Taiwan: Day 10

Day 10 started at 4:00am with a wake up call to make sure we didn't miss our sunrise bus tour.  Everyone goes to Alishan to take the train to see the sun rise over Jade Mountain (aka Yushan to the locals and everyone who doesn't speak English).  That was our plan, but after taking the train the day before on some of the other routes, we decided to do the less popular thing and join a tour bus group to see it from a different point as well as see a couple other interesting things along the way.  So at 4:30 we met our driver at the lobby of our hotel and joined a group of four women from Hong Kong in the van we would be taking our tour in.  It was pitch black and the road was windy.  We stopped at a really big tree and had no idea what our tour guide/driver told the group but we figured it was something along the lines of really really really old tree.  

 This was the view at our second stop.  We got out of the van and everyone started taking pictures of themselves with the sign for the park, meanwhile this beautiful scene was sitting right behind the sign.  I really don't understand why people take pictures of themselves with signs when you could take pictures of this.

 Our third stop was where we would see the sun rise over Jade/Yushan Mountain.  It's not so much a colourful sunrise, cause when you're waiting for the sun to crest over the highest mountain in Taiwan (at 3952meters) the sun is going to have been up for quite a while.  But what is really breath taking is what they call the sea of cloud.  During the night the clouds settle into the mountain valleys and when the sun crests the mountains its just beautiful.  But only a few hours later and the cloud will be back where it belongs in the sky and the view is gone.

I took about 200 pictures that morning while we were watching the sun come up.  Needless to say, I couldn't share them all, but here are a few.

It was still really early... we got back to our hotel at 7:00am, hence not only do I look half asleep, but I feel half asleep.  This was also the coldest I felt the whole time we were in Taiwan.

The sun mad it up! 

 They gave us these devices so we could watch and see the sun come up with out burning our retinas.  They made everything look a purple-y-blue.

 After watching the sun came up we caught a glimpse of this little guy (ok he really wasn't that little) and he certainly wasn't camera shy.  This was while we still thought monkeys look cute.  Stay posted to find out when and why that belief changed.

So just as we were getting back into our van we discovered that someone in the tour group with us actually speaks very good English!!  The conversation went something like this:
Us: you speak English!?!
Lady: Yes!  You mean you don't know Chinese?
Us: Nope. Not a word.
Lady: OH!  I thought you must speak very good Chinese since you didn't ask for translation earlier.  I was impressed.  Why didn't you ask us to translate?
Us: No one was speaking English.... we didn't know anyone did speak English.
Lady: I will translate for you!
So from that point on, we actually understood what we were looking at.

This particular view was from our final stop, which was at another huge tree... the biggest I've ever seen... and that particular tree is considered sacred.  I tried to take a good picture of it, but it was just too big to get any real perspective.  

 After our return to the hotel, and I had a nap while Josh went for a walk, we walked to route we would have taken had we taken the train ride to watch the sun rise.  As you can see, the clouds are already most of the way up the mountain and by the time we left the area you could hardly see Jade mountain across the way there (it's the highest point in the furthest rise of mountains.  It kind of sticks up like a triangle).  

 Josh couldn't get over how narrow the tracks were.  Only 2 feet, 6 inches.  

And here's the train again.

After our walk we had lunch then took the local bus back to the high speed rail to take us back to Shannon and Mike's in Beitou.  This was the one thing we did on our trip that Mike and Shannon had not done, and it was a nice trip.  Too bad they may never have the chance to go here before coming home.