So Johnny, James, Scott and I started off our trip to Taizhong by leaving about 10 in the morning. We went to Taipei main station where we went to the machine, this was a mistake. We all got seats but the were in different cars. It was a 2 and half hour ride on a train that consisted mostly of listening to music. The scenery was interesting, you really get a sense of how compact Taiwan is. There are so many people living on this island there are little towns built into every useable patch it seems. Once the ride was over we found ourselves in Taizhong.
We needed to take a bus to get to our hostel. We found the number but then we realized we were going in the totally opposite direction. So we had to make a quick transfer to the other side of the road. What was nice is our public transport cards worked in Taizhong, but the policy was different than in Taipei. Eight kilometers in any direction is free with our cards, so we never paid for the bus ride. We got to the hostel and quickly dropped off our stuff. We then swung out to go find some food and to meet Scott’s cousin, Jeremy. Before we met up with him we wandered around our area. Nothing particularly exciting but the little snacks we got were very yummy.
Jeremy took us around into the Feng Shi night market. It was a bustling market, apparently its fairly famous. We ended up getting some Teppenyaki were they grilled the food right in front of us. It was absolutely delicious. My order was extremely spicy, which is how I ordered it. When Jeremy took a piece his eyes started watering. After that we wandered the market a bit before getting on a bus and heading back to the hostel. Once there I went inside to take a shower and a small break in the air conditioned room. I got a call from Johnny and he said I should come down to play cards. We played a full game of Rummy. At some point the hostel people made us Mango smoothies that were fantastic. We headed off to bed, it was going to be an early day.
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| Outside our Hostel |
We started at 4 in the morning so we could get to the train station in time for the first train out of Taizhong. Our goal was Alishan, a famous mountain area. We took a taxi to the train station and watched the sunrise on the platform and watched totally rise on the train. It was very peaceful. We got into the transfer area and bought our bus tickets for the next bus. It ended being this little minibus. Our bus driver was fantastic, he just hauled us up the mountain. The ride was very windy and the roads narrow. We were all laughing at how the man drove us up there. We arrived at about 10 in the morning.
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| Johnny was very excited... |
First order of business once out of the bus was to locate a cup of coffee and some food. We found this little noodle stand that had some awesome food. We were really pleased about it to the point where it was decided we would come back for dinner. After food we took a short little train ride up to the first area for hiking. Te first area was the scared woods where the Taiwan Red Cypresses were all between 500 to 1500 years old. The area looked a lot like the Sequoia National forest. Then we hiked up to the Temple on the mountain. It was extremely beautiful and incredible large as it was not shoved in the middle of the city.
After that we found ourselves a trail and just followed it. We just kept going it took us by a few ponds and other little scenic areas. Then at some point it started drizzling, but just kept going. We followed the abandoned train tracks for a good two hours. It was absolutely beautiful. The rain started getting to heavy so we made our way back. We took another train to the base and then found ourselves more food. This section of the journey is best shown in pictures.
By this point it was about 3:00 pm so we still had a good two hours before we left. We went into the train station which was out of the rain and played cards. Yet another round of Rummy. We headed down got some snack for the ride down and hopped the bus. The return journey we got to watch a beautiful sunset, but due to the bumpiness of the bus I did not get any good pictures. We were glad to be back on solid ground, bus ride down made us all a little bit nauseous. We then hopped a train back to Taizhong.
Upon our return to the hostel I took a quick shower and was pretty much done at that point. It was a lot of fun and probably my fondest memory of Taiwan so far. Alishan was a gorgeous place to visit, I hope to make it back someday. We all stayed up and chatted for bit just talking about our individual experiences traveling around. It was just nice to get out of Taipei for a few days.
Today we got up and went to a local famous breakfast place. The ‘egg toast’ was actually an egg sandwich but it was pretty good. It hd some kind of sauce on it that made it tasty. We then sat around in the hostel messing around on the internet and playing one last round of Rummy. We said our good bye and headed for the train station one last time. The ride back to Taipei was a good 2 and half hours. Everyone was so tired that we pretty much slept through it. We got home about 6 in the afternoon. I’d say overall this trip was epic. I had a great time with James, Johnny and Scott. Now time to grind some homework and get to bed. Tomorrow is a test, this should be interesting... Good night!!
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