A friend invited me to go visit Kaohsiung and so it was my first time to take the new Kaohsiung underground KMRT system. It’s gorgeous, although extremely empty when it’s not rush hours.
You know, this is one of the things that makes me very jealous of Taiwan. Taiwanese tend to focus on the fact that the MRTs and the Taiwan High Speed Rails (THSR) took too long and too much money to build. To that I can only say – it’s there, it’s running and it’s beautiful, and in Israel – a country of similar size with Tel Aviv Gush Dan area of similar scale to Kaohsiung (1.2 million people) – we’ve failed at producing anything remotely resembling those impressive projects. Similar things can be said about many of the highly advanced west-European economies.
This is what it looks like…
This is another thing that I doubt can work as nicely in Israel. It doesn’t even work that well in HK either. It’s just amazing how – most times – people line up one after the other and wait for passengers to get out of the MRT before entering.
Feel like taking a short ride?
I must say that I prefer the English speaking lady in the Taipei MRT. Although the British accent HK MTR lady sounds the best, the Taipei MRT girl sounds exotic. I remember falling in love with her instantly.
BTW – did you know that Kaohsiung is also working on building a “Circular Light Rail Transit”?
Here’s what one of the stations looks like from the outside :
This specific station leads to one of Kaohsiung’s night attractions, called Urban Spotlight, hosting a few live music cafes with nice lighting.
Here’s from one of the live music performances in the cafe I was sitting in. I didn’t think much of this next video, till I suddenly noticed there’s a guy sleeping in the middle of the screen 🙂
Kaohsiung is looking better and better each time I visit there.
ye….!!
two months ago i also tried the KMRT in kaohsiung
that’s really cool because u know , taking a bus to any attraction spots in Taiwan is not convenient at all, of course including kaohsing. but now we have one more choice, that is KMRT, that really makes travelling easier…haha
dary – Yep, it does. It changes the whole “flow” (qi?) of the city. It’s not only faster commute, but less traffic, less pollution, airconditioned underground stations with public toilets and tourist info centers accessible everywhere. It revolutionizes the city.
One thing worth mentioning is that unlike the Taipei MRT which the toilet is located within the closed area only available for the passenger/pass holder, the Kaohsiung MRT provides the public toilet for everyone…very humane design~
Anonymous – it depends where you go. Most stations I know in Taipei have the public toilets outside and not in the paid zone. It is a wonderful contribution to the city, especially for tourists, and I can’t recall seeing that in many of the other subways across the world (Hong Kong doesn’t have that at all, for example).
Well…it’s ridiculous to pay for the public toilets in TWN, our legislators fought for this issue before that someone who had nature call but didn’t want to take the MRT still have to pay is unreasonable…
Really? In my memory,toilets in most MRT stations in Tpe are located only available for the MRT pass holders..if you really have to use it w/o taking MRT, you still have to use 悠遊 card to pass the entrance…ok…try to find out when I am in Tpe..