Alishan Sunrise and stairs

Hello again,

so yesterday we woke up at 4 am to catch the forest railway to Zhushan (also Chushan) station.
Since we read in many blogs that it can get crowded and we wanted to have a seat in the train and a good spot to view the sunrise on the mountain, we were at Alishan station around 4:20 am. There was already a queue for boarding the train, although the train itself left around 5 am... We couldn't board the train until a little before that, since the train was being inspected before leaving (which is good I guess).

waiting for the train

here comes the train!

We were very lucky and got a seat on the train. The journey takes about 30 min and being as tired as we were it was really relieving not to be one of the passengers having to stand the whole journey. The train was also pretty crowded. And there seem to be multiple trains going up to the sunrise, since there are so many people who want to experience Alishan sunrise.
As expected we didn't see much along the ride, since there was no sunlight ;).
Upon arrival we hurried up a little to get to Mt. Ogasawara Viewing Lot, instead of Zhushan Viewing Point. Zhushan Viewing Point is directly in front of the train station and almost everyone stays there. In order to get to Mt Ogasawara Viewing Lot you have to turn right when exiting the train station and follow the road, which is a little confusing, since the way goes down for a bit and the Viewing Lot is located a little higher up. The path then goes up until you reach the platform. It takes about 10 min to get there from the station, so it's not that bad to do at this early hour.
We were the very first ones to reach the platform, which allowed us to set up the tripod at the best spot for photos (at least we think it was the best spot). Not long after, other tourists arrived, and after a while it also got a little crowded. Just before sunrise some slightly rude women squeezed in between us and the other people already there to get a better view, and better pictures with her phone...
Since I didn't write about it in the last blog entry, the entrance area (hotel, and shopping area and Alishan station) is located at around 2200 m above sea level. Mt. Ogasawara is located at 2488 m. The view is really spectacular and we were really lucky regarding the weather!

That was the moment everyone was going "Ahhh!" and "Ohhh!"

If you are visiting, be advised that, due to the height, Alishan is about 5 to 10 degrees Celsius lower than the coast. So right now it is about 20 degrees. Of course, in the morning before sunrise it will be cooler so be prepared for that! Also the hotels don't have heating (or at least ours doesn't), so if you are here during winter time it might be good to bring warm clothes for sleeping too.
After being swept away by the great view of the sunrise and having taken about 1000 pictures it was time to head back to the restaurant area to get our breakfast. The breakfast is included in our hotel fee but it is not served in our hotel, but in a restaurant in the area.
We noticed that most people viewing the sunrise seem to take the train back down to Alishan (just after sunrise most of the people already leave, maybe due to the train schedule). We decided to walk down instead, since the weather was really nice. The trail down takes about an hour (with several stops for taking photos) and it is pretty easy (about 3.6 km).

the train going down the mountain

old locomotive at Zhaoping station

After arriving at the restaurant we ate our breakfast, which yet again was a Chinese style buffet with lots of warm vegetable, meat dishes, rice porridge and steamed buns or toast with chocolate spread, peanut butter or (what they call) jam. The coffee tasted pretty bad, but the rest was good.
We were really tired and also wanted to leave the tripod at the hotel, so we headed back and took a quick 45 min nap there.
A little refreshed we headed into the park towards the Sister ponds. We also found the jelly drink that I got in Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Museum: it is called Aiyu jelly. It's a jelly made out of the seeds of the awkeotsang creeping fig and is only normally made in Taiwan or Singapore.

Aiyu jelly

pig shaped tree stump

Sister pond

From there the slightly bigger Tashan trail starts, which we wanted to do. At the entrance there was a sign that said that only fit people should go on the trail and that you should check your gear before going up etc. Let me just say the trail is not the easiest (compared to the main area of the park) but it is very doable, even without special hiking gear. It is about 3.5 km long (so 7 km total to go up and down) and you climb 450 m. The peak is at 2663 m above sea level. But don't forget that in order to get to the start of the trail you also have to get there either by walking about 2 km, like we did, or by riding the forest railway to Zhaoping station.
Maybe it wasn't the greatest idea to do the trail after having slept too little and therefore being exhausted, also I think I will have nightmares about stairs...
So many stairs... We don't get why the Taiwanese have to build stairs everywhere...

 

 

But as you can see, the trail is beautiful. There are many birds there, and a sign said that there are also monkeys living in the area. We didn't see any unfortunately, however we are pretty sure we heard some near the peak.
There are also some huge bees and supposedly snakes. So be careful. We saw the bees but they weren't aggressive. However we also always walked away quickly when we heard/saw them.
At the peak the weather was not too great. It was a little flashback to hiking in Jiufen... However not as bad as in Jiufen. We saw a little bit of the mountain at least.

While going down again we met a Chinese couple that asked us how far they were from the peak, and when we told them it was maybe 30 min or so to get to the top, they decided to head down with us instead.
A good amount of the trails runs right beside the train tracks of the sunrise train, which only goes in the morning I believe). While going up we saw a lot of people going on the train tracks and the Chinese couple told us that it was okay to do so, so we decided to go with them on the tracks. However I was pretty sure that it was not allowed (at other locations we had seen signs, also in English, that said that it was forbidden to go on the train tracks) and after some time there was another of the same signs... However we were already quite far along the track and the couple kept saying it was okay... Well, we weren't arrested or anything... But next time I would stick to the official path I guess...

Although we were pretty exhausted from all the stairs we decided to walk to No. 28 Giant tree (they seem to give numbers to all the big trees), which is the oldest and biggest tree in the park (about 2000 years old, 43 m tall) and to Shenyi Waterfall (which is not what we would consider a real waterfall, at least not with the small amount of water that was flowing down...).

No. 28 Giant tree with me for scale

Shenyi "waterfall"

 

After that we were REALLY exhausted and went for some hot pot for dinner.

 

 

 

And then went straight to bed... According to my Garmin watch we walked almost 35000 steps and climbed 207 floors (around 630 m).

Thank you for reading!

Pia

Rilakkuma and Taipei 101

Hello again,

we started this day by grabbing some coffee at the nearby Family Mart and walking to Ximen Station. From there we took the MRT to Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall.

The memorial hall itself is not as impressive as the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial but it has a beautiful little park and the views towards Taipei 101 are quite stunning. Unfortunately the hall was closed due to yearly maintenance... Yes, we managed to go there on one of the three days per year they do that maintenance.

 

 

Last time I was in Taipei, I went to the Hello Kitty Cafe and loved it. So this time I wanted to try another themed cafe. The Rilakkuma Cafe (also a mascot from Japan, just as Hello Kitty) was a logical choice (I have a plushy at home). :)

I wasn't disappointed. The Cafe is beautifully decorated and the food was also quite good. Although you should expect higher prices than in a normal cafe. Just consider it paying for the decorations.

All the food is Rilakkuma themed, so our pancakes and the cheesecake came in the Rilakkuma shape and our Matcha Latte and Black tea latte came with a little drawing of Kiiroitori (the little yellow chick) and a little Rilakkuma face.

 

 

 

Taiwanese people tend to drink their milk tea and coffee rather sweet, and some sweets (like the cheese cake we ordered) can be quite sweet. I wonder if many people here get diabetes... Or if they just don't drink and eat that much of the sweet stuff. If possible we always ask for no sugar. But in case you forget to ask you most certainly will have ordered a very sweet drink. Most of the times they let you order without sugar though (it only happened twice that they said they couldn't give us the drink without sugar).

Since later that day we wanted to go up Elephant mountain, a popular sun set viewing spot with terrific views of Taipei 101, and JJ had forgotten to bring his tripod, we decided that he would go back to the Hotel in order to get it and I stayed behind waiting by the Sun Yat-Sen memorial hall so we didn't have to pay for two people for the journey in the MRT.

Since our Hotel (located near Longshan Temple) was pretty far away it took a while for JJ to return. So when I was back we decided to eat at Din Tai Fung as a late lunch.

I highly recommend you go there! It is a little more expensive than the average restaurant here, but it is very convenient and easy to order typical and very delicious Chinese food there. The staff speaks English rather well and the menu also comes in English. Din Tai Fung is most famous for their Xiao Long Bao, soup dumplings. As the name suggests they are dumplings filled with very juicy pork. Be sure to try them!! They are sold in other places too, but as I said, Din Tai Fung is a safe bet and very easy for foreigners who don't speak the language.

As far as I know you can't reserve at Din Tai Fung but have to take a number and wait for your table to be ready. The estimated waiting time is shown on a screen. We were very lucky (I assume because we were quite late for lunch) and just had to wait 10 minutes to get a table. You don't order your food at the table, instead the system is very efficient and you get a small sheet where you write your order while waiting for your table to be ready. Once your table is ready you give the ordering sheet to the waitress.

The food also comes rather quickly and free tea is served (so you don't necessarily need to order drinks).

They also give you a little information card on how to eat your Xiao Long Bao the right way :D

You first have to carefully take one, dip it in the vinegar/soy sauce/radish (that you mix previously in the small dish with radish that they give you), then put it on the spoon. Since the dumplings are very hot inside (especially the broth inside) you then have to poke a little hole into the dumpling, so the steaming hot broth pours out a bit to cool down. Then you can proceed to eat the dumpling.

Xiao Long Bao and braised eggplant

Shrimp and pork dumplings and stir fried Taiwanese lettuce

spicy shrimp won ton

you can watch them make the dumplings in the restaurant

 

Since the day was quite nice (the clouds had almost disappeared) we decided to check out the Taipei 101 Observatory.

We expected long waiting lines in order to buy our tickets (600 NT$ per ticket) and in order to go up using the fastest elevator in the world (16.38 m per second, they get you from the fifth to the 89th floor in 37 seconds). However we were lucky again and could go straight up.

As expected the views were stunning and the building's tuned mass damper, that you can see at the 88th floor is rather impressive. The damper is the largest damper sphere in the world (5.5 m diameter, 660 tons) and reduces the buildings movement during strong winds and earthquakes by up to 40 % (source: the info screens around the damper and wikipedia). Since the damper is a popular tourist attraction now, the city designed the so called damper babies as mascots.

 

 

the buildings damper

one of the so called damper babies

After spending some time on the observatory we headed back down in order to climb Elephant mountain in time for the sun set.

The climb is not that long (it took us about 20 - 30 min, but we didn't rest until we were at the top) but sometimes the stairs are very steep. The mountain is very popular among tourists at dawn so be prepared for some crowds. If you want to have a good spot for some photography you should consider coming a little earlier and/or climb a little further than most of the tourists.

Since we were a little late we climbed a little higher and found a little spot for JJ's tripod.

The view is well worth the climb.

 

 

Afterwards we wandered a bit through Xinyi, the more expensive neighborhood around Taipei 101 and went back to the Hotel.

 

 

That's it for this day.

Thank you for reading!

Pia