Apparently sunrises are a big deal in Taiwan, because they organize tour buses just to see the sunrise over Yushan, a neighboring mountain. So, at 3:40 in the morning Chu-wan and I were standing outside the hotel waiting for the bus to show up.
Yushan (Jade Mountain, roughly translated) is the highest mountain in Southeast Asia. Known as Mt. Morrison to westerners, the mountain was also known as Nitakayama during the Japanese occupation. The name refers to the fact that Yushan is taller than Fujiyama, displacing it (at that time) as the tallest mountain in the Japanese Empire.
Yushan was popularly believed to be 3,997 meters (13,190ft), and a 3 meter tall statue stands at the top making the mountain 4,000 meters tall. In fact, whether due to improvements in measuring devices or changes due to the earth shifting, Yushan is really only some 3,950 meters (13,035ft) tall, although, the 3 meter statue does stand at the top of the mountain.
Sunrise was beautiful, and luckily I didn’t yawn at just the wrong moment. I got a number of photos and video of the whole thing. As soon as the sun rose, the tour guide drove us back into the bus like cattle, and down we went from our vantage point, stopping at several scenic spots along the way. On the way back we could at least see the scenery as the sun had risen.
Once we returned to Alishan, we walked through the forests and ponds while the clouds created impervious mists and eerie shadows among the green, soaked forest.
In the afternoon, we caught the forest train halfway back down the mountain to Fen Chi Hu, a town dependent on wood carving and the vast lumber resources of the area.
We stayed in a hotel again that night. (This time with real beds!)