Kaohsiung

Kaohsiung is southern Taiwan's great port and night-market city; in the 1990s its harbour was the third busiest container port in the world. The old harbour warehouses are now the Pier-2 Art Center, a stretch of repainted sheds, murals and outsized sculptures facing the container cranes. On a lake in the north of the city, the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas are entered through the dragon's mouth and left through the tiger's, seven storeys of bright ceramic above the water. Underground, Formosa Boulevard Station holds a dome of four thousand five hundred stained-glass panels, one of the loveliest metro stations anywhere. A short ferry ride reaches Cijin Sunset Beach, its fine sand, its seafood stalls and its evening views over the Taiwan Strait. The Fo Guang Shan Buddha Museum lines up eight pagodas before a gilded Buddha visible from far off. And the far south of the island, Kenting National Park, is a day trip away.