Our deployment cruise is leaving from Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Taiwan is a large island located to the east of China. Japan is to the north and the Philippines are to the south. Kaohsiung, the second largest city in Taiwan, is located on the southwestern coast of the island (see map to the right). Kaohsiung is a major shipping port in Asia. In 2004 it was ranked the 6th largest container shipping port in the world!Our group has been in Taiwan for a little over two weeks preparing the equipment for the cruise. We've been pretty busy with work, but have had a little time to see a bit of the city. We visited the Jade market the first weekend we were here. This market is best known for the jade jewelry sold there (in addition to paintings, antiques, and other interesting items).
The video and pictures show a bit of the local scenery. The video shows a short clip of an area near our hotel. The pictures show an opera that we saw being performed as a part of a local festival, one of the many statues decorating the bike path near the warehouse where we've been working, a golden Buddha statue, and Lora riding a scooter!
Our ship is docked in Kaohsiung and is currently being loaded with all our equipment. In the next post we'll tell you more about the ship, and show you some pictures of the loading process!
