautiful pagodas.
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The third one is probably the most interesting and honestly it creeps me out a bit. There’s a huge God statue. You can’t miss it. After walking around, we treated ourselves to some refreshments across the road, at SkinnyTea. Ariel’s cousin picked us up and we joined them for a nice dinner, some ice cream, and headed back to Tainan. We ended the day with some fried food and drinks at a local bar and playing Heads Up.
