Visit to Alishan

This weekend (which we made into 4 days) we went to the resort area of Alishan (Ali Mountain) in Taiwan. It was very different from Taipei. It's very high up, and during the winter it snows. Even during August, it is quite cool (about 70 degrees) and often foggy, so the weather reminded me of San Francisco. The vegetation is different too, including hemlocks, pine trees and cedar trees. The cedars grow to a huge size, and there were a few which were over 2000 years old. However, most are rather small and young (about 50-100 years old) because the whole area was logged extensively by the Japanese (who owned Taiwan then). To help them with their logging, they built a small-rail train, which is still in operation for tourists to ride on. You can ride it from the nearest large city all the way into the mountains (which takes about 4 hours). Unfortunately, this section of track was out of service due to the recent typhoon, so we had to go by taxi instead (the buses were out of service too).

When we went, ghost month had just begun. According to the Taiwanese, all the ghosts from hell come out and wander around during the lunar month roughly corresponding to August. Everyone, including the local McDonald's, makes a shrine for the ghosts in front of their store or home, with flowers, incense, soda bottles, whole fish and chocolate bars (or whatever else they thought ghosts would like to eat). Due to the numerous wandering spirits, they don't like to do anything then, including traveling. Either for this reason, or because public transportation wasn't working, Alishan was totally deserted. We were practically the only people there, which was really nice, and also meant our hotel was cheaper.

They have another train which you can take to the top of a mountain to see the sun rise. All the Taiwanese like to do this, so we did it too. I was very excited to take the train, which is an old-fashioned steam train, but the sunrise was not exciting, as it was too foggy to see anything. We went on a lot of hikes and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. It was very relaxing.

Now we are back in the crowded, hectic city. School has just started (today was the first day) and I have also started a new job. B's job just ended, as his pupils graduated and have started kindergarten. Right now he wants to study for the GRE, so he isn't going to get a new job until October or November. Life is a little busy, but enjoyable.