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Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Day 2 @ Taiwan (15-24Jun15) - 神木、阿里山

16/6
Woke at 3.45am for our sunrise train ride (祝山线). Initially, I still thought of wanting to go back to continue my sleep after the ride. But after the so many steps up and down from my hotel, we decided to change my plan. We should be finishing up our breakfast and forest walk then go back hotel to rest :P My legs are breaking liao... So next time I must make sure I confirm how many stairs to climb before I book the lodging :P Our hotel room for these two days was on the 5th floor and we needed to climb many flight of stairs to get around.



Sunrise was magnificent!! Oh Gosh!!! the air here is very good but freezing cold. I am really lucky I came prepared, all wrapped up like bazhang. Haha! But once the wind comes, I could still feel the chill in my body. I put on the new scarf I bought to keep my neck warm :)

It was a good 10-15min wait so I went to buy a hot can of soya bean (NT40) to use as my heat-pack :P The very pretty lady boss was so nice! After I touched the hot can, it became cold when I wanted to drink it and she offered to change it to a hot one for me! Next time you visit the 祝山站 for sunrise must buy from her (祝山小吃店). Oh! She is really a nice person! 







We are now on our way back for breakfast (6-9am). After that we wanted to set out on ur forest walk. The tribal song/music played in the train was very spiritual and gave me a "Princess Monoko" feel... 

Breakfast was simple, that is porridge with 小菜, home made soya bean milk and toast and butter/jam/peanut butter. I like the soya bean milk a lot but I don't like the texture of the porridge. I like either 一粒一粒的潮州式粥 or total 糊的广东粥。可是,这里的粥是又粘又糊,不是我喜欢的口感。不过小菜很好吃!



It was the first time I met my "new friend" Mr Husky. 


Ended up we came back to our hotel room, and took a nap as the train to the forest walk only opens at 9.30am.

Bought our "picnic" supply and took 森林小火车train (NT80) to Zhao ping (沼平线) for our forest walk. 




I enjoyed myself by taking lots of lovely pictures :) Qiuling loves the Lupin (鲁冰花) flowers and Calla Lily (海芋) flowers and I love the mystic feeling of this sacred forest and mountain. As we sat in the shade, all we heard was the birds chirping and the wind blowing and the train sound... peace... 






I really enjoyed this trip with Qiuling as she enjoys holidays with a more relaxing and slower pace. On and off we get to sit somewhere in the shade and I will stone/blog/Facebook while she reads her online book or watches her YouTube. This time we get to do it in Alishan forest walk too. 

We relaxed and dug into our bag of goodies...Yum...



Walked don't know how far but from the pictures u can feel the beauty of the forest... Enjoy the photos... I took a lot of photos but only able to upload the selective few that I like very much on my blog. You can check out the more detailed collection from my Facebook :)













We took a break at 受镇宫 area. Shared 山猪香肠 and 野生爱玉 with Qiuling. Feeling like a pig now eating non-stop Lolz...



We continued our forest walk after our short break and noticed that the fog had started to rise... Sigh, no 晚霞 and 云海 for us today again :(

Take a look at the 神木 /巨木 (aka old trees hundreds or thousands of years old) in Alishan... 

The oldest 巨木 alive in Alishan (>2000 years old) 



The legendary 神木 which was the oldest tree in Alishan until it was struck twice by lightning and had to be chopped off... you can find its remaining at the Shen Mu Station (神木站).




We continued to walk on with the intention to walk out of the forest by food and back to our hotel. And so we did!

Our Forest walk began at 沼平站 and we walked to 神木站 then back to 阿里山站 where the hotel area is. 

Fog coming..



A very big 绣球花!



Alishan Museum

海芋花 (Calla Lily)

三代树

象鼻树 in the front; 三代树 at the back

樱之王 aka King of Cherry Blossom. If you come during the cherry blossom season, this tree will bloom the most beautiful cherry blossom tree. 


The last 900metres out of Alishan forest walk and back to the hotel area...


Foggy 


爱情花

The Last Lap!

We finally completed our 5hrs of forest walk! Yippie! It's time for lunch! I wanted to try the Soju Chicken Hotpot and Qiuling wanted to try the 龙须菜, so we ordered both. The vegetables were very fresh and nice and it was a type of vegetable I had never eat before in Singapore. But the Soju Chicken Hotpot was disappointing as it tasted like water with some Soju and preserved overcooked chicken :( It was an expensive (NT530) and not nice dinner! Hope we have better food luck in Cingjing!



But what made my day was my newfound friendly Husky I saw this morning. At lunch, he came over to ask for food so I offered him chicken meat but he looked at my chicken bones. Knowing that I shouldn't give him chicken bones I rejected him but he pleaded to me with his pitiful eyes, so I gave him the chicken bones in the end. He was so happy and ate happily. After he had his fill, he laid down near me. :) Wish I can bring him home!! 




After lunch, we went shopping for ice cream 铜锣烧 (NT50) and Alishan coffee (NT90) to bring back our hotel to eat/drink. As we were feeling lazy and tired after the long walk, we decided to buy cup noodles back for dinner as well!!! Yay! Cheap but yummy dinner for tonight








9pm 
We NUA for many hours and finally decided to eat dinner and bathed Lolz... Hope I can sleep early tonight after the long walk! tomorrow we are leaving at 7am too!!! 


Ahh.. I took so many pictures from
Alishan but cannot possibly upload all here! So for a better "spread" of pretty photos on Alishan, you can browse my Facebook k! Nitez all! 

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