柴山／Monkey Mountain

I actually had a whole day free today for the first time in a long while, so I took advantage of it to get a lot done.  I thought I'd write about my trip last week to Monkey Mountain in Kaohsiung as well.

今日は本当に久しぶりに一日何の用事も無かった。先週は高雄の柴山に行って来たので、その話もちょっと書いてみようと。

柴山は「猴山」とも呼ばれている。猿が沢山居るから。自然が残って、猿が沢山居る山なのに、本当に台湾の二番目の都市高雄の中心地に近い。私達は電車から地下鉄に乗り換えて、そしてバスに乗って行った。グーグルとかの地図を見てみると、都市の中心より西、海沿いに緑のところが有るだろう？それは柴山だ。めっちゃ近いなぁ。

Even though Monkey Mountain is fairly close to the center of Kaohsiung, Taiwan's second biggest city, it's totally covered in trees and full of monkeys.  We went there by getting the subway after getting off the train down to Kaohsiung, then getting on a bus.
Check out Kaohsiung on a map.  The big green blob in the west part of the city bordering the ocean is the mountain.

In front of the park area is a temple.

Buddhist flags

Welcome to monkey mountain!

変な葉っぱ。

猿の登場！山に入ってわずかに歩いて行ったところで発見した。
After climbing for only a couple of minutes, we see our first monkeys.

人間も、、、

猿もこの板を使って歩く。

The monkeys here are obviously very used to people.  Actually, it creeped me out a bit.  It strikes me as kind of dangerous.  Wild animals that are not afraid of people are bad news.

And here we are at one clearing.  It was kind of hazy on this day though.  It's hard to tell, but we're looking right at central Kaohsiung here.

微かに見える建物は高雄市だ。

コンニャクについての看板も有った。花が臭いらしい。初めて知った。中国語の名前の漢字も面白い。英語に「悪魔の舌」みたいな俗名が有ると聞いた事が有る。中国語の名前はそっちに似ている。

This strange looking flower is the Konjac flower.  It's used in East Asia to make a gelatin for use in food.  I believe it's also colloquially known as "Devil's Tongue".

This are reminded me a lot of walking around in the woods in northern Okinawa.  The rocks are the same kind.  This area must have been under water at some point, with lots of coral reefs that later became these rocks.

沖縄にも見える風景だ。見た目から判断すれば、これらは元珊瑚礁で出来ている岩だ。

蟻が何か食っている。

頂上に着いた！真っ直ぐ前に海が有るけど、ぼんやりとした天気のせいで全然見えない。
This is the top of the mountain.  We're looking at the sea here, not that you can tell with all of the haze.

My obnoxiously bright shoes.

After walking down off the mountain, we took a bus back to the subway.  I saw this gate on the way.

バスに乗っている時見掛けた門だ。

美麗島駅。高雄地下鉄の線が二本ここに会っているから、地下鉄会社はちょっと頑張って駅を綺麗にした。
This is a photo from inside Formosa Boulevard Station.  It's the station where the two subway lines in Kaohsiung meet, so they made it extra pretty.

On the way home we stopped for a bit at the Ciaotou Sugar Refinery.  It's a museum about sugar refining now.  We were all pretty tired already, so we didn't look very carefully at everything, but I have some neat photos of trains and art made out of old machines.
最後に行ったのはこの橋頭製糖の博物館だ。みんなが疲れて、詳しくは見ていないけど、ちょっと古い機械を使った美術品や汽車などの写真を載せとこう。

ART

以上で柴山などの旅だった。もう二回高雄に行ったのに、まだ全然都市の中心見ていない。今度また行かんば！
That's it for my trip last week.  It's my second time to Kaohsiung, but I still haven't even seen any of the center of the city.  I'll have to do that next time.