On the second day of our five day tour, we finished up at Sun Moon Lake and headed for Kaohsiung, the third largest city in Taiwan.This is Alan, our tour guide. Toots thought it would be nice to add him here and give you all a feel for our time on the bus.Our first stop of the day, but our last stop in Sun Moon Lake, was the Sun Moon Lake National Scenic Area. You can go under this structure and clap and it echoes.View from the lookout area. You can see the Pagoda on the top of the mountain in the horizon. So tranquil here. Hard to leave 😢We then left Sun Moon Lake and headed for Jiji, a small town on the way to Kaohsiung. While we were driving through the rural roads, we passed lots of flowers. These are actually loofah plants! Yes, those loofahs that you use in the shower.The first stop in Jiji was the Ruined Temple. I am not sure of the actual name. In 1999 there was a devastating earthquake that killed thousands of people. It destroyed this temple, but the people of Jiji decided to keep it like this as a memorial. Sad, but very cool to look at.This is the rebuilt temple, which is right in front of the Ruined Temple. It’s really interesting seeing the juxtaposition of new and ruined.One of the shrines inside of the temple. Let’s zoom into this deity!He is super scary, right?! If I was a Buddhist deity, I would be this dude all the way. No one would mess with me 😂Finally, a picture of the whole group! Our next stop in Jiji was the train station. It was built during the War by the Japanese, and has been meticulously maintained.This is apparently a famous kind of train. I felt like I could hop on it, and end up in Hogwarts! I told Toots that and she just smiled (she’s never read Harry Potter).Cat culture is real here! These things are everywhere.After walking around Jiji, we continued on our journey to Kaohsiung. We had a couple of hours to travel, and Toots, being the nerd she is, decided to read a statistics book.We stopped at a rest stop for lunch. The rest stops in Taiwan are legit. They have tons of restaurants and convenience stores. This is a Tea Egg, which is super popular in Taiwan. It’s an egg soaked in broth. I ate half and then gave it to Toots 😂 she is an amazing veganOur last stop of the day was the Fo Guang Shan Monastery, a huge active monastery. The highlight is definitely this massive golden Buddha. Massive and beautiful!These golden buddhas line the perimeters of the monument. Such a relaxing area. Can you see the mountains in the background?Another angle. Too many good pics up there!If you look closely, you will see what looks like a Swastika. This is actually the Buddhist symbol for infinity. You will see that it starts horizontally. The Nazi symbol starts vertically. These Buddhist symbols are very prevalent in Taiwan. If you see one in a restaurant, it means they are Vegetarian. Good for Toots to know!They have these little buddhas everywhere! I love them. So cute!!Seriously. Look at this face!We climbed up to the actual temple. There are three huge golden Buddha shrines. You are not allowed to take pictures within the temple, and you have to take you shoes off to go inside. When I went inside, a couple of monks came up to me and another young person. They gave us candies and Buddhist learning materials. Recruitment is critical for them.This monk gave me a bunch of Year of the Pig posters to hand out to other people. I helped spread Buddhism! I hope that’s not a grave sin 🙈After spending some time in the actual temple, we went into the little museum, which houses the founder of the monument’s personal collection of items. I was very happy to see that he had a little statue of our Lady of Sorrows. Buddhists believe that we are all suffering beings. So interesting to see this statuette of Mary, who suffered greatly. There was no reference to Jesus or any other religion in the museum – just Mary. Very interesting. Makes me want to get our Lady of Sorrows finally tattooed on me!The view of the monument as you you are walking out. So hard to get these massive buildings in one picture!After we finished up at the Fo Guang Shan Monastery, we headed to Kaohsiung. We were supposed to take a river boat cruise, but the rains we’re so heavy, that we couldn’t do it. We ended up going to our hotel instead.And what a hotel it was! We stayed at the Grand Hi-Lai Hotel, a five star hotel located in downtown Kaoshiung. Tons of celebrities have stayed there. Even Michael Jackson!They have a shrine of celebrities that have stayed in the hotel. James Harden is the one that stuck out to me!View from our room of the Kaoshiung portAfter we settled into our room, we headed to the Night Market.

Luckily, the rain trickled off a few minutes after we arrived.

We tasted a lot of yummy food in the market – mochi, Papaya Milk, fruit. But, my favorite was this Cheese Potato Cake. People normally order the Pepper Cake, which is stuffed with pork, but I wanted to be vegetarian yesterday, so went with the Cheese Potato. So delicious!! Cheese and potato stuffed in this flaky dough. Only 40 NT!

Toots chose this restaurant based on the Buddhist infinity symbol!

After we got back to the hotel, we went shopping! The basement and first eight floors of the building are a mall, with luxurious stores like Balenciaga and Versace. We just did some window shopping 😁 one of these days I am going to buy Balenciaga workout gear!

Night night!