Cheng Qing Hu

Last Sunday I went to Cheng Qing Hu in KaoHsuing. It is a large park built about the resevoir lake that supplies water to KaoHsuing. I had been there before but it is so large that I saw all new places this time. There is a children's Nature Park with lots of colorful displays and viewing areas.

 Being children's park, it would be hard for children to read the Chinese characters at each display. So the displays give not only the Chinese character names but also the phonetic prononciation of the Chinese characters. Those are the small black character is the plaque below next to the green Chinese characters. All school children in Taiwan can sound out Chinese characters using these symbols(so can I). The blue English names are the Latin classification name for those that really know their plants. This tree was of the honeysuckle family.

When we were there, the Summer Palace of Chiang Kai-shek, the ruler of Taiwan until 1975, was open to the public. KaoHsuing is much warmer than Northern Taiwan so President Chiang use to stay there in the winter. In his bedroom they had this old RCA television that must be about 35 years old. Of course it would not be a Sony because many refugees from the mainland blame the Japanese for weakening China during WWII so that the Communist could take over. 

There is a famous picture of Chiang looking out at ChengQing Hu so we all took turns posing in his position.

Even though it is Winter in Taiwan and unseasonably cold there are still flower displays in the park like this one. Kind of a universal symbol.