Alishan | 阿里山

 Last weekend I took an overnight bus for six hours (9PM - 3AM)* to Alishan, which is one of Taiwan's most visited tourist attractions and its most famous place to watch the sunrise.

*(irrelevant sidenote: I want to mention that the 9PM-3AM is the worst time to take the bus from Toronto to Montreal. Did it once. Never again.)

Though the travel guides say to "dress warmly" for Alishan, the weather forecast told me Alishan would only hit a low of 22, and a high of 28. Perfect for shorts, right? Nope. The driver said it would be 10-15 degrees up there. Everyone else on the bus had sweaters, long pants, some even had blankets and down jackets (the cool thin ones, like here). Oops.

When the bus drops you off at the Alishan park entrance around 3AM, you wait until the internal park train ("小火车") ticket booth opens and then buy an early ticket to the viewing point at 祝山. By early I mean, the first train is at 4:10. There are a limited number of tickets a day, around 600 I think, with a manual counter showing how many are left. If you don't line up early enough, well, sucks to be you.

NOTICE HOW I AM THE ONLY ONE WEARING SHORTS. LIKE A TRUE CANADIAN CHAMP / FOOL DEPENDING ON YOUR INTERPRETATION.

The interesting thing about the 祝山 viewing point is that its location is such that the sky is already quite bright by the time the sun is coming up, since the sun is coming up from behind the mountain. It makes it a lot less dramatic.

Before you see the sun

 

I feel lucky I got to see the sunrise - sometimes there are clouds and you don't see anything. Still, I'm going to say that the Alishan sunrise, at least based on what I saw from where I saw it, is overhyped. But still pretty.

While in line for train tickets I met a wonderful Korean university student on the tail end of an exchange year in Taiwan! Despite the early hour we are all smiles.

If you look to the internet for suggestions regarding Alishan, you inevitably find people complaining about the hoards of tourists, particularly on the weekend. Yes, yes those there were. People sure got their early for there prime front row seats.

also at 祝山

There are little train stations around the park! 小火车好可爱.

While the main attraction at Alishan is the sunrise, it's also just a lovely place to walk around for a couple hours. And breathe clean, fresh air. It is so refreshing compared to Taipei. There are a lot of really old trees.

2300 years old!