Day 8: Arrival at Alishan...

~ 21st March 2014 ~

Finally, we placed our footsteps at Alishan, the famous site to view cherry blossom. The mini bus dropped us somewhere but we walked back to where the main entrance was. I was really awestruck by the beautiful coloured marble-wall. This island is really doing everything to attract tourists. 

Then, I grabbed my travel buddy to snap a photo of her. It's really difficult to snap a photo with no one at all. I just managed to capture a side of the wall and then humans started walking towards the wall to snap a photo. Why no one stood there to take photos when I wasn't there, beats me. 

The reason why we had to walk all the way back down to the entrance was to get the train tickets for the scenic ride and also to catch the sunrise. The huge crowd was such a turn off and Pinky said the queue would be more than an hour and we wouldn't know for sure whether we could get the tickets or not. The train would not take in passengers more than it could handle. It's an old, slow moving train. I have no patience to wait for something which you wouldn't know whether you will get it or not. So, we left. There's no such thing as booking ahead. If there is, we would have gotten those tickets. It wouldn't be fair to those who walked in because if everybody can pre-book those tickets through tour agencies, then I think people will need to book those tickets way before they book their flight tickets to Taiwan.

The cherry blossom trees were everywhere, along the road, down the hill slope and just outside our hotel. If you want to snap a photo of just you and the flowers, you have to be quick-handed. People really push and elbowed others away just to take a photo. Some tourists are real barbarians and they might have left their manners back at home or never have them in the first place.

Our hotel provided us with shuttle services between the station and the hotel. I think I took this photo on the way to the hotel. The number of buses bringing tourists up to the mountain, it's a surprise the mountain did not turn bald and decreased in altitude. So, I think to earn a lucrative pay, one should operate the tour bus business or tour agencies. The money goes *ka-ching**ka-ching* Oh, yeah... everybody goes to 7-11. The 7-11 in Alishan has more people than in a marketplace. They just grabbed at the instant noodles like there's scarcity of food at the area. Well, you really don't find any food stalls up there so we dined comfortably at the hotel restaurant.