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

Beautiful Alishan

Hey there,

so today we went to Alishan (Ali mountain). I already wrote about the difficulties on getting the tickets for the forest railway up the mountain, and for this journey we didn't get any tickets. Instead we went by train to Chiayi and from there we took the bus to Alishan. All in all the journey lasted about five hours from Tainan.

Since I get sick easily on buses and I saw on google maps that the route up the mountain would be very curvy, JJ went to buy some motion sickness pills.
Until now google translate has been a great help everywhere we went, but this time it failed a little. On the way to the pharmacy JJ looked up the Chinese translation for "pill for motion sickness" and just showed that to the cashier. But she only shook her head and said no. So he went outside again and on the way back he double-checked and translated the Chinese back to English... It said "birth control pill". After translating only "motion sickness" while going back to the pharmacy he showed that translation to the cashier and successfully bought some motion sickness pills for me. :) Which also worked pretty well. I slept most of the bus ride and didn't get sick at all. But it is a lesson not to blindly trust google translate.

Around 13:30 h we got to Alishan. Since it is a closed park you have to pay an entrance fee of 150 NTD per person if you got there by bus. It's important to keep your bus ticket and show it to them. If you get there by car or motorcycle they charge you 300 NTD. If you stay inside the park for several days, like we do, you only have to pay the fee once. But if you, for instance, get a hotel that is outside of the park, you would have to pay the fee each time you go into the park (the 300 NTD then, since you didn't get there the same day by bus).

The park is separated into roughly three areas, the hotel area where all the hotels are located, the shopping/restaurant area which is right beside the hotel area and the biggest area: the park itself with the forest railway and all the trails for walking and hiking. In the park you can do all by foot (like us) or go to the different stations of the forest railway by train (however some stations are not really frequently driven to by the train and there are only three stations in total now) or take one of the several tourist buses that have various stops inside the park.

So after arriving we left our luggage at the hotel and went straight to the Alishan train station to get tickets for the famous sunrise train to Zushan (or Chusan) station since we already had heard that the train can be sold out rather quickly on busy days. We wanted to go on our second day here since it is a Friday and we thought then there maybe would be fewer tourists than on a Saturday. The train tickets are sold at Alishan station the day before between 13 and 16 pm or something like that and then the remaining tickets are also sold the morning of the departure. The schedule of the train changes according to when the sunrise is going to be. For us the train will leave at 5 am.

After buying the tickets (150 NTD for one way) we went to the local 7/11 convenience store (of course there is one here) to buy some snacks for tomorrow morning and then went into the park area to explore some of it.

As expected there were quite some tourists and tourist groups (mainly from China, Taiwan and Japan we think). However, since it was a Thursday I guess it wasn't as crowded. And it was getting later in the day (around 15 pm) so there were already many people heading back to the restaurant/hotel areas.
Despite the crowds, the park really is worth the visit! Especially in spring time, since there are many cherry blossom trees here. We seem to have arrived just a bit too early for the full bloom, but nonetheless it is beautiful.

a little snack, some kind of chewy dessert, a little like dango

the entrance of the park area

elephant tree trunk

three generations tree, where each tree grew out of the remains of the previous, dead tree

Tree spirit pagoda

sacred tree no. 2 (apparently the first one died and they elected another one to be sacred)

sacred tree station

at Ciyun Temple

After exploring the north-west side of the park for a bit we decided to watch the sunset at Ciyun temple. We expected to also be in a crowd for the sunset view, just like we expect the sunrise to be, however there were only two other couples there with us (one from USA and one from Taiwan).
But it was totally worth the wait!

the sea of clouds, which Alishan is famous for

the dog came to us while we waited for the sunset. he seemed to belong to the temple

The main walking trails (e.g. the trail from Ciyun temple back to the hotel area) are lit by lanterns, so you can find your way back after sunset without a problem.

For dinner we just bought some fried chicken (again, I know... it is just that good) and fried green beans and mochi and went to the hotel. We need to get up at 4 am in order to catch the train.

fried green beans

Hope you enjoyed reading, see you tomorrow.

Pia