Taiwan also has a space shuttle  “Landing on the moon” to see the desolate landscape takes just one hour

Text & Photos / Ji Zihong  Excerpted from / “I Love Kaohsiung, and Also Snacks, Strolls, and Wasting Time” published by Flying Bird Season Society

Fortunately, there are convenient shuttle buses now. Otherwise, it would be almost as difficult for an average backpacker to get to the Moon World as it is to land on the moon. Anyway, it’s very easy nowadays — just take the MRT to Nangangshan Station, then transfer to Bus Red 70, and in about an hour’s “space shuttle” ride, you can “land on the moon” and feel the lunar surface trodden by Armstrong.

I often heard about this place when I was a child, but I always misheard “Moon World” as “Night World” (misled by someone with poor Mandarin pronunciation), wondering what was so different about the night there, and whether my own nights were more ordinary and dull. As I grew up and got the pronunciation and the real name right, and after actually visiting a few times, I grew to deeply love this barren badland of mudstone geology. Because not a single blade of grass grows on the cliffs, you can clearly see the cracked and crumbling textures of the parched earth. Though you can only view it from a distance, it’s more beautiful when appreciated with some space. The first time I came, the lakeside walking path in the park had just been completed. Walking around it really gave off a “bare walls” kind of desolation. Of course, the unique mudstone geological features are still wildly charming. Even though everything you see is barren and bleak, it paradoxically stirs a feeling of finding hope in despair within you.

On my most recent visit, colorful flowers and plants had been planted at the park entrance — their vivid hues suddenly made the grayish-white barren badlands behind them look adorable. It’s an effect of contrast: if it were just a cluster of bright flowers, placed in any park in Kaohsiung it would be just another ordinary landscaping feature. But set against the backdrop of the Moon World, the flowers appear even more vibrant, the cold, hard ridges more three-dimensional and fantastical. Aspiring best-selling fantasy novelists must come here — inspiration is everywhere. Those who feel hopeless about life and the future should also come here; the scenery before you is more despairing than anything in your heart, so you’re sure to leave with hope and confidence, happy to go home. There’s also one more type of person who should visit: couples in love. No matter how many times a guy says, “I love you until the seas run dry and the rocks crumble,” it’s not as effective as coming to the Moon World together and witnessing true “seas running dry and rocks crumbling” — that speaks louder than any sweet nothings.