The long, narrow sandbar that protects Kaohsiung harbour from the open sea, reached by a five-minute ferry from Gushan Pier. Cijin feels like a different world from the city centre — a single main street of seafood restaurants and trinket shops opens onto the Cijin Beach on one side, and a short walk past a small temple takes you to the 19th-century Cijin Lighthouse and the Old Fort with their views over the harbour entrance.
The seafood street offers grilled squid, shrimp, sashimi from the morning's catch and the Cijin specialty of giant black sausage. A short tunnel at the foot of the hill (now the Cijin Tunnel art installation) is the old Japanese-era passage to the lighthouse.
A whole day is easy here if you swim, eat your way along the street and rent a tandem bike to go to the far end of the island. The ferry runs every ten minutes, day and night.