Taiwan Day 14 (Kaohsiung 3)

 I got up late and was so tired I just blogged and rested until about lunch, when I went out searching... There was a noodle shop in the next block and a vegetarian shop.

The vege shop was closed early (1:30pm now) so I went to the noodle shop 老爺麵線. The boss was so patient and explained to me what's on the menu when I said it's my first time here.

I got a small noodle (pork and fish, thin noodle) for $55 and a small stinky tofu for $55.

There was no one else in the shop! I sat down and noticed red tea was available at $10 a cup.

It was pretty good. The noodles were thick and full bodied with generous meat pieces. The tofu was crispy and aromatic stinky. Paochai yummy. Went well with the sauces. 

After I finished I thanked them and left. Back to the hotel, and I rested a bit and then got really to go out at almost 3pm.

I ended up taking the MRT to Hamasen, got out at the wrong exit, took a Youbike, and one block later I found the Takao Museum lmao. OK I return the Youbike and paid $5 hahaha.

I went in and started stamping the stamps as they were the first thing I saw after greeting the museum staff. Hahaha. There were a lot of stamps, big too! There was another girl there who seemed very enthusiastic about the rail, and she mentioned she was a JP and TW heritage mix. She knew how to speak 6 languages... JP, Mandarin, Taigi, English, Cantonese and 1 other I didn't find out. She showed me the maps drawer and pointed out that it was all hand drawn. Cartographers really were amazing back then.

So the Takao museum used to be a wares railway station. They have actual order sheets in an order cabinet with the names of various companies on it. 

There was a cubby hole with a mountain - Yamaichi. Then the others were Maru___ of the kanji. Like Marukome. And they used ㄅㄆㄇ shorthand for the locations and stations. They used to transport wares all the way from Keelung down to Kaohsiung port.

The last day of operation was Dec 2008 and they have a blackboard as is from that last day. The museum lady told me some kids rubbed it off and they had to ask the staff who wrote it at the time to come back and rewrite it.

There were various graphs and actual relics of the time in operation. 

 

After that, you can go look at the trains outside. 

I happened to chance upon two worked driving a train towards me and then proceeding to do maintenance and repair of the museum trains. 

They were lining up the cars and checking the air supply, as the trains use the air supply to move. They removed the brake pads when linking the cars up. One of the staff came to talk to when when he saw me watch for a long time. He said that this is part of maintenance and repair. 

By the way he talks you can tell he's an enthusiast, or train otaku. He mentioned the cars currently being worked on are made by a TW company, which is now defunct. The train further down near the museum is made by Hitachi.

He even opened up the engine cover of the active train to show me. 

I asked about the empty platform nearby, and he said that as constructed to replace the passenger trains platform when they opened up the road for the Hamasen MRT line. But by then the Takao station was already in decline so the platform was never used. 

Back when the station was first constructed, they had passenger trains too. The platforms were very long, all the way down to the MRT (there are apparently a few stones of the borders of the platform there), and then stretching up the way up the grass side. Kinda hard to imagine! And then in 1941, the Japanese had a new city planning and moved most of the passenger trains to the now Kaohsiung Station after completion of construction. 

I thanked him for telling me and that it is all very interesting! 

Night was falling and on the one day I decide to leave my jacket behind IT WAS COLD.

How typical lol. 

I went around and took photos of the rest of the trains. 

Then went back via MRT to my hotel to grab a jumper. 

Should probably do dinner. I had a look on Google Maps and decided to try the Riuoher nightmarket.

I ended up finding a noodle stall. I think I just wasn't hungry. So the food tasted OK and I struggled to finish. 

By the time I finished it was around 8pm. I went to the Mofan Street at Kaohsiung Station with animanga vendors. Animate was closed rip. But the other stores were still open. They close around 9pm but some were chasing up so I could still browse.

I ended up going back home at almost 10pm again... Stopped by Famimart and picked up some breakfast.

Saw a Guaiguai... Spicy. 

Because mobile mode is effed up, here are the photos that won't go in the right place below. 

They are out of order cause the mobile photo interface sucks and keeps selecting when I haven't finished ticking which photos I want... Super annoying.