We traveled to Kaohsiung during the Children’s Day and Qingming holiday. Our last visit was in March 2023, when we attended a friend’s wedding reception. It was scorching hot, my wife wasn’t feeling well, and we only stayed one night—we barely got to see anything. The visit before that was back in 2016, when we were preparing to get married and came to share the news with my wife’s friend. During the March 2023 visit, our daughter was about two years old; now our friend’s daughter is also around two, and her innocent chatter was adorable.
As soon as we arrived in Kaohsiung, we headed to my wife’s friend’s place for a visit. At noon, they drove us to lunch at Haiqing Penghu Seafood. The kids weren’t particularly fond of seafood, but they loved watching the fish and shrimp in the tanks. Our friend’s daughter asked her dad to carry her over for a closer look, and our daughter immediately followed suit.
After lunch, we parked the car at the hotel and took the MRT from Formosa Boulevard Station to Weiwuying. We did this because we were worried the holiday crowds would make it impossible to find parking nearby. We were right to worry—there was a “Dinosaur Cool Park” event at Weiwuying during this holiday, and it was the opening day. By the time we arrived, the stage area was already packed, and we could only watch from far away. Fortunately, the dinosaurs were enormous.
The show lasted forty minutes. I held my daughter at first, but my arms eventually gave out and I put her on my shoulders. I thought she might be scared, but she was completely mesmerized.
Someone posted videos online; you can find them at the links below.
After the show, we browsed the nearby market stalls. It was sweltering, and everyone wanted ice cream—the lines were enormous. Our daughter had her eye on a Mickey Mouse ice pop, but they had sold out. When she spotted balloons, she insisted on one. I assumed she’d pick a dinosaur balloon, but she chose a Frozen one instead—quite baffling. I suspected these balloons were filled with hydrogen, but the vendor insisted they were helium. Really? Didn’t the Iraq War cause a global helium shortage?
We were originally going to take a quick look at the main building of the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts and leave (too crowded, and we were very thirsty), but our daughter spotted children on a slide and insisted on going down to play. Our friend’s child immediately joined in. When it was finally time to leave, our daughter was surprisingly agreeable, but our friend’s child refused to budge and had to be forcibly carried away by her dad—like trying to hold onto a wriggling fish.
We were very thirsty, but when we got to the MRT station, the vending machine was broken!
On the way back to the hotel, the balloon flew away. Our daughter burst into tears, while our friend’s child cheerfully kept shouting “The balloon flew away! The balloon flew away!”—and was quickly steered away.
That evening we headed out on our own, taking the MRT to Hamasen Station. Our daughter fell asleep at Formosa Boulevard Station, but thankfully we had brought the stroller.
We walked to the Hamasen Railway Cultural Park first; it was unlit at night, quite different from our 2016 visit, so we skipped going inside and headed straight to KW2. Before the trip, our daughter’s piano teacher had recommended it, saying KW2, Pier-2, and True Love Pier are now all connected and rival Yokohama’s Minato Mirai. KW2 does somewhat resemble the Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse, just much smaller and not as grand, with live performers inside. We ate at Tai-san Shiu Shantou Hot Pot, and our daughter slept through the entire meal.
After dinner, we strolled along the waterfront toward Great Harbor Bridge. Along the way, we passed several Coast Guard vessels, including the ROCS Kaohsiung and the ROCS Anping. At the far end stood the New Ocean Research 1. The sea breeze was wonderfully refreshing the whole way, the path was wide and well-lit—it felt ideal for a night run, though I wonder if it gets too hot in summer.
On this side of Great Harbor Bridge, Da-gang Warehouse 7 houses WAVESTELLAR and YONSHIN FUDOPIA, which seemed perfect for a Friday night drink. Looking out from the bridge toward Kaohsiung Music Center and the harbor was breathtaking. The light rail runs up onto the bridge at this stretch, and from a distance it looks like the tram is heading straight into the Kaohsiung Music Center—slightly surreal.
Crossing Great Harbor Bridge brought us to Pier-2, buzzing with activity on a Friday night—though our daughter slept through it all. Kaohsiung Music Center was screening an outdoor film. What a wonderfully chill evening.
Our daughter slept all the way back to the hotel as I pushed the stroller. My wife, not feeling well, had taken an Uber back earlier—and that’s the convenience of city travel.
The waterfront really can hold its own against Yokohama’s Minato Mirai (though my last visit there was back in 2014).
On the second day it was raining, so we took an Uber to Neiwei Arts Center, only to discover it didn’t open until 11 a.m. We first visited the nearby Children’s Museum of Art, Kaohsiung City. Most of the exhibits involved hands-on creative activities for kids. When we reached the second floor, a heavy downpour started. Our daughter was deeply focused on her craft project, so I sat down and joined in. The crayon selection for the architecture-coloring section was rather sparse, though—a bit of a letdown. By the time we finished, the rain had briefly eased, and we dashed over to Neiwei Arts Center. Out front there’s a sandbox that our daughter would normally insist on playing in, but the rain saved us from that predicament.
Neiwei Arts Center was less engaging for young children. We bought a few art and design items, shared an ice cream, and read picture books in the beanbag area before leaving. In the afternoon, we decided to visit the National Science and Technology Museum.
The National Science and Technology Museum seems like it would normally be a great place, but between the rain and Children’s Day, it probably had a quarter of all Kaohsiung visitors crammed inside. Popular areas were nearly impossible to get into—like B1 Fun City. The moment our daughter walked in and spotted the Hot Snow Paradise exhibit, she was hooked—she had no interest in anything else and kept insisting we get in line. So we spent only about 20 minutes exploring before heading down to B1 to line up. Once my wife and daughter were inside, I went off to explore on my own. Apparently HowHow and Deng Furu were there for the same session.
That evening we had originally planned to visit Dream Mall, but the rain put us off, so we ordered Papa Popcorn Chicken for delivery at the hotel. For some reason, ChatGPT kept recommending “Zhengzhong Pork Chop Rice.” When our Kaohsiung friend heard this, they said, “ChatGPT has never eaten there—don’t trust it.”
On the third morning at breakfast, our daughter spotted Kaohsiung Music Center from the rooftop and said she wanted to go (she had slept through it on the first night). So after checking out, we took an Uber over. But she barely took one look before complaining it was too hot. She did get excited about the seesaws in front of the Pier-2 Tower and kept asking to play on them. I suspect this was a special Children’s Day installation—lots of kids were drawn to it, though most were parents playing alongside their children rather than kids playing with other kids.
There was rubbish near Great Harbor Bridge with quite a smell. I called the 1999 citizen hotline to report it, but they only seemed to remove that one bag—there was still a lot of other rubbish floating on the water. No no, Mai-Mai (Mayor Chen Chi-mai)—that’s a bad bad.
We wandered until around 1 p.m., then took the light rail to leave. Our daughter fell asleep again. Despite it being the Children’s Day holiday, the light rail didn’t seem to have added any extra runs—intervals of over ten minutes, which was a bit of a shame.
Before catching the HSR at Zuoying Station, we stopped by Kaohsiung Main Station. I came away slightly disappointed. The underground station area feels unfinished and lacks refinement. The old station building wasn’t open for viewing, and the area out front was rather rough. The layout was also a bit confusing, and the connection to the MRT station seemed insufficient for a major hub. B3 was all anime and manga shops—too homogeneous, with no real differentiation between stores. I hope this improves; after all, a train station is still a city’s calling card.
Note: This article is translated from Traditional Chinese.
