hotel in GaoshungWe are going off on another mini-vacation.  Our decadent hotel stay in Tainan was such a great success, we have to repeat the experience.  Besides, it’s the last hurray before the kids go back to school, before Diane starts working, and before my treatment.  Are you allowed to enjoy yourself when you have cancer?  Of course you are!

We are going to Kaoshiung this time, Taiwan’s second largest city, the great port in the south.  This is another place we’ve never been.  Kaoshiung has a subway system, a beautiful river and large avenues.  Apparently, life down there is more rough and tumble.  We’re staying in a very fancy hotel.  The kids love hotel breakfasts.

Aug 24 update: we just got back from Kaoshiung.  We saw it all — from our room on the 56th floor of the hotel!!!  The city is beautiful.  It has a great commercial port and a large open ocean — the Luzon straights, on the other side of which is the Philippines.  Northern Taiwan is academic and serious, but in Kaoshiung human desires are more visible and more basic.  Young women smoke cigarettes in coffee shops; young men, with gold chains but without front teeth, spit betel nut juice in the street.

Naturally these are features which have given Kaoshiung a bad name.  But I like it.  I like life in all its multiplicity. Kaoshiung reminds me of Naples, Italy (in addition both places are famous centers of criminal activity and gang warfare).

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