Alishan and Back Again

My first major sight-seeing trip here in Taiwan was to Alishan.  This is an area high up in the mountains, known for its beauty and for a lovely little railway you can ride to visit various mountain shrines, lakes, ancient trees, etc.  As we started up the mountain we passed a park-like setting where a young couple was having their wedding photos taken.  They were posing in front of a pair of cartoon-esque creatures that I was told are the traditional figures for the farmer and his wife.  I wondered if this has some connection with a wish for prosperity and fertility, who knows?  Just beyond this scene of newly married bliss was a very long suspension bridge and an ornate temple where we stopped for a few photos.

sculpture near temple

temple near suspension bridge

Suspension bridge

The farmer takes a wife..

It’s quite a distance from where I’m staying up to Alishan and it took what seemed like half of forever to reach it.  The mountain road up to the forest is very narrow, barely two lanes wide…and not always that, er, “generous”.  There were several places where there had been landslides or some other damage had occurred to the road and they were in various stages of repair.  Which is to say they were passable, but not always by more than one car at a time.  Which gets very interesting when you factor in the huge amount of tour buses which were also on their way to Alishan.

road repairs

But make it we did.  As we were approaching the actual entrance gate to the park (where we paid what was an enormous entrance fee, for Taiwan anyway, of over $20 for the three of us who went) we passed row after row of tour buses that had discharged their passengers, then went lower to park.  I quite certain that we passed at least 60 to 80 buses.  (Yikes!)  That’s a seriously large amount of tourists.  Almost all of whom were Chinese or Taiwanese.  And this was on a weekday, after tourists season had ended. Then, once inside the park, there was an additional fee to ride the little train up higher on the mountain.

We took some pictures on the platform while awaiting our little train, then were finally able to board for the 8-10 minute long chug up the hill.  It had become quite overcast the further up the mountain we had gone.  By the time we reached the little train, clouds had rolled in in earnest, and they were sinking.  By the time the little train reached us so had the clouds.  So any pictures we were able to take were “through a cloud darkly”, to borrow and misquote.

sculpture at the station

extra trains for “busy” days

Still, there is a grace and beauty to a perfect fog.  A fog not so deep that it hides all, nor so light that it is a mere will-o-the-wisp.  A perfect fog wraps everything in a tenuous mist; a veil that both obscures and illuminates.  It sharpens the senses, yet dulls the sounds.  It is the smoke that hides and the magician that directs the eye.  Nature’s prestidigitation, weaving it’s spell and binding your imagination to the story it desires to tell.  Dimming the lights here and allowing they spotlight to shine…There!….for only an instant…allowing your mind to fill in the details.  That’s the fog we found ourselves in, for the most part.

As we left the train station, we allowed the tour groups to get ahead of us so that we could enjoy a little solitude (only a little.  There were a lot of people on that mountain!)  and get some pictures where the desired subject was not almost completely obscured by a wall of bodies.   (A side note here:  Alishan is known far-and-wide for its sunrises.  It is the place to be when the sun comes up.  There are several hotels at the top of the mountain just so people can be there when the sun first starts lighting the sky.)  By positioning ourselves behind most of the large groups that had just gotten off the train we did manage to get some shots where the scenery was the major focus.  Not always easy, but occasionally doable.

Into the mist

fallen tree “arch”

off the train & on the trail

The trail on this part of the mountain winds around small lakes, a section of petrified forest, a temple or shrine or three, ponds, bridges, waterfalls and the like.   There are many places where enormous trees, hundred of years old, had been logged in the past.  Their decaying stumps formed grotesque and beautiful sculptures, depending on your point of view and the tree’s.

When we reached Little Sister Lake and Big Sister Lake the fog had condensed into crystal droplets on the spider webs in the trees around the lake.  Elsewhere it played tricks on the eye and ear, first obscuring a waterfall we could hear from the path, but not see, then lifting a few feet farther on to show us the same small waterfall.   We wandered among wooden giants that had escaped the lumberjack’s blade, some as old as 1200 years.  We viewed the “three generation tree”.  A tree that had been felled, had a new tree rise from growth put out by the stump, then aged, fell and began to rot with a third start rising out of the remains of the second.

Big sister lake

pig stump

3 generation tree

We entered an ancient shrine that sat beside a small koi-filled lake where large, ghostly-white calla lilies hovered beside snags that had lifted themselves just above the water’s edge.  Like all temples here, a huge incense burner, filled with dozens of sticks of incense sat in front of the entrance.  The burners are almost always metal and stand usually six to eight feet tall.  the center part is open and filled with sand or the ashes of thousands of sticks of incense that burned out there in the days, weeks and months prior.  Inside were the usual old or young, wise-looking or warrior-appearing, male or female gods that are part of every temple here.  Every surface inside and outside the temple is carved, embellished, painted, gilded or otherwise ornamented.  But here the roof and eave carvings were dimmed and partially obscured by the fog.

calla lilies

We continued on, up a small rise and across a bridge where a small stream sang its way across rocks and waterfalls, disappearing into the fog below.  We eventually found our way out onto a long wooden walkway that wound through the oldest and largest of the remaining ancient trees then led us back to the train station and thus down from the upper reaches to the parking lot where our car was now easy to find, as most of the people had departed into the fog and were no doubt wending their way down the mountain to their homes.  And shortly we did likewise.

However, we did make a brief stop in a town about halfway down the mountain for dinner.  In the back of the restaurant where we are there was a woman doing traditional Chinese embroidery.  It’s a dying art and I just had to add a picture of her work-in-progress.

Traditional Chinese embroidery

Odawara Castle

So let’s back-track a little.  I never got around to posting about my trip to Odawara Castle in Japan.  I had planned another hike in the mountains to yet another ancient shrine, but the man I met the night before on the train (Hi, Ken!) told me about a castle that was just a few stops down the line, more-or-less.  As I have never been in an actual castle before I altered my plans for the day and set a course for Odawara.

I will tell you up front that this is not the original castle.  That was destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed, rebuilt and destroyed again before being fairly recently rebuilt.  But they did a really good job of restoring the building.  Using, wherever possible, original materials and methods to restore the building as near as possible to one of its earlier configurations.  I read a couple of on-line reviews where people panned the castle as a fake.  All I can say is, how many 900 year old buildings do you know of that haven’t undergone enough restoration that they pretty much are a new, old-looking building?  Especially after earthquakes and conquerors bringing down the walls.

That aside, I arrived at the train station and promptly left through the wrong side of the station.  I say, “wrong side” because the castle couldn’t be seen from the side I was on and there were no obvious signs pointing to it.  But I stopped someone on the street and said “Odawara Castle?”, they pointed in a direction and I headed out.  After about a block I saw a sign for the castle showing me where to turn and shortly I could see the grounds and then the roof of the castle.

I found an path into the grounds, but couldn’t tell if it was exit or entrance, or if, indeed, it made any difference.  But not wanting to go in the “out” gate, I walked around, following signs until I found the actual front entrance.  The current bridge over the man-made lake in front of the castle was obviously of fairly recent construct.  There was a much older bridge to one side but it was closed to any sort of traffic and my only picture of it turned out fuzzy.   Bummer.  After the bridge there were a lot of ancient cherry trees that appeared to have been around at least a couple hundred years.  Their trunks were thick and gnarled–arthritic-looking wood that had rotted and regrown many times over the course of their lives.   Their tenacity was truly impressive.

bridge to the castle grounds

ancient cherry tree trunk

I continued on around the grounds and viewed a reconstructed wall, copper-clad gate and also a section of wall that was broken down to show each of the layers/steps involved in building the castle walls.  Then I climbed a stairway with a sign saying they were the original stairs to the castle and went over another bridge that spanned the remains of the moat.  It’s dry now and planted with something that looked a lot like the rice I had seen from the train, planted in fields around the town.  Then I went through another wall of massive, hewn stone and another metal-clad gate and was in the courtyard below the castle proper.  Here, for some reason, there was a cage of very smelly monkeys with very red faces and butts to match.  There was a sign by the cage, but it was only in Japanese.   I’m just guessing, but it probably said “don’t feed the monkeys”.  It didn’t seem to have enough characters to contain an explanation for why they were there.

Copper clad gate

wall construction

The grounds in that spot were lovely, peaceful and delightfully shady and cool.  And they afforded a great view of the castle above.  After a few photos I went up more stairs to the castle itself and paid the entry fee to go inside.

The inside of Odawara Castle is a museum.  Unfortunately they don’t allow any kind of photography.  It’s a shame because there were so many beautiful and interesting items inside.  There are four floors filled with implements of farming, war and everyday life; clothing, books, swords, hats, tea sets and lunch boxes, etc.  You name it, they have it.  There is a lot to see.   On the top floor is the requisite souvenir/gift shop, plus an outdoor terrace that goes all the way around the building affording views of the bay, the city and the surrounding mountains.

Like so very many places in Japan, the gift shop didn’t accept credit cards so my spending was kept mercifully light.   I really had bought too many gifts for people back home already….at this point I will have to break out the extra collapsible suitcase I brought with me just to get everything home without an extra fee.  The bag I check when I fly was almost four pounds overweight by the time I left Japan (but I’m allowed two checked bags, tee hee).  Fortunately haven’t found much to tempt me in Taiwan.  Unfortunately the couple of things I have found are somewhat fragile.  Sigh.  I hope they survive the trip to Beijing and then back home….but I digress…

After I exited the castle museum I wandered the grounds for awhile longer and found a tiny amusement park for small children and another shrine with a beautiful koi pond and lots of lovely trees and sculpture.  As I went back towards the castle, I watched some gardeners hanging off the side of an almost vertical hill by their fingertips, trimming the plants that grew there.  I think they must have been part mountain goat.  They all wore hard-hats, but there wasn’t a safety line of any kind to keep them from falling should they lose their footing.

Fountain in koi pond

Koi

mountain goat gardeners

After my trip to the castle I meant to visit a nearby shrine that was reputed to be quite lovely, but it started to rain.  So I changed my plans and made my way back to the train station and thus back to Isehara.   Fortunately I boarded before the evening rush was fully underway and thus got an actual seat where I could view the scenery along the way which included several crossings of a lovely river.

river seen from train

By the time I reached Isehara, the rain was behind me so I had a nice, dry walk back to Natsuo and Mia’s apartment.

Taipei 101 — the Building

Let’s go to Taipei.  Which is actually pronounced Tie-bay.  “P” makes a “B” sound over here.

Power station with typical Asian beautificaton

Brian borrowed a car from a friend and we headed for Taipei with plans to see the 101 building and the Palace Museum.   Getting into Taipei itself was no problem.  Parking in Taipei is another story.  The funny thing is, we hadn’t driven around for very long when we saw a parking garage that just happened to be only a couple of block from the subway station!  So, car safely parked we headed for the underground.

Just some scenery along the way

The Taipei subway system is fast, efficient and easy to understand.  Having used Japan’s train system, I found that I could easily navigate Taipei’s, even if Brian hadn’t been with me.  But he was so it was a no-brainer.   To use the system you look at a map on the wall, locate the station you are in, which is marked in yellow, look for the station you wish to go to and put the amount of money that is shown above that station into the ticket machine.   The machine drops an electronically coded token into a dish, along with any change you might be owed and you are off and running.

To enter the station proper, where the train platforms are, you pass the token over a reader located in the gate to the platform.  Once inside you board your train and make any changes to other trains at other stations that are necessary to reach your destination.  All the lines are color-coded, so knowing which train is which is easy.  And each line is named for the last station on that line.  Double easy.  Once you reach you destination, you put your token into a slot on the gate and the gate opens to let you out, then keeps the token to be reprogrammed for the next user.

Following those steps we quickly arrived at the station nearest to the 101 building.  From there we took a cab to the 101 as it was past lunch time and we were so hungry we didn’t want to take the time to walk.  The food court was partially under construction (it was due to be completed the next week, wouldn’t you know it?) so our choices were half of what they normally would have been.  But the food we chose was very good so we were both happy.

101 building

After eating we visited the international food store in the building.  I was interesting to see foods from so many countries in one spot.  What made this store different from most other stores selling international foods was that these were all high-end (or at least high priced!).  They were the foods that are the most popular in the countries they came from.  We each picked out a couple of little goodies then we headed for the top of the 101.  Which isn’t really the top.  It’s just an observation platform on the 89th floor.  Since there really are 101 floors, it obviously wasn’t the actual top.

Real top of the 101

We took an elevator to the 5th floor (Bvlgari, Dior, Prada, Vuitton, etc.) where the tickets to the observation deck are sold.  After which we queued up with everyone else for the high-speed elevator.  In short order we were in the car and zipping to the top.  That thing really moves.  I had to get my ears to “pop” 5 times in the space of less than a minute, then we were out of the elevator and being fitted for the correct language for our individual devices that would tell us all about the tower and what we were seeing from each window.  Along with a lot of hype about what a great and dynamic city Taipei is as well as a sales pitch for the goodies in the gift shop as the information on the recorded messages led us past it.

interesting building

One of many great views from the tower

As we neared the end of the tour there were a number of counters selling jewelry made with “Taiwan” red coral.  The we went up a flight of stairs to see the outdoor observation deck and, after that, down two flights for a good view of the device that keeps the tower from swaying too much when the breezes get a mite brisk…like say, during a typhoon.

Wind dampening device

Then we went back inside planning to head for the elevator down, but there were all these wonderful displays of intricately carved sculptures made from coral, rainbow jade and rainbow fluorite.  Each item was more beautiful than the last.  Then there were more counters selling even more coral jewelry in higher price ranges.  Then more sculpture, then more jewelry, you get the picture I’m sure.  But then Brian looked at the time and we realized that if we were going to see any of the Palace Museum we would need to hustle.

However, we didn’t hustle enough.  We walked straight to the train, then took a taxi to the museum to save time but arrived only 40 minutes before the museum was scheduled to close.  Since there is a decent charge to enter the museum, we decided to not go in.  We were so disappointed.  Somehow Brian had thought that the museum would be open until at least 7:30 and probably 8 PM.  Had we realized how early it closed, we would have gone there first, then gone to the 101 building afterward as it stays open quite late. Pooh!

Palace Museum exterior

So we made our way back to the car, and after getting lost in the city for about 45 minutes trying to find the freeway, we finally headed out of town and on to Yalin where we planned to spend the night in preparation for visiting the Toroko gorge the next day.