Kaohsiung, Day Three - of Towers, Some History, Shaved Ice and Aerial Views.

No trip to Kaohsiung is complete without visiting the Tuxtex Towers, except that I realise these towers are better known as the "85 Tower" amongst the locals as it has 85 stories.

At 347.6 metres tall, the building was the tallest in Taiwan before the completion of Taipei 101. They spent NT$10 billion building this tower using 58,000 tons of reinforced steel and high performance concrete. The elevators at the tower are the third-fastest in the world and can travel from the first to the 75th floor in 43 seconds at speeds of 600 metres per minute.

I took this photo of the tower at sunset on top of another tower ;)

Riding the third fastest elevator in the world!

View of Kaohsiung from Tuxtex Towers

Huge history regarding an uprising in the south of Taiwan on the 28th February 1947.  Having been liberated from the Japanese, the Taiwanese people in the South were still being marginalised by the government of the day and an uprising was triggered by a simple case of tobacco smuggling. This goes some way in explaining why Kaohsiung is often the political mirror image of Taipei. I have a piece in the works at the moment on this, so watch this space.

There was an exhibition at the Kaohsiung Museum on the Taiwanese rites of passage, from birth, to adulthood to marriage. Here you can see a model bride and groom in traditional dress.

Paul took me to this shop that's famous for their shaved ice. It's called something like "Poh poh ping". At the risk of sounding like a retard, I'm assuming it translates to "grandmother's ice"? The illustration of a happy grandmother helps... 

My shaved ice, with fruit. A welcome diversion in the hot and humid Taiwanese summer.

Then we drove to the top of a hill in Kaohsiung for another view of the city. This is the harbour - loving the blues and greens.