Taiwan 11 Days Trip (3) - Alishan

16th November 2014

After Fenqihu, me and CY took bus to Alishan from Fenqihu. Once we reached Alishan, CY rushed to the train station to buy the next day train ticket to Chushan 祝山. While I stayed to take care of the bags. Then, a travel agency staff came over and introduced a package to go to Hehuanshan 合欢山, she told me that for past few days, due to the weather, the Chushan sun rise was a no-show, while Hehuanshan sun rise was seen for past few days, I was in a dilemma, actually I was prepared for a no-show sun rise because the weather was not nice. However, presented with another alternative didn't make me happy, I hate too much choices. At the end, CY and me decided to stick to original plan, we would stay in Alishan and hoped for the Chushan sun rise.

After that, we checked into our hotel, Alishan Shermuh Hotel. Then, we left and walked around the Alishan Station. Well, the structure was quite special, it's a wooden building and I think it looks a bit like the rumah panjang in Sarawak from far. Around 5pm, the day went completely dark, and we felt hungry and cold, so we chose to eat steamboat in a restaurant there, the taste was so so only and we ended up buying oden in 7-11 to eat in our hotel room. Ah, we should have just had convenience shop oden for dinner because the steamboat dinner was not cheap, and the most importantly, not nice. Well, it's on the mountain, they probably needed to bring all the stuffs from the ground and it added to the cost. Anyway, Taiwan has many wild boar dishes, when we went to the restaurant, the waiter suggested we go for a wild boar themed steam boat, but I didn't eat wildlife, so didn't choose that. After that, another group of tourists came to the restaurant, and the matriarch just directly said no to wild boar, she said anything ok, but not wildlife. Sounds like my mother, hahaha!

Alishan Train Station

Alishan Train Station (the digital thermometer showed that it's 14 degree Celsius then)

17th November 2014

I forgot what time (around 4am, I think), the hotel morning called us very early on the morning so that we could catch the train to Chushan to see sunrise. I didn't know about CY, but I was still very sleepy and felt that don't want to wake up, I had barely sleep the night before. However, we came to Alishan for the sunrise, so after wearing layers of clothing, we walked to the train station. When we reached there, the queue was so long already, I was surprised because it was Monday, I didn't expect such a huge crowd. After some time, we got into the train and it was very crowded, like a morning rush hour to work. Well, along the way to Chusan from Alishan, all I could see from the window was darkness.

Finally, we reached the Chushan station. It was drizzle outside, and in my heart, I knew that we won't be able to see the sunrise. However, we preserved, stayed there and hope for the best. Me and CY stood at the platform with many other tourists armed with umbrellas. 

reaching Chushan

out of Chushan station to see sunrise

When we were waiting there, a forestry department guide (I think) explained the history of Alishan to us and all about the trees and the woods. We waited and waited until people started to leave, well the day was starting to get brighter and the rain became quite heavy. Sunrise was confirmed a no-show. 

spider web with dew

the sunrise didn't come and I took this instead

people leaving in droves after making sure that the sunrise was covered by the cloud

We felt wasted if we just left like that, so we walked around the Chushan Station. Well, if the weather was good, the view would be more beautiful. 

nearby Chushan Station

Then, took the train and back to Alishan Station. We went to a restaurant (included with the hotel stay) to eat breakfast. The hotel we stayed didn't have a restaurant, Many people were there in the restaurant for breakfast, I guessed all just returned from the Chushan Station. After breakfast, we started our Alishan Scenic Area trip. Actually, initially we wanted to buy the bus ticket from Alishan to Sun Moon Lake on 9am after breakfast next to 7-11, but instead of that, we started to tour the area first, we planned to buy the ticket after the tour. Bad move, the ticket sold out when we finished our tour. 

trails in Alishan

trails in Alishan

Anyway, we just followed other tourists along the way. The rain was not as big as the morning, just drizzle. So, we still could see the sceneries, lucky. 

trees in Alishan

Saw many odd shaped trees along the trail, it's not named. Well, it would be nicer if there are names for these. 

Special Odd shaped Trees in Alishan

Alishan

We just followed the trail and enjoyed the greeneries. Well, to tell the truth, I was very tired. I am never the athlete type, due to time constraint, we walked real fast, and I forced myself to move forward when reached the slope. I was ok with flat area though. Luckily still have all those beautiful pictures as a reward for "walking" so hard.

Sisters Pond 姐妹潭

Anyway, saw two trunks that shaped like pig and heart. Both have names to go with it. The pig shaped is named "happiness from golden pig 金豬報喜" and the heart shaped is named as "forever one heart 永結同心". lol! 

left: happiness from golden pig 金豬報喜; right: forever one heart永結同心

We continued and by the time we reached 3-generation wood, it was getting nearer to 11am. The crowd was unbelievable, so many people. If earlier, we could spend time to admire and took photos of the scene alone, now almost every photos I took were full of human beings. Well, I must be on someone else photos too. 

For the 3-generation wood, I remembered the Yakushima third generation cedar, I engaged a tour guide then and he explained all the stuffs, quite useful because my Japanese was not up to the mark. For this trip, we just walked and read the information board, not bad also, learnt something. 

Alishan 3 generation wood

around Alishan

After covering all the important spots, me and CY rushed to take the bus back to the Alishan Station to tourist information centre. We wanted to buy the bus tickets to Sun Moon Lake. Unfortunately, all the tickets were sold out. Sad! Luckily, a taxi driver was there to wait for customer to go back to Sun Moon Lake, the taxi driver initially ferried people from Sun Moon Lake to Alishan and he didn't have customers for the return trip. The initial price per car was 6000 NTD, CY haggled and it was down to 2000 NTD, but he asked us to wait so that he could find more people, we agreed and back to the hotel to arrange the luggage and checked out. It was a close shave, we almost missed the check out time, 11am. 

Anyway, the taxi driver came to find us not long after, he couldn't find other customer, and we went to Sun Moon Lake in a 6-person taxi. Along the way, the weather was not nice, and the road was mountain road, although I was very tired, I was too scared to sleep, the driver drove like he was in a F1 race! Ahhhh. On the road to Sun Moon Lake, the driver stopped at a photograph spot, and told us that it's "husband and wife" tree, we just took our camera, out of the taxi, ran, took photo and ran back. The rain was quite heavy then.

Alishan was quite nice, it would be better if I could see the sunrise!

husband and wife tree

Day 1: Reached Taiwan
Day 2: Fenqihu
Day 3: Alishan 
Day 4: Sun Moon Lake
Day 5: Cingjing
Day 6 & 7: Taichung & Changhua (1, 2, 3, 4)
Day 8: Taipei
Day 9: Taipei
Day 10: Taipei
Day 11: Home