Last night we went to bed with a plan to bike out to Cijin Island in the morning. The smog almost made me change my mind but I put on my smog mask and off we went and I'm glad we did. The alternative was sitting around the apartment doing school work and who wants to do that all day?

We've been out to the island many times - by bike it's about a half hour from our apartment to the ferry and about 10 minutes on the ferry to the island - but this was our first time up to the fort and lighthouse at the tip of the island.

We parked our bikes at the base of the promontory and walked up the path, although we did not do any striding. At least I don't think we did.

We passed some tunnels dug into the hillside but didn't venture inside. I'd just as soon not find any of the local snakes, thank you very much. (See yesterday's post.)

The fort was pretty cool. Lots of little courtyards and staircases to the ramparts. It would be a fabulous place to play hide-and-seek or stage a dungeons and dragons campaign. 

Lee did his best impression of a military stance, seeing as we were at a military installation. (For those of you who know our kids, he kind of looks like Gavin, don't you think?)

The lighthouse was quite pretty and, despite the smog, had really nice views.

Lee checked out the huge melon growing in a little garden on the grounds of the lighthouse.

This is most of Cijin Island. The ocean (and eventually China) is off to the right with the island stretching out in front of us. It's hardly more than an overgrown sandbar but it's pretty essential to protecting Kaohsiung's harbor, which is to the left of this photo.

Here's the left-hand side of the island with the harbor and the Kaohsiung skyline looming in the haze.

This is the mouth of the harbor. This promontory is at the south end of Monkey Mountain with the British Consulate (where I was last weekend) on the last little knoll. 

After we walked back down to the bikes we passed this sight:

Squid drying in the sun. Yum.