Around Taiwan in 80 Days - Part 2: January 2012

It was a lovely day for a walk by the sea, which is a great feature of going south for Chinese New Year- the weather! I was quite happy to start with some local spring rolls, made by this charming squad of aunties.

Mituo is a charming little town in Kaohsiung, as the pictures below depict. I started off there on another installment of my slow but sure trace of the island's coastlines and nearby communities.

Aquaculture, with and without the aqua

Park with monument by the sea

Bathrooms open to all members of the public!

Scenes along the coast

Just after I took the above shot of the excavator, I was set upon by a pack of stray dogs. There were about 30 of them, which can be a very dangerous number. I'm no dog psychologist, but I assume that the dogs can do simple math of something analogous to it. For example, 3 dogs versus one adult male human means a very significant chance of any one dog getting injured. 20 dogs vs. 1 human means a very low chance, emboldening the dogs. In addition, in a larger pack, competition to be dominant would be fiercer; hence, there would be more pressure to show you are tough and can take the lead against an annoying human.

In any case, they approached within 20 meters of me, yammering away, and then one dog charged me. Fortunately, there were loads of rocks, so I counter-charged him while waving a big rock in my hand. He chickened out and I was soon back on my way, accompanied by more barking, of course.

There's a big petrochemical facility at Jiading, seen in the pic above, and I had to make my way around it. So I followed this river up to Highway 17.