Rajeev's World

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

I Don't Want Nirvana! I Want Great Food, Always! -- Part XIII - An Exotic Meal AT KHH!

I never thought meals in an airport could be exotic. But this evening's meal at Kaohsiung Aiport at the fag end of our Taiwan sojourn has a different story to tell!

Since our flight to Incheon was delayed by over 2 hours, we were offered a complimentary meal at an airport restaurant - Hómee Kitchen. After a longish round of Plane Spotting while Neeti did extensive window-shopping, we reached Hómee Kitchen on the concourse and scanned the menu. This looked pretty exciting and definitely much better than any airport lounge.

So it was Hómee Kitchen for us today!!!!

Hómee Kitchen was teeming with people, most of them were our co-passengers traveling on board EVA Air BR172 to Incheon...

Neeti chose a vegetarian set meal with a vegetable tofu gravy...

The clear vegetable soup was rather nice and hearty...

But I chose a chicken set meal that came with fish ball soup. The best thing in both the meals was pickled lotus steam was sweet, sour and crunchy!

The pièce de résistance of my meal was a plate of braised pig's ears - extremely flavourful, succulent and delectable. I bet I never had anything like this before...

That was pretty exotic for me, as it was the first time I was having them. I salute the 7 odd pigs who sacrificed their ears for me!

What a way to say Goodbye to Taiwan! This trip ended up becoming a culinary journey I will never forget and I cried out "I Don't Want Nirvana! I Want Great Food, Always!"

Goodbye Taiwan!

After a rather heavy dose of history at the Former British Consulate at Takow, we returned to Daren Road. By then the weather was turning bad. Dark ominous clouds were gathering in the skies. We decided that we should check out of our hotel and head to Kaohsiung Airport to avoid getting stuck in case Kaohsiung is again lashed with heavy rain in the aftermath of Dujuan.

A mural on our hotel wall showed the plan of Kaohsiung city...

Plus there were numerous Aboriginal tribal artworks on display. Perhaps on our next trip to Kaohsiung, we would get to witness Aboriginal culture first hand...

With our bags in tow, we walked down about 300 metres to Yanchengpu MRT station to catch a subway on the orange line...

Waiting for our train at Yanchengpu. At Formosa Boulevard, we transferred to the red line to take us straight to the airport...

Signage at the airport. Indeed I love Taiwan...

Checking in at the EVA Air counter. I am looking forward to this flight. I have heard EVA Air is pretty efficient and has an excellent service...

With immigration and security done, we had a lot of time to spare and we roamed around Plane Spotting and window shopping in the Everrich Duty Free shops...

A lovely way of stacking books...

Hello Kitty again!

Oh no!

As we sit, waiting to board our flight back home to Incheon, I can't help but look back with a lot of joy at the past 4 incredible days in Taiwan. We had a lovely stay in Taipei - the city has an incredible character, a unique mix of tradition and modernity and revels in these contracts. We got a chance to see the amazingly beautiful Taiwanese countryside at Taroko and Sun Moon Lake. Even though the last part of the trip to the Sun Moon Lake and Kaohsiung was made quite "interesting", thanks to Typhoon Dujuan, we nonetheless enjoyed a great deal.

And I can't wait to plan our next trip, back here to Taiwan!

Til then Goodbye, Taiwan!

The British Outpost At Takow... Part II

We continued on our exploration of the Former British Consulate at Takow.

The building reminded me of a 100 year old house we had lived in Jagadhri, back home in India, during the 1990s. From the outside it looked so similar...

The building was full of visitors from the Mainland...

If the building could speak, it would have a million stories to tell...

After the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894-95, the two nations signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki, under which Formosa (as Taiwan was known then) alongwith the Pescadores islands in the Taiwan Straits were ceded by China to Japan.

In 1909, however, the Japanese claimed the right to all foreign consulates in Taiwan and the British consulate was closed the next year. In 1931 the building was converted into an "Ocean Observatory" by the Japanese viceroy of Taiwan.

In 1986, the Kaohsiung municipal started the restoration of the former consulate to convert it into a museum. The consulate has become the venue for cultural activities and art exhibitions.

A model of the fishing village of Takau, that preceded Kaohsiung...

Development of the port city...

Maps of a bygone era...

Exhibition of photographs of Takow from the 1800s...

A colonial ship...

A Chinese junk...

Currency of trade...

Map of Asia from the 1800s...

The view from the Shaochuantou Hill...

A break for rose tea and Shrewsbury cookies, before we head back to Daren Road...

The British Outpost At Takow... Part I

By the time we had our breakfast, the sun was shining brightly. And we wanted to make the best of the little time we had in this weather, which was rather nice.

The nearest we could go to was the historic building known as the Former British Consulate at Takow.

Located a 10 minute taxi ride away from our hotel on Daren Road, this red brick colonial building is perched atop Shaochuantou Hill in Gushan District and overlooks Xiziwan Bay and Port of Kaohsiung.

In the 1800s, Western powers were attracted to China due to its legendary riches. The Qing Dynasty, which was skeptical of these overtures denied them the rights to "free trade". Then the British pumped in opium from India (which is really sad - India also was at the receiving end - cropping patterns were changed, forcing Indian farmers to grow opium and indigo for the nefarious designs of the colonials. And Indians were forcibly made party to this carnage in the Orient, though one Indian community, the Parsis immensely profited from the ill gotten wealth from the opium trade). This is the historic grudge that China has with India, but little do they realise that at that time we were just pawns in the hands of the British.

This ended up corrupting and wasting Chinese youth of that age. The Qings resisted and battles erupted between the Western powers and China. At the end of it, the British won, getting concessions to a number of Chinese ports - Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tianjin, Canton and ports in Taiwan - Takau (Takow).

But in a little more than century, the tables have turned. China and India have become the economic centre of gravity. And they day isn't far when Britain could have an Indian prime minister, a fact that was acknowledged by David Cameron recently.

The consulate here was nothing more than a trading outpost from where the British supervised their trading activities. Now was it bona fide trade or was it a plunder? That's a question that you could answer for yourself.

A view of Xiziwan Bay...

Robert Swinhoe was appointed as the first British vice-consul in 1861, in the consulate which was housed out of Tamsui, shifting to Kaohsiung (Takow, as it was known then) in 1864. This building was built in 1879 with supplies and materials brought over from Amoy (present day Xiamen) on the Mainland. The building was rented by the British in 1867 and then Swinhoe was appointed as the first Consul General in Formosa and held office until his retirement in 1873.