I took city bus quite often, it came frequently, and always with plenty of empty seats. I think the city government is footing a big budget to provide a network of public transportations that are not fully utilized by its residents. Once I saw a bus came and went with no one inside but the driver.

I also borrowed a bicycle from brother Yong to ride several short distances from Mother's house.

Breakfast at Tien-Ji's photo link

I stayed at Hotel Kingdom for NT1800(USD$60)/night without breakfast, a very good rate my sister Meggy got for me through her friend Mrs. Bing's corporate rate. In 2007 Vincent and I stayed at the same hotel for NT2200/night including 2 buffet breakfast, also through Mrs. Bing's corporate rate.

Therefore, instead of a very full buffet breakfast at the hotel every morning, I went out to seek good eats near the hotel. Behind the hotel is a popular breakfast place called Tien-Ji, which has been serving breakfast for four decades. One of my favorites at Tien-Ji is pan-fried dumpling (pot stickers), bite into it and the flavorful juice just filled my mouth. Tien-Ji is a self-serve place, it took me two days to figure out the system. You'd pick what you want and place on a plate or put in a bag (if take away), make/mix your own dipping sauce, then line up to buy hot or cold soy milk and pay. Then go upstairs to find a table and seat.

Sometimes I had western pastries with coffee for breakfast. Twice I bought pastries from a bakery with a French name (Le Petit Prince), and once I bought pastries from a bakery with a Japanese name. They all looked inviting and tasted delicious. (I forgot to take photo.)

One day, Mr. and Mrs. Yuen, the owners of a high end fruit company called May Lin Fruits in Taipei, and good friends of my oldest brother Chester, came to visit mom. May Lin Fruit imports many high end fruits from Japan. As customary in Taiwan, you bring an expensive gift to show respect to the person you are visiting, so they brought a pair of  Japanese melon imported from Shizouka (静岡), Japan.

I saw these kind of expensive Japanese melons in Tokyo while we were touring Japan with Austin and Elena in 2005. (Philip was living in Japan at that time.)

Our tour guide at that time took us to a fruit store in Ginza and told us to go inside to take a look at the fruits and their prices. A melon which looked like the picture to the right was ranging from USD$60 to $120, depending on which farm it came from. These expensive melons are grown in green houses, and each plant was pruned to bear just one fruit at a time, that was why they are so expensive and so sweet and juicy.

However, these prized melons are gifts for special occasions such as birthday, anniversary, promotion, graduations etc, they are too expensive for daily consumption. For daily consumption a resident in Japan would walk into a supermarket and buy an ordinary melon for much less money, which may be imported from southern Europe or south America.

Suffice to say I have only seen the outside of these expensive melons, never the inside. So a few days later sister-in-law Ruei-Shia decided to cut up one for everyone to share. (The other one was to be saved till sister-in-law Toshiko arrived in Kaohsiung from San Francisco, a few days after I left Taiwan.)

I had expected the inside to be in orange color like cantaloupe, but it was in pale yellow, a bit like Athenian melon, yet extremely juicy and sweet. (See photo links for larger pictures.)

One afternoon I walked out of Hotel Kingdom toward Love River, and saw a fair was going on by the river bank. I learned that it was a food fair hosted by the City Government of Kaohsiung for Hakka farm producers.

I walked through the whole length of the vendors, ate some, bought some dry goods. I was not brave enough to try more varieties, but took photos.