Everything in Nanzih

Food/Buildings/Store/Markets/Temples/Peolple

[itsbanjore]

The Chung Phu Temple

The Chung Phu Temple is just like other common temples. They have Guanyin, the Groundskeeper and Plague gods. However, worshiping is not my main purpose when I visit the temple. The temple is more like a playground to me.

My mom was so busy when I was little that she asked her sister to help nurse her daughter. My aunt, Yue-Mei liked to bring me to play at this Chung Phu Temple, which is near her home. There were a lot of mulberry trees along the walls of temple. I used to pick those juicy rubies as the dessert when I was tired and thirsted after running around. During the gods’ birthday, the committee of temple will set up glove puppetry to celebrate for the gods. When I was little, smartphone hadn’t come out yet, so the puppetry show was one of my favorite entertainments at that time. I remembered people would bring their chairs and kids, sitting in front of the stage and watching the old classic Chinese dramas. The puppetry is played in Taiwanese and that is one of the reasons why my Taiwanese is quite influent besides I grew up with the elders. When the kids of the community gathered, we would play a lot of games together. Sometimes we exchanged the toys tied on the milk from breakfast and sometimes we played hide and seek. We ran and screamed around the square of the temple, which was the best way to exercise. Nevertheless, the elders might be extremely annoyed.  

As the development of technology, children no longer go to the square in front of the temple. Each of them has a smartphone or even a tablet. They prefer play online games than the hide and seek after school. However, the Chung Phu Temple is still the best place for people in the community to seek for religious comfort and a stroll after meals.

[itsbanjore]

My favorite restaurant in Nanzih

I have been one of their loyal customers of Joyful House since they had started the business in Nanzih when I was in elementary school. I can even memorize all the dishes on menu without looking it. This is a restaurant ran by the Hsus. Mr. Hsu and his wife, Kitty are responsible for making coffee and serving customers while Mr. Hsu’s parents are responsible for cooking. There is always a table reserved for Alex and Eric, the sons of Mr. and Mrs. Hsu. The table is their VIP Study Area after school.

The ingredients of dishes are mostly homemade or organic planted because the Hsus want to provide high quality dishes to their customers. My favorite dish is Chicken Fried Rice. Though fried rice is a common dish in Taiwan, they use the newly milled rice from Mino to make this dish, which makes it slightly chewy and aromatic. Moreover, Grandma Hsu has been a professional chef in most of her life over past decades. She has the magic power to turn the dull rice into an extraordinary dish seasoned with salt and green onion. A set includes a main course, soup, fruit, drink and dessert. The soup is amazing too. It looks clear and contains a homemade fishball and various kinds of vegetables such as, pumpkin, bok choy, mushroom and seaweed. Most importantly, its sweetness comes from the pork bones that have been boiled with water for hours. The dessert is usually the part that I highly expect when I visit the restaurant. Depends on the shift of seasons, they provide sesame cookies, coffee ice-cream or even the pineapple cake. Of course, these desserts are homemade too.

Mrs. Hsu is a person who has a big heart. She always places a plate of pet food on the floor of the dooryard of the restaurant for stray dogs and cats. She always says those cats and dogs are their customers too and some of them even come to the restaurant every day. Since I visit the Joyful House once a week for almost ten years, the Hsus have become of my good friends in my life. They often share a lot of things in Nanzih with me and I will share the funny stories in school to them as well. As I grow up, the Joyful House is more like a place for me to connect with the people in Nanzih, completing the unfulfilled parts in my heart when my life has been drawn away from Nanzih gradually.

[itsbanjore]

My Favorite Jogging Route in Nanzih

My dad is a police officer, so he really cares about whether we have enough exercises in our daily life. Since I was in elementary school, he brought me to jog with him on the playground. Rounds after rounds. Until I was big enough, I started to run on my own. From the playground in the school to the roads outside of it. Usually, I prefer a 3 Km when I go back home. Therefore, I design my own jogging route in Nanzih.

Before jogging, I go to the Nanzih Elementary School and warm up. After all these years of jogging, stretching your body is the most important thing. It can prevent you from getting hurt and help you perform better. Along the walls of Nanzih Junior High School, I always like to take a look on my left side. There are a lot of students need to go to cram schools across the school on weekends. Every time when I see them working on the test papers, I feel so happy because I am not part of them, which makes me enjoy jogging more.

Turning right when the fire station is around the corner on my right side. There are various kinds of fitness equipments and basketball stands on the back of the station, which make me envy and try to add firefighter as my possible future job. However, I heard that sleeping with corpses is part of their training program. Thus, I think I will never play basketball with them.

In my point of view, I will divide Nanzih into two parts. One is the food and college students part and another is farms and train station part. The later one is where I live. Therefore, after turning left, farms that planted watermelons or vegetables will keep accompany me until the next two blocks. When I jog to here, I will slow down a little bit, taking a few deep breaths and helping those farmers check if there are thieves stealing their crops.

The halfway of 3km almost ends here at the end of the farms. If my condition is allowed at that day, I will head to the National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology. The school is so large that they have long slopes and stairs, which are the perfect natural treadmills. Whenever I want to improve my cardiopulmonary endurance, this is the best training place. However, I always feel ashamed when I come here. The elders always run faster than me. They can even do sets of push-up and pull-up while I squeeze the whole strength of my muscles, ending up lying on the floor.

Jogging has been my favorite sport since elementary school. It helps me clean up my minds and make me be more patient. However, as the student of NSYSU, I have to admit that school playground is also a good place to jog. When I am jogging, the magnificent sunset, mountains, sea are around me, which amaze me every time. Nevertheless, I am not exaggerated, but I think Nanzih is the best jogging spot in Kaohsiung. It’s not crowded and the roads are wide enough to run wherever you want. Also, you can appreciate the country scenes and even feed the horses if you jog toward the Ciaotou Sugar Refinery, which is super close to Nanzih.