City Riding

Every Monday and Friday I get the afternoon off work and have a nice window of free time between 12:30 and 5:00pm. The best time for city riding in Kaohsiung is from 1:30 - 4pm on weekdays when the streets are pretty quiet. Did one of my favorite KHH city rides yesterday:
Love River to the North Gate and back.

Started out from Zoying where the bike path crosses Boai road and follows the Love River. The rains from the day before had washed away the smoggy air and a nice breeze was keeping temperatures around 24 degrees.

The bike path along the river is quite narrow, so I usually just stay on the road as it's nice and wide and not very busy.

An octagonal smokstack of the Jhongdu Tangrong Brick Kiln next to the river.
Closed in 1992, it once produced 3 million brick tiles a month.

Nice to be on the bicycle bridge away from this traffic snarl on Wufu road.

The ferry over to Fisherman's Warf on Chijin island was busy.

The Takao Railway Museum has some old steam locomotives and is now a popular spot for flying kites on the weekends.

Just before you get to the British Consolate's parking lot, a little lane on the left takes you up through the old North Gate to a newly built observation platform. I usually stop and get a drink across the street to enjoy while I sit and watch the boats come in and out of the harbour.

The best rest spot in the city.

A harbour pilot hard at work.

I tried to imagine Ang Lee sitting here after reading this in the Taipei Times the other day:

            "During my mandatory two-year military service for Taiwan's armed forces,
             I was stationed in Kaohsiung's harbor area. Looking at the sea every day,
             it gave me free reign to dream my dreams and develop a limitless imagination,
             so it feels good to be back here." Ang Lee

The late afternoon light always makes for great photos at the harbour.

Route Map
Distance: 21km

Lotus Lake

Haven't been to Lotus Lake in quite a while, so thought I'd take spin around with my son this afternoon. We hooked-up with the bike path at Kaohsiung Arena on Boai rd. and headed along the backside of the Zoying Train Station.  It's currently receiving a new addition that looks like it will now be accessible from our side of the tracks - great.

It's a heck of a lot safer crossing Highway 17 with the new bike bridge than the last time I was out this way.

My son wasn't too keen on all the photography stops; he'd heard stories about dragons and tigers at this lake and wanted to get underway ASAP lest we miss them.











A number of surprises awaited at the lake today; the first of which was Water Skiing!
You just never know what's around the corner in Taiwan.

The trail around the lake is quite shady and is pretty busy at any time of day. Although there are clearly marked paths for walking and others for cycling, most of the walkers and runners use the cycling path because the surface is better. People were pretty good at getting out the way when they heard us coming though.

A new cafe across the street from the Dragon & Tiger Pagodas made for a nice break.
Their fresh roasted coffee was really good and the folks running it were very friendly.

We didn't stop long at the Pagodas, as our trail-a-bike was getting a little too much attention from the large groups of Chinese tourists unloading from their buses.

The lake had one last surprise for us though; a cable line system for learning how to water-ski.
My attempt to explain what they were doing was soon cut short by my son:
"I know what they're doing - it's just like Penguins of Madagascar!