Fenchihu Village and Alishan Forest

From Taichung we took the High Speed Railway to the city of Chiayi, then we transferred to a bus to take us up the winding road into the Alishan mountains. The Alishan National Forest Recreation Area is another must-see in Taiwan. This beautiful old-growth forest was historically a logging site during the Japanese colonial era. Japan built a railway network here in 1912 to move workers, equipment, and logs up and down the mountain. Nowadays the area is protected (logging was discontinued in the 1960s, although not many of the very oldest cypress trees remain) and the scenic railway is a big tourist draw. 

We had booked two nights at an inn in the small town of Fenchihu (sometimes spelled Fenqihu), which is the halfway point for the train route from Chiayi to Alishan Park. We could have bought tickets for the train, but the bus was actually a little faster and the timing was more convenient for us. (Don’t worry—we got plenty of scenic train rides once we got to the park on Tuesday). But on Monday we stuck around Fenchihu town, starting with a delicious bento box lunch from our hotel. 

Because the scenic train stops here for about an hour on the trip up to Alishan, this little village has become known as a lunch stop. Bento boxes were a great way to provide hearty, easily transportable meals to the loggers, and that tradition has continued for the tourists today. Our bentos were packed with a pork cutlet served with a sort of five-spice type sauce and various pickled vegetables over rice. Another option was a choice of chicken drumstick instead of pork.  It was served in a cute metal bento box. 

After lunch we explored the Fenchihu Old Street (vendors selling food, treats, souvenirs, and Alishan-grown tea, a very similar vibe to Jiufen Old Street). Then we hit some of the trails around the outskirts of town. Seemingly endless steps led up past cypress trees into a forest of bamboo. 

We were rewarded with a clear view down to the town below. 

On Tuesday we got an early start because we had booked a taxi to drive us up to Alishan Park. We had made all these arrangements weeks ago since our time here was limited to just two days. We’d been looking forward to spending the entire second day at the park, hiking and enjoying the miles of trails and walkways. Unfortunately the weather was not aware of our schedule, and we woke up to a rainy foggy morning with no sun whatsoever in the forecast. Oh well, too late to change the plan!

Our taxi driver dropped us off at the visitor center and we were able to get on one of the iconic red trains that circulate around the park. Alishan has a series of trails that are more like elevated boardwalks - perfect for a rainy day like today. The boardwalks and stairways were sturdy and well-constructed — at least we didn’t have to traipse through mud. 

We knew it was likely to rain in the afternoon so we tried to see as much of the park as possible in the morning, starting with the King Cherry Tree grove. We timed our whole trip around cherry blossom season in Japan (late March to early April) so seeing some earlier blossoms here in Taiwan was hopefully a preview of things to come!

The boardwalk around Sister Ponds is another favorite walk in Alishan. These tranquil ponds usually take on an emerald hue and reflect the green foliage all around them. But all the rain may have stirred up some silt, or maybe the clouds obscured the color. The ponds seemed to have more of a gray cast to my eyes.

One plus side of the dreary weather: it was kind of enchanting to walk beneath centuries-old cypress trees shrouded in mist. The Formosan Red Cypress is native to Taiwan. They can grow to heights of 180 feet and live for a thousand years or more. So many of these slow-growing ancient trees were cut down during the logging heyday that they are now threatened despite being protected. The park has noted several specimens as highlights, some for their age and some for their unique growth patterns. The Three Generations Tree is one of the latter. This is the stump of a long-dead red cypress (1st generation) whose decaying stump provided a home for a second tree that also died long ago (2nd generation) and out of that eroded and hollowed-out trunk, the youngest sapling is now growing directly on top (3rd generation). 

Several small Taoist temples are interspersed throughout the forest but the largest of these is Shouzhen Temple, which also has the distinction of being the highest temple in Taiwan at 7000+ feet elevation. We got our lunch from the vendor stalls nearby (a warm sweet potato and a tasty scallion pancake) just in time before the tour bus groups arrived and it started pouring.

The rain didn't really let up much after lunch. We wanted to walk a bit further but it was kind of a cold unpleasant rain. We ducked into a building containing some shops and food stalls looking for a place to sit for a while and maybe have a hot cup of coffee. Instead we found a tea seller at a place called called "Honest Charlie" who was a very convincing salesman. We were able to sample some delicious locally-grown Alishan winter tea. And of course we left with a small supply to bring home (and carry with us in a forgotten nook of Kevin's suitcase for the next couple of months).

At this elevation, the mountains of the park are sometimes above the cloud layer. Many visitors stay the night here so that they can wake up and see the sunrise over a vista of clouds. Of course on a fog-shrouded day like today, no one was seeing much at sunrise. But if we were going to come here again we would definitely pay a little more to stay at one of the hotels inside the park. We would have liked to explore a bit more and see some of the expansive vistas that the park is known for. But in the end we were happy that we had enough time in our trip to get up to this out-of-the-way gem -- it was definitely a worthwhile visit and something to be sure to see if you are ever in Taiwan

Video: Taiwan Part 1

 Here is a video of our time in Taipei, Taichung, and Sun Moon Lake.

Taichung and Sun Moon Lake

We took our first trip on Taiwan’s ultra-modern high speed rail network to get from Taipei to Taichung. Like the shinkansen trains in Japan, this mode of transport is more comfortable than flying and almost as fast (trains can reach speeds just short of 200 mph)!

We did not book tickets ahead but just walked up to the counter and asked for two last-minute tickets in the reserved car (to guarantee we at least had a seat and did not have to stand). The ticket agent warned us "there are seats but they are not together". The guy was right -- middle seats for both of us, Kevin row 13 and me in row 1! Next time we'll probably book in advance, on the left side of the train where there are just 2 seats, a window and an aisle.

Our hotel in Taichung was very centrally located, so we took a walk around town after lunch to see some of the iconic Taichung sights. First up was the Miyahara Ice Cream shop. The line to get one of their famous ice cream sundaes was out the door with a long wait. So instead we popped into the affiliated sweet shop that is in the same building, just next door. This store was originally an optometrist’s office in the 1930s and the company has really leaned into the theme (the current name of the store in Chinese is still “Miyahara Eye Clinic”; I’m surprised they don’t translate it in English as “Miyahara Eye Scream”, but maybe that would be weird.)

Mr. Miyahara opened the eye clinic in 1927. You might have noticed that his surname is Japanese; Taiwan was a colony of Japan during that time period and Miyahara had emigrated here to establish his very successful shop. After WWII, the Japanese occupation of Taiwan ended and Miyahara closed the clinic and returned to Japan. The building transferred hands several times over the years that followed, ultimately ending up abandoned after damage from an earthquake and a typhoon. In the 2010s a confectionary company bought the building and restored it to its former glory. The interior really is gorgeous - photos don’t quite do it justice. 

After purchasing a couple of beautifully packaged cookies, we walked a few blocks to the Fourth Credit Union. We weren’t there to hit an ATM; this is another refurbished building (formerly a bank) that is a sister shop to Miyahara that serves the same ice cream. And more importantly—there was no line! We each chose a fun flavor (salted caramel for me, black sesame for Kevin) and then let the clerk recommend her favorite -- ruby tea. Definitely an unusual flowery, tea, sesame, sweet caramel sundae! It's possible that the weird flavor choices influenced my opinion but I will say that for an American palate, the ice cream was not as rich as what you’d get in the US. I would describe it more as ice milk than ice cream. But it does look pretty and photograph well!

When we first arrived in Taichung earlier that day, we had noticed a group of people setting up tables under white tents in the park next to our hotel. We went to check it out and discovered it was a festival called "Taiwan Cocktail Camp". We saw teams of bartenders participating in a fast-paced cocktail mixing relay race and knew we would need to come back to investigate once the whole event was finished setting up.

So after we finished our Miyahara ice creams, we headed back to Taichung Park to find the Cocktail Camp event in full swing. There were live performances, DJs, and you could buy tickets to sample cocktails from any of the booths. We were planning an early start for the next morning but it looked like such a good time that we figured what the heck and bought ourselves a ticket packet. 

Most of the cocktails were whisky-based, which made Kevin pretty happy. And for me, there was one booth that had Aperol spritzes -- delicious!

The event continued into the later evening, but once we finished our round of drinks we headed back to the hotel since we had a long day trip planned for Sunday.

When we were originally planning our trip to Taiwan, there were at least two must-sees that kept appearing in all the articles and travel guides: Sun Moon Lake and Alishan Park. To get to Sun Moon Lake you can either book a guided day tour or you can DIY and go on your own. Rather than being stuck on someone else's schedule we went ahead and booked on our own. The bus station was right next to the hotel so catching the 8am bus was very convenient. This isn't their first rodeo with non-Chinese-speaking tourists, so a lot of the information posted at the station was in English, which was helpful. Sun Moon Lake gets its name from its shape. Apparently the east side of the lake is shaped like the sun while the west side is shaped like a crescent moon. Honestly... I don't see it, but maybe I'm lacking in imagination!

After a two-hour bus ride, we arrived at Sun Moon Lake. The main things to do here are scattered all across the lake, so we bought tickets for one of the many ferry boats to take us across to the first point of interest - Xuanguang Temple.

The ferry was not crowded, and it turned out to be a narrated tour of the lake by the captain. The only unfortunate part was that it was all in Mandarin! We tried using our Airpods with AI translation with our phones, but unfortunately the technology just isn't quite there yet. The garbled nonsense of the translating app did make for interesting listening as we took in the scenery though! I did gather a few tidbits about the lake: first of all, it used to be TWO lakes -- a sun-shaped lake and a moon-shaped lake. A dam built in 1919 merged the two lakes and gave it the shape it has today. So there's a reason I failed the Sun Moon Lake Rorschach test. Secondly, it is home to the Thao indigenous people (a bit more about them later). And thirdly, it is the largest lake in Taiwan but the water levels are alarmingly low which explains why all the dock ramps are very steep. We docked near the temple and noticed that many people were eating tea eggs from plastic bags. The line for the tea egg vendor wasn't too long and it moved fast, so we got one to try. The brown color isn't very appealing to look at but it was very good! Just like a hard-boiled egg but with a subtle afternote of tea.

It was a short ten-minute hike up some stairs to get to the Xuanguang Temple. This not-very-old Buddhist temple was built in 1955 to house a relic of a monk who traveled from China to India in order to transcribe Buddhist scriptures. His story was the inspiration for the novel "Journey to the West" which is an important work of Chinese literature. To me the temple seems pretty tiny for such an important relic.

The temple does have a nice view onto the very tiny island of Lalu. Before the 1919 dam, this island used to be bigger (obviously). It has had many names over the years: "Pearl Mountain" when Taiwan was ruled by the Chinese, then "Jade Island" under the Japanese, and finally they brought back the indigenous name of Lalu. The island is considered sacred to the Thao people, so it's closed to the public and can't be reached by ferry boat or other watercraft.

We hopped back on the ferry to head to the small town of Ita Thao. This is where the majority of the Thao people live. The Thao are the smallest indigenous tribe in Taiwan, numbering less than 1000 people.  They have their own language and belief system. Many Thao people lost their homes in a devastating earthquake that hit Taiwan in 1999. But even prior to that their traditional livelihoods of farming and fishing were already threatened due to a lack of protected property rights. Without land to farm, the tribe shifted focus to tourism. Ita Thao village is a thriving marketplace for food and local handicrafts. There's also a very nice visitor center right at the dock.

Because we're on such a long trip, we opted not to buy any handicraft souvenirs but we made up for it by buying many snacks, including millet doughnuts, local teas, a delicious gua bao, and a spiralized plum-flavored potato on a stick.

From Ita Thao you can also take a gondola up to an Indigenous-themed amusement park. The gondola ride does give you a pretty good view of the lake below.

We were actually more interested in the cherry trees blooming below us than in riding the rides at the amusement park so we just took a round trip gondola and came back down to catch the ferry back to the bus stop. We didn't have reserved tickets for the return trip, and we knew it would take at least two hours plus any time spent in the queue, so we wanted to make sure we got back down to Taichung in time to get something to eat for dinner.

We ended up getting back in plenty of time to have a great meal at a little Japanese restaurant that was a one-man-show. One guy, cooking his heart out, taking orders, bussing tables, and running the cash register while keeping a wary eye to ensure nothing burned. It was amazing to watch, actually. We got there early enough to get seated (there are only seats for about twelve people) and by the time we left there were quite a few people waiting. Walking back through the park to our hotel at night was a nice way to end our stay in Taichung.

Taipei From Above (Taipei 101 and Elephant Mountain)

It's still raining pretty steadily this week in Taipei, but we had a brief reprieve on Friday, so we hopped on the MRT metro to the Xinyi District to get some close up views of Taipei 101. There it is, behind the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall!

Sun Yat-Sen was the founder of the Republic of China. His party overthrew the imperial Qing dynasty in mainland China and replaced it with a republic government in 1911. Fun fact: he was educated in Hawaii in the 1880s and was a student of American history and political philosophy which influenced his ideas for reform in China. Although Taiwan was under Japanese colonial rule while he lived, he is now considered the “Father of the Nation” since it was his party, the ROC (under Chiang Kai Shek), that succeeded the Japanese as the ruling government of the island after World War II. 

Unfortunately the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall is under renovation so we didn’t visit the interior. But I really enjoyed strolling around the surrounding Zhongshan park and gardens and watching the locals taking advantage of the rain-free morning to do some gentle Tai Chi and some other kind of more jazzercise-type group exercise (I wish I could figure out the name of it, maybe Yuanji Dance... anyway, the energetic elderly ladies doing it gave us friendly waves and a few cheery “Ni hao!”s as we walked past). 

From there we headed to Taipei 101 tower, built in 2004 and briefly the world’s tallest building at 1667 feet tall (the Burj Khalifa surpassed it in 2010, and it now ranks as only the eleventh highest). As the name implies, there are 101 floors, with a 360-degree panoramic indoor viewing deck on the 89th floor or an outdoor skywalk on the 101st floor for people who have no fear of heights. The 89th floor is about $20 USD per person but we discovered another option is to just buy a coffee at the cafe on the 88th floor. 

It was only a limited view from one side of the building but hey - it was a fraction of the price and we got some tasty iced coffees to boot! We also had a chance to peek at the enormous earthquake damper, a pendulum weighing 660 metric tons that acts as a counterweight to offset any swaying during earthquakes or high winds. It's hard to tell from the photo but it is massive!

Riding the elevator in Taipei 101 was a trip, it zipped up to the 88th floor at something like 38 miles an hour and took less than 45 seconds. Another alternative would be to use the Alex Honnold route of free-climbing the outside of the building. That would get you to the top in about 90 minutes. 

We did get a workout hiking nearby Elephant Mountain later that morning. The trail was a steep 1.5 kilometers of about 500 oddly-spaced stairs that had me wishing I was back on the elevator! 

But the spectacular view of the city was well worth it!

We then took the zippy MRT to Da’an Park, a beautiful green space in the center of Taipei. This weekend was the kickoff of the azalea festival, so there were beautiful flower displays set up throughout the park. 

The theme was something to do with boats, so many of the displays had a nautical slant. The hydrangeas were by far my favorite. 

We wandered a few more blocks and found the charming Yongkang neighborhood. There were trendy shops and boutiques and we found a great cafe with a cellist/piano duo playing classical music. A fantastic place to relax after walking and hiking nine miles! We have only been here four days and already we have walked 35 miles. 

Jiufen Day Trip

On Thursday we took a public bus from Taipei to the mountain town of Jiufen, about 50 kilometers east of Taipei. Most people book an all-day guided bus tour for this excursion, but the local bus was inexpensive and it was nice to be on our own schedule. The town is a must-see in Taiwan, mainly because of the beautifully decorated 100-year-old A-Mei Teahouse. 

We arrived in Jiufen a little before 10am which was perfect because we got there well before the tour bus crowds. (This stairway and the A-Mei viewpoint in the photo above were both packed with crowds by noon). 

Jiufen is a small town built right into the side of a hill. It’s an old gold mining town, and its steep winding stairway streets reminded us a lot of the town of Jerome in Arizona, which is also built into a hillside.

We arrived in town before most of the shops on the Old Street were even open, so we started our day at the A-Mei Teahouse. Because we arrived so early, we were easily able to get a table and we ordered the “set tea” which is basically all-you-care-to-drink tea, accompanied by a few little cakes and snacks (sweet sesame crackers, mochi balls, green bean cakes, and sweet dried sugarplums). 

The fun part was learning how to properly prepare and serve the tea. On the floor beside each table is a little open-flame stove and cast iron pot full of scalding hot water. They bring you a special wooden box platform on which you set up the steeping and serving tea pots as well as your little no-handle teacups. First step is to rinse the pots and cups with the scalding water to bring them to temperature. Then you fill the bottom of the steeping pot with dry tea and fill it with water. This first step is just to rinse the tea leaves and open them up, so you pour this water out into the box. Then you fill the steeping teapot for real and let it steep for 30 seconds before pouring it through the strainer into the serving teapot. Remove the strainer and serve, always pouring the other person’s teacup before your own. You can repeat the steeping and straining process six times (with steeping time increasing by 10 seconds each time), then you’ll have to switch out for new tea leaves.

We were both veerrrry careful with the heavy cast-iron hot water pot. I did wonder how many tourists take home first or second degree burns as souvenirs from their Jiufen day trip!

We enjoyed the process so much that we ended up drinking at least 10 cups of tea (okay, well -- note how small the cups are -- it was really probably no more than 3 regular cups). By the time we were finished, the shops were open so we wandered up and down the Jiufen Old Street for a bit, checking out all the food and trinkets on offer. The Old “Street” is really more like a bunch of narrow walking paths connected by stairways that wind up and down the hillside. There are vendors selling tea (obviously) but also candies, snacks, artisanal handmade goods and ceramic tea sets. 

The rain really started coming down for a while so we stopped in for a quick peek at the historic Shenping theater. It was built in the 1920s and was restored in 2011 when it was designated a historic monument. It was free to enter and they were showing old Taiwanese movies.

Around lunchtime we found a little restaurant with some pretty nice views despite the rain. We had some delicious soup dumplings and sweet pork buns washed down with generous mugs of Taiwanese beer. 

By this time, the tour busses had arrived and it was getting crowded to navigate the narrow area of the Old Street. But we had noticed the ornately decorated rooftop of the Shengming temple a few levels up so we headed in that direction for a closer look, and had it mostly to ourselves. 

There’s more we could have done in Jiufen; there are a few good hiking trails and lookouts, as well as a gold mining museum. But the rain put a damper on attempting a hike, so we caught an afternoon bus back to Taipei. After dark, we headed back down to the area near the Longshan temple to check out the Huaxi Street Night Market. After our run-in with stinky tofu the night before, we were feeling a bit less adventurous about ordering food from the vendor stalls. We ended up chickening out on the night market and decided to head back up to Ximending for dinner at a Hong Kong-style Dim Sum restaurant with lots of good reviews. The market did look pretty at night, though!

Our route took us right past the Longshan temple, all lit up by golden lanterns. The reflection of the light on the rain-soaked sidewalks as we made our way back was almost otherworldly.