Friday, May 9, 2008

Alishan 阿里山國家風景區


We managed to take the famous Alishan Forest Railway up to Alishan. The train service has been down for almost 20 days, and we were lucky enough to get tickets to its very first ride after repair! There were lots of VIP and reporters accompanying us on the ride as show in the picture here.


We sat in the first carriage of the train, which unfortunely had a broken down aircon. Although we were invited to move to a an aircon carriage, we decided to stay as the temperature will be getting cooler as we move upwards. What a great decision! They decided to open the train door for us to let in some fresh air! And this is the view of our carriage, with the front door open as the train make its way up Alishan! It was such a joy ride, almost like in an Indiana Jones movie, but without being kick in the ass for it :)


This is a photo of the hotel we stayed in - Shermun Hotel (神木) taken the day we left Alishan with all the mist surrounding it. Temperature then was 11 degree Celsius, at the height of 2.5km above sea level. The hotel cost us S$105 per night. We stayed for two nights.

One of the highlight of Alishan are the giant trees around it. The photo here shows the Giant Tree Trails. We were surrounded by over 40 giant tree which has been around for 800 - 1300 years! Can you imagine what it might be like to live that long??? The other highlight of Alishan is of course the famous sunrise. We woke at an unearthly hour of 3:30am to catch it, but the weather was just too cloudy to get a good view. Thankfully the night trip to watch the fireflies was much more fruitful :)


Lastly this is my fave photo of Alishan, the misty and mysterious forest of Alishan captured here in the photo. It was taken on our last day there when a heavy mist decided to cover the whole mountain white. It was lovely, and peaceful at the same time. This view is just a few steps outside of our hotel!

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