We've decided that we need to find some adventures here in Kaohsiung that we can do with the subway and walking so I don't feel so trapped without my bike. Today we headed to the beach. Kaohsiung has two ocean beaches, one on Cijin Island and one near Sun Yat-sen University. We've biked to both of them but never been swimming so today we packed our suits and towels and headed out. We took the MRT to the western terminus and walked along the harbor for 30 minutes to Sizihuan Beach where the University runs a hotel and restaurant through its hotel management department.

The lunch was a bit odd. The server wrote down my order wrong so I sent back the seafood pasta and waited (and waited and waited) for my rice dish to come. It was like a competition among the wait staff to avoid making any eye contact with me or Lee as they paraded dish after dish to the other tables. At one point they brought back the pasta and said I could have it for free because they had made the mistake, which was good since otherwise I may have starved while I waited. The rice did eventually come and it was quite good but the whole experience was just a bit odd.

Fortunately the beach was right there so after lunch that's where we headed. This being Taiwan, there was no one else in the water, although there were some people dipping their toes in at the edge.

The beach is beautifully black so it was quite hot to walk across but the water was just cool enough to be refreshing. A perfect combination. It's pretty cool to be able to have a beach so close to home and be able to swim in it at the end of April. One of the benefits of Taiwan living.