Taipei 201611 – Alishan

Exchange rate S$1 to NT$21.90

15 Nov 2016 Tuesday

Today I hav to wake up at like 7.30am to go Alishan. Omg n I m like so sleepyyyy… But I got free breakies! Hehe Cuz Fengling dun wan eat so she ask me go.

So I took the subway to Taipei Main Station, exit e gantry then walk over to HSR side. I tot of buying round trip but their round trip must b on same day and like no discount lei.

So in end I jz buy Reserved Seats @ NT$1035 Cuz like only NT$10 diff from Non-Reserved ones.

My train direction is towards Zuoying, reminds me of e time I went Kenting. Train looks abt e same as then.

I actually manage to stay awake for the whole 1.5hr journey! Hehe… When I alight train, i approach my fav customer service and she told me bus bay 3 and the bus is leaving at 11. Ask me hurry haha… But I decided to go pee first Cuz I rem its a 2+ hr journey.

Actually I v Heng, if I miss the 1100hr bus, Nxt bus is 1300hr liao hahah… I only figure out how to check when I reached Alishan. Link is at http://www.cybus.gov.tw/form/index.aspx?Parser=2,9,178

Bus ride costs NT$271. Must pay exact or U can tap e EasyCard but must rem to tap when U get off e bus.

Bus uncle con ppl. Haha someone asked if there’s a pitstop for loo, he said yes 30 min later. In e end, the pitstop came at like 12.30pm and its Cuz e same guy ask again.

At like 1.30pm, we reached Alishan le!! I tell U this Alishan is just pay n pay. Entry into this railway area need to pay NT$150.

When we alight, there is this guy wearing red vest tat looks like frm tourism board and he start directing us to where our hotels are. He also offered sunrise tour then he said look for him at 7-11. Why not visitor centre de? The Alishan visitor centre so big somemore.

Anyway I went to visitor centre to ask abt such tours, they said … We undertake e tours at our own risk. They dun recommend. Ok…. Where e red vest guy come frm?!

Went to Dafong Villa to do check in. Outside looks v nice.

Recept not v helpful. I asked abt sunrise tour, she said go train station buy tix. I’m like offering to b her carrot lei. Then in e evening, I came back suddenly got guy touting at recept table liao. Too bad. I not keen liao.

My room is at Lvl 3 right Nxt to e stair way n in front of water cooler hehe… No lifts so better dun bring luggage here. The door has no latch! Just a lock.

Room is tiny. I can’t imagine 2 ppl staying in this room. Oh oh the hair dryer actually hav a thin layer of dust over it and the opening there actually melted le. Super disgusting.

Dump my luggage and off I go to do this 2 hr train ride thingy. I also shun Bian bought my sunrise train tix. The to-and-fro Zhu San for sunrise is NT$300.

The 7-min train ride to Chaoping is NT$150. So from Chaoping, U will take a 50 min walk to Sacred Tree station to take e train back to Alishan. At Sacred Tree station, hav to buy train tix back and its cost NT$100. Last train at 4.30pm. This map is shown at ticketing booth. Quite clear.

So off I hop onto e train. Not a lot of ppl. Last train is 3.30pm hehe i board at 2.30pm. Not many ppl onboard. Got this grp of auntie uncle sat in front of me and got taiwanese accent and non-taiwanese accent. I was v curious where they frm. Then… I offered to help them take pic and e auntie asked where I frm. I said Spore and they said they are too! I was like Hmm but gt taiwanese accent. They said they hired a driver to drive them ard. They came up frm Taitung or Taichung then will b going down at night so they not doing e sunrise. Auntie’s husband said I look like Taiwanese 😀 just as pretty right? Haha

This is the quaint train that brought us up.

After we alight at Chaoping, this is what greet us!

Nice right? I Tink this is e nicest part of e walk le. Slightly further down is this hotel

No wonder they got provide transport from Alishan visitor centre there. Walk walk walk and enter a forest lo! Tall straight trees ard. It may sounds creepy but the trees are actually quite majestic.

And amazingly, there’s always ppl ard me so it’s not too scary hehe and my pokemon go was on! So if anything happens to me, Google can Erm locate me? Haha… See! There’s really no one ard….

Walk walk walk and I reached e temple where there is a puppet show playing hehe the puppets r like throwing out water, sweets n money randomly. Over here, suddenly e trail signs not v clear le. If I haven’t walked past e shops, I would hav missed this tiny sign

As we descend the stairs, there is a T-junction and everyone was lost there so I jz hang back abit and then…. Follow e crowd turn left haha … And finally reached e 神木 station at 3.45pm! I m in time for the 2nd last train at 4pm hehe

And this is the end of the railway track like how cool right~

Bought tix and see its NT$100 for like a few minutes ride again! Zzzzz….

Temp then is 15 degrees le. Sure hope train come fast before temperature dive haha saw a lot of signs hanging ard warning ppl of the drastic change in temperature between day n night.

 

On e route back, I heard someone saying can go watch sunset. Upon alighting train, I saw the sun hanging big and round frm e train station lookout area. So there is nothing much to do so I went back room chill then come out again.

I nua until too happy then left room close to 5. As I cross e carpark, I saw FarFetch on e screen!

I.FINALLY.CAUGHT.FARFETCH!! hahahah my fren said i can go home liao…. heheh heng the Farfetch didnt take too long to catch then I hurriedly go up the long flight of stairs to catch my sunset.

Not sure is it cuz of high altitude, I felt very breathless climbing a few flights of stairs even from hotel to the visitor centre. Heng la! i still manage to catch! the sunset i mean … i caught the sunset at the 2nd lvl of train station ie just outside platform.

 

Soooooo pretty… the skies r clear! so nothing is blocking the sun. Its the perfect egg yolk. There are like <20 ppl ard hehe which is such a waste cuz its really a perfect sunset. Sunset really v fast. 1 moment its abv e horizons, nxt moment its sinking then its gone liao….

But its ok… we still got 晚霞

After sunset, I went back to the restaurants area. Walked up n down, looked at a few menu…. and decided to eat…

at 7-11! haha Alot of steamboat places but they got min order spending and its for more ppl kind. Then my lunch place serve cold food so i might as well eat 7-11. At least got microwave so the food will be hot. And as i ate, there was Mayday song playing in e backgrd. And that 梅子绿  is 1 of my fav drinks in TW. This is life….

The 7-11 has a bench for “dine-ins” but it only seats 4. Cuz its v cold outside so alot of ppl huddle inside. Nxt to me sat this single lady. We both alone so started chatting. She is from Beijing and she came up alone too. She came up from Chiayi via private car at NT$300 which is actually quite cheap considering my bus trip is NT$271. But she need to wait for the driver to find other customers to form a carload. So in the end she reached Alishan at 4+pm just in time for sunset and then…. her private car is coming to pick her at 8pm or so. Wah?! She didnt even tour the forest area. Just come up see sunset. Winz liao.

Nxt to 2 of us sat a PRC couple from Shanghai. They also reached at 4+pm so they also jz caught the sunset in time. But they staying 1 night to watch e sunrise. They asking the Beijing lady for e driver contact so that they can take e private car down. They wanted to jio me together but cuz they still want to tour the forest area so timing no match.

I hanged out with them a while then I went back to room to nua lo. Like so early back in room I also abit lost do what…. So bathe lo… Heng this lousy accom still got decent hot water.

Then I went to bed at 10+pm cuz need to wake up at 4.30am…. And…… I COULDN’T FALL ASLEEP! I tossed n turned. There was this humidifier/heater in the room so I on it. Then it will run a while then auto off then after a while, it will on again. So when it’s off, the room is like super silent. It’s deafening silence cuz I locked the windows too. So I tried to play some music and still cant sleep! At 3+am, I gave it for gone cause and woke up.

16 Aug 2016 Wednesday

I washed up and left room at 4.45am. At lobby is the tour guide from previous day. Guess he waiting for the ppl who booked the tour.

It was 9 degrees Celsius! There is this pillar that shows the time and temperature of the place. The night before I was still wondering if it will be very scary to walk at 4+am but ok la there were some ppl ard. U dun really feel its like 4+am since the 7-11 is opened.

When i reached train station, there was a queue! So I go KPO. hehe wah still can buy tix on that day wan. My research says must buy the day before. hehe but i also tink buy e day before safer. Imagine u wake up at 4am and tix run out!! Got counter to track number of tix left.

I see so many ppl, hurry go up to the platform at 2nd level and start queuing. Then got this grp of ppl no tics but they also in the queue so when the queue start moving, they hav to let ppl go ahead cuz they still waiting for their guide to buy tix. 😛

As we wait for the train to arrive, i saw this father-daughter pair. so the daughter wants to take pic but the father keep taking unsatisfactory pics so the daughter niam her dad but in such a teh way that it doesnt sound niam at all. These Taiwanese girls r just amazing.

The train is superbly packed. Got ppl standing too! Think there are 2 trains this morn. The number of trains is dependent on no of the tix sold e day before i tink. Tats why they announce the train set off time at 4.30pm the prev day.

I chatted with the father-daughter pair from earlier. This is their 2nd time going to see sunrise at Alishan. E prev time the girl was still a kid. The dad says the sunrise is just amazing and is the highlight of alishan. They also book a car to come up and stayed for 1 night.

We reached Zhu Shan just before 6am. Skies already show light liao.

And it was so cold here!! The couple next to me brought a thermos flash of hot drink. I so envy them. On the other side of me is this group of students. Got some aunties behind them who keep pushing them forward. 1 girl “complained” in such a gentle and girly manner. I’m like super amazed. How they do it. I must learn sia.

As the skies get brighter, my neck gets longer, I keep peering ard to see where the sun will come from. I even used the compass on my iPhone lol…

Finally at 6.40am, the sun is out!

But the sun is sooooo bright. You cant really stare at it so cant see the egg yolk. Not like sunset from the night before. I think its totally not worth it to wake up at 4am to see this sunrise. I learnt that…. sunset or sunrise shld watch frm horizons wan then can see e egg yolk. By the time it rises above the mountains, it will be too bright to stare at it ba.

If I ever go Alishan again, think I wanna go Yushan to see the sunrise. Cuz there is the 云海. I nvr seen sun peeping out from sea of clouds before.

After the sun got way above the mountains, ppl start to disperse from the railing le. Took tis nice looking pavilion

And also the sign of where I watched the sunrise.

Then I hopped onto the 7am train to go back to the Alishan main area lo. Sooooo tired… I anyhow eat some porridge at some restaurant with my hotel’s breakies voucher then go back room n sleep lo! Still managed to catch Far Fetch along the way. Hahah this time I can sleep le! Think got sleep for ard 2 hrs.

Outside 7-11 got paste the bus timetable so I was targeting to take the 1040hr bus.

hehhe I arrived 30 min earlier so walked ard to spin pokestop and chanced upon the Alishan post office!

And also this wall that I been spinning pokestop on haha…

Hieee finally I see you in real life instead of just as a pokestop haha… And this marks the last pic in Alishan lo… Bye Bye Alishan! I think I wun be back so soon… Too long a journey for little sights :p But its ok! I ticked 1 item off checklist lo! I visited Alishan!! 😀