Southern Taiwan Coastal Viewing and Eluanbi Lighthouse
After taking some drone videos I drove down to Eluanbi park to have a look at the lighthouse, the coastal viewing places, and to walk around the small caves and other nature that is in the park. I found this area to be quite beautiful and relaxing to walk around.
Kenting Beach
After walking around in the morning, I was getting quite hot so I decided I would find a beach to cool off at. Its worth mentioning that it was a little difficult for me to figure out which beach in the area was good as there was very limited English information about the area. I ended up going to South bar beach which turned out to be quite nice, much better than it was depicted online. It had a few beach bars where you could enjoy a meal and a drink on the beach, active lifeguards and a nice, protected swimming area where I was able to enjoy the waves and cool off.
Heading to Kaohsiung
After cooling off, it was time to head to tackle the busy roads again and head to Kaohsiung. On the way there, the car was starting to run out of charge again and I didn’t think I would be able to make it so I stopped at a charger on the way but for some reason, it wasn’t operational so I had to drive the whole way, arriving in Kaohsiung with less than 5% battery left on the car… not quite ideal. While I was charging the car which was conveniently at a supermarket, I was able to get some groceries and book myself a hotel for the night. I found a room in the 85 Sky Tower which I thought would be good since it was one of the more iconic buildings in the area.
Inside the 85 Sky Tower Kaohsiung
However, when I got there, I quickly learned that the building was quite old. Upon arrival at the 85 Sky Tower, I quickly dashed inside to try ask where I should park. No one at the reception could really communicate with me so one of them followed me out and got in the car with me and pointed me to where I had to go which was around 4 levels under the 85 Sky Tower. It took me a while to figure out how to get to my room also. Once I parked the car, I was now tasked to find out where the reception was. I had to take 2 sets of elevators that were both quite slow and old to reach a kind of main area in the building that was quite dark but had some hotel receptions and an operational 7-Eleven. Apart from that the building looked kind of abandoned. It turned out that many of the hotels that existed within the buildings were people renting out old, converted office rooms in the building. My hotel that night didn’t even have a reception, so I had no idea where to go and was left standing in the old dark building. I went to the security desk (who also couldn’t speak English) and pointed to my phone which had the booking information and a phone number, gesturing for them to call the number on my behalf. They did so and eventually someone came to show me to my room. I followed them up 1 of 6 elevators (the third set of elevators which wasn’t linked to the other two) that was working. I followed them through a series of hallways walking on stained carpet surrounded by old fashion walls and paintings. Thankfully my room wasn’t too bad, although given how I had got there it still felt a little eerie.
After dropping off some bags in my hotel, I went to some nearby shops to go buy a wallet as I had forgotten to bring one with me and it was really bothering me. I was sure to take advantage of the tax refunds purchasing a designer wallet as a kind of souvenir.
