Chishan Confucious Temple, Kaohsiung, Taiwan

One of the most impressive temples in Taiwan

The Chishan Confucious Temple 旗山孔廟 (recently renamed to Kaohsiung City Confucious Temple) is a temple dedicated to Confucious. It is located in Chishan, a lovely small town 1 hour away from Kaohsiung City. The temple was built in 1984 in Song Dynasty style and is currently the largest Confucious temple in Taiwan (source). It was placed on the top of a hill, right above the town and if you go there, you can enjoy some of the best views in the area. But not only that, the structure is truly beautiful. The garden is neat and perfectly maintained and the courtyard is very big. It reminded me of the palaces I saw in Seoul in 2010. Truly an amazing piece of neo-classic Chinese architecture. Take a walk with me and discover this temple.

The stairs.

This is one of my favorite statues in the area. Makes me think about the meaning behind it.

A very beautiful paifang.

Slowly rising above Chishan.

And then we were up there and greeted by another paifang right in front of the temple.

Passing through the first walkway makes you feel like you're visiting a palace.

My wifey posing in the court yard.

A detail on the ceiling: A dragon.

The temple from the side.

A class room, where students are taught Confucian teachings.

Another detail of the temple.

The altar.

The ceiling.

The dragons, guardians of the temple.

The way back to reality.

Read also my Chishan travel post here>>

[My KAOHSIUNG page][My Taipei Confucious temple post][All photos by MKL, 2011]

Kaohsiung National Stadium

Finest Japanese modern architecture

The Kaohsiung National Stadium (高雄國家體育場) is one of Taiwan's finest pieces of modern architecture. I was lucky to take few snapshots from afar during my last trip to the city. The photo above was taken from the World Games KMRT Station on a not very clear day. If you want to see better photos, go on Flickr and browse these photos. One day I plan to return with a better camera on a bright day and take few snapshots of this amazing structure. If you want to read more about the stadium, go to their homepage.

[My TAIWAN TRAVEL page][My KAOHSIUNG page][Photo by MKL, 2011]

The population of Kaohsiung City

And I mean the real population of Kaohsiung City

Kaohsiung City was recently merged with the former Kaohsiung county and formed a bigger municipality. It was divided into 38 districts and some of them are huge, but very scarcely populated, because they're located very far from the actual city (sometimes they're even in the mountains).

That of course is a bit confusing to me, because I'm interested in the actual population of Kaohsiung's urban area. I have nothing against the way these districts are governed, all I want to know is how many people live in Kaohsiung, the actual city. So I checked some maps and data (source) and found out that the following districts are part of Kaohsiung's urban area (from A-Z): Daliao, Dashe, Fengshan, Gushan, Lingya, Linyuan, Nanzi, Niaosong, Qiaotou, Qianjin, Qijin, Qianzhen, Renwu, Sanmin, Xiaogang, Xinxing, Yancheng and Zuoying. You can see them on the map on the left, they're marked as black. If you count together the population of these districts, you get this number:

2.209.362 inhabitants.

So according to my personal idea of how a city should be defined, Kaohsiung has a population of 2.2 milions and is therefore the second biggest city of Taiwan (after Taipei).

[My KAOHSIUNG page][Original map by Luuva]

Tuntex Sky Tower hi-def photos

I took these photos on May 9th 2010 in Kaohsiung

Northeastern corner of Tuntex sky Tower.

Northern part of the Tuntex Sky Tower.

Northwestern corner of the Tuntex Sky Tower.

The top of the tower close-up.

View from the southern part of the building, which is facing the Kaohsiung harbor.

Tuntex Sky Tower from above, taken from Google maps (source).

[Kaohsiung][Taiwan][Tuntex main article][Taipei 101][All photos by MKL, 2010]