Railroad Trip - Part II

This is the train of Alishan Forest Railway.

We left Chiayi for Alishan around 1:30 PM.

Before that, we met with the Paynes at Chiayi station and had lunch together.

Paynes bought the tea and sweet for Taddy.

The rice cake is filled with whip cream and there's one big strawberry inside.

The train shakes pretty hard.  There's no way you can sleep inside the train, even when the ride took more than three hours.

Most of the scenes we saw from the window was like jungle environment, but there were some nice views of mountains.

When the fog appeared around the mountain, we also started feeling the temperature is colder.

We arrived Alishan around 4:30 PM.
The shuttle bus picked us up and drove us to the hotel.

What a tiny room!

Looking at the outside view from the window...

Lovely sunset.

It looked quite mysterious too.

After resting for a while, we went to the shopping area.

There were a group of elementary school kids, doing some activity in the train station.

Time for dinner.

Fiona still had no appetite, so she just ate the vegetable and tofu soup. Taddy had fried noodle and Xiǎolóngbāo (but this one was more like Baozi).

In front of the big Thermometer.

The temperature was around 10C˚(50F˚) that night, not too bad in the mountain area like there.

Got to wake up early next morning, so we went to bed before 10 PM.

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The second day in Alishan:

We got up at 5 AM. It's time for a bus tour to go to the upper part of the mountain.

Before the sunrise.

That tree was huge.

Came to Yushan National Park.

Taddy was so sleepy that morning.

This pair is called "husband & wife".

Then it started raining...

The tour was cut short because of the weather!!

So disappointed... we couldn't see the famous Alishan sunrise, nor did we see the 'Ocean of cloud'.

The tour bus took us back to the hotel, and we had a late breakfast.
There were still a few hours before the train left for Chiayi.  So we decided to take a walk around the Alishan National Forest Recreation area.

The lakes are called "Sister Lakes".

There is a story behind these two lakes that are next to each other.
"Once upon a time, there were two beautiful sisters, but they loved the same man. Sisters did not want to hurt each other, and they each jumped into a lake. So the two lakes were named after this sad story of love."

Here's one called "Golden Pig Brings A Good News", do you see the figure of a pig?

This one is "Hearts Together Forever", see the shape of a heart, right?
And of course, there are more.

We left Alishan around 1 PM.
It was not a great visiting... but it's because of the weather, what can we say?

At Fenchihu station, Taddy bought the local lunch box.

A Pork chop, sausage, egg and vegetables are all inside the lunch box. And it's only around US$3.

Again, the train shakes!

Getting closer to Chiayi.

We arrived Chiayi at 4 PM. Paynes picked us up at the station.

For dinner, we met up with Shu chun's family in Budai.
We had dinner at a local seafood restaurant.

After dinner, we came to Shu chun's parents' house for tea.

This is a Sugar-apple, also known as "Buddha's head". They say it is quite expensive fruit in Taiwan.

Left Budai and went to Chiayi's Night market!!

P.S. Because Taddy was using his new camcorder most of the time during this trip, there are not more pictures about this Taiwan trip.  So no way to introduce the rest of out trip in Taiwan, even though we did a lot of interesting stuff including Chinese New Year events, etc.  Unless Taddy edits the video footage and posts them on this blog...