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| The famous Dragon and Tiger Pagodas (longhuta; 龍虎塔). |
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| Me taking several pictures as usual! |
Many of the
sites I visited in Kaohsiung were gorgeous and interesting; Lotus Pond was no different! Like the day we went to
Cijin Island, my dad and I were blessed with beautiful weather when we visited the pond. You can tell by the bright blue sky in the pictures, right? I still find it hard to believe it was in the middle of winter! Southern Taiwan is definitely a great place to be in the during wintertime if you love warmer weather.
Lotus Pond has quite an interesting history. The "pond" is actually a large manmade lake which was opened to the public in 1951. While the lake is a contemporary fixture, many of the sites around it have roots in antiquity. There are several temples, halls, pavilions, and palaces around the lake from centuries past. The area certainly has a nice ethereal feeling to it.
I think it would take the better part of an afternoon to see all the sites at Lotus Pond, but you'd certainly be tired from all the walking afterward! Luckily, there is a long pedestrian road with several food venders right next to the lake so you can walk around a refuel simultaneously!
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A map of Lotus Pond, click to enlarge.
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Nonetheless, my dad wasn't up to the task of walking around the whole lake, so we only saw the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas（longhuta; 龍虎塔）, Confucian Temple（kongmiao, 孔廟）, Spring and Autumn Pavilions（chunqiuge; 春秋閣）, and the Pei Chi Pavilion（beijiting; 北極亭）. As we had to shuffle through crowds, it certainly felt like enough!
