Sun Moon Lake → Alishan: Sunrise, Cypress, and Old Japanese Trains

Day 1 — 40 Hours Awake, Then Sun Moon Lake

Flew overnight from SFO to Taipei. Way better than expected for ~2.5 hours of sleep on the plane.
Always go for the Asian meal on an Asian carrier. The Japanese curry beat Athena’s beef and potatoes by a mile (and then we both got congee for breakfast).
Landed early, did Taipei for a few hours — skipped the famous breakfast spot’s hour-long line and ate at a stall a block away. Probably just as good.
Wandered the creative district, got cute Easy Pass cards, and made the obligatory pilgrimage to the DJI store.
Picked up the Osmo Nano + Mic Mini kit. Way smaller than a full action cam — fits in my side pocket.
HSR train + bus down to Sun Moon Lake. Athena slept through the bus; I forced myself awake to start using the camera.
The hotel room. WOW. 8th floor, private balcony, full lake view. Athena called it the honeymoon suite. I may have over-recorded the room.
Hit the 40-hour wall around 4pm. Pushed dinner early — fish hot pot and Aboriginal braised chicken, $14 each, lakeside table.
In bed by 8pm.

Day 2 — Lake Day: Sunrise, Bikes, Pagodas

Sunrise & Slow Morning

Woke up at 4:30am after sleeping like a rock from 8pm. No alarm.
Sunrise wasn’t until 5:20 but dusk started at 4:50 — got dressed and out on the balcony in time.
Lake was glass-calm. A few people scattered on the path below already doing the same thing.
Birds, distant roosters, dogs lying on the dock. Air slightly crisp.
Athena came out and we hung out talking about how happy we were to be there.

Biking 10+ Miles Around the Lake

Bike rental opened at 7am. The two dogs we’d been watching from the balcony followed us 5 minutes to the shop.
All-day rental: $500 TWD (~$15). Big bikes, helmets, water, lock.
First two miles right along the water were perfect — flat, empty, what I’d imagined.
Then real hills. 400+ feet of climbing on a main road in one stretch. Pretty proud of Athena — she handled it well.
Saw wild monkeys crossing the road. First sighting of the trip.
Stopped at the “9 Stacked Frogs” — a lake-level marker statue. All 9 visible today (lake’s not full).
Fun fact: CNN included this bike route on a list of the world’s most beautiful. The flat lakeside section absolutely earned it.
Total: a bit over 10 miles. Could have done the full 30k loop but the pagoda climb was the better trade.

Food + Ferries + Pagoda Climb

Lunch at the hotel restaurant — set menu with local fish and pork. $25 for the whole meal.
Got a red tea boba afterward. Barely sweet, incredible tea — I’d skip the pearls next time, that’s how good the tea was.
Ferries are the move around the lake. Bikes load right on.
Ferry from near the hotel to a temple near the pagoda. The pagoda is ~750 ft above the lake — visible from our room the whole trip.
Speed-walked up because the next ferry was tight. Beat a tour group to the top and had it mostly to ourselves.
8 stories of pagoda on top of the climb. 360° panorama: lake, mountains, mist. Genuinely stunning.

Street Food + Sunset

Hit the food stalls back near the bike shop — they finally open later in the day.
Boar skewers, boar skillet, sweet boar sausage (had to go back for seconds), mochi, tofu, sweet potato.
Stacked Frogs dessert: 9 little stacked-frog cakes tasting like gai dan zai. Had to.
Final ferry of the day across the lake at sunset.
Watched the sun set from the same balcony where the day started.

Day 2 in a sentence: woke up for sunrise, biked 10 miles, climbed a pagoda, ate everything, ferried back at sunset. So much for a rest day.

Day 3 — Bus Into the Clouds, Foggy Cypress, Wild Monkeys

Slept until 7:30am. Way later than planned but I needed it.
Caught the 8:40 bus to Alishan. First hour was uneventful, just curvy roads. Athena somehow didn’t get carsick — a small miracle.

Bus Into the Clouds

The road climbed continuously from ~1,000 ft to 8,400 ft — not switchbacks, just one long grind up the side of one massive mountain.
The peaks here are insanely steep and jagged, but completely green and tropical-looking. Almost Hawaiian.
Every curve revealed a better view than the last.
Road closed for construction about two-thirds up. Got out, walked a concrete tunnel with cutouts to see down the slope. Real “we came up that?” moment.
Mapped the route later: 35 miles, 7,300 ft of climbing.

Walking the Fog

Crested into Alishan and the fog rolled in instantly. By the time we entered the park you couldn’t see 100 feet ahead.
Knew there’d be fog. Did not know there’d be that much.
Mostly had the park to ourselves — wooden bridges and stone paths half-disappearing into white.
Climbing was harder than expected at 7,500 ft. Briefly questioned my Everest base camp dreams. Then my legs remembered how to work.

Ancient Cypress + Wild Monkeys

Grabbed a boar meat lunch and a sweet potato from a food stall around 1:30. The boar was better than pork.
The famous cypress loop started just as the rain set in. Trees four meters around, one of them 1,500 years old — three generations grown on top of each other’s remains.
Only sound was rain dripping through the canopy. Most tourists had bailed. Magical.
Rounded a corner and there were fifteen wild monkeys. One mother with a baby clinging to her belly.
First wild monkeys I’ve ever seen.
Fun fact: Alishan’s giant cypress trees are over 1,000 years old, and the original Alishan Forest Railway was built by the Japanese in the early 1900s for hauling out the biggest of them.

Tea House Evening

Bus back down to Shizhuo. Our tea house host met us at the stop and drove us up — only a 10-min walk but 100 ft of stairs we very much appreciated.
The property is a working oolong farm with a handful of guesthouses tucked into the hillside.
Hiked back down through the tea bushes for dinner. ~$28 USD for both of us. No tip, no tax.
Fell asleep to the sound of frogs and bugs.

Day 4 — Old Japanese Railroad Through the Mountains

This ended up being one of the coolest hikes I’ve ever done.

Newspaper Bus + Clear Skies

Caught the 7:40 bus into Alishan (after seeing it delayed and pivoting last-minute from our planned 8:40).
Bus was almost full. The driver pulled out newspaper and put it on the steps so we could literally sit on the floor by the door. Worth it.
The morning was completely clear — finally saw the actual mountains we were supposed to see from the bus.

Breakfast & The Old Train

Breakfast in the park: two omelets, scallion pancake, Chinese omelet, all with red tea + soy milk. Red tea with soy milk is now a permanent want.
Took half breakfast to-go to make the 9:30 train.
The Alishan park trains are 100+ year old Japanese ones — all-wooden cars used to carry royalty. We got the full wooden set.
Slow, smell of wood, windows open, the forest going by. Drank tea, poked my head out, didn’t want it to end.

Tunnels and Bridges

The hike follows the old Japanese forest railroad — open to the public for a while, eventually permit-only.
Single track the entire way. Bridges every few minutes — ~3 ft wide, 50+ ft drops on either side, but solid planks down the middle, well-maintained.
~10 tunnels through the cypress. Athena wasn’t a fan of the one with a partly-collapsed section you had to scramble around. Fair.
Moss, ferns, cypress everywhere — somehow lush and tropical at 7,000–8,000 ft.
Sign at the trailhead said “9 people have died on this trail this year” — apparently it always says 9. Either way, we paid attention.
Tried to summit a peak on the way back (1,000 ft of climb in 1 mile) but turned around at 2/3 when we hit a viewpoint fully fogged in and rain rolling in. No regrets — would have been steep and wet coming down.

Tea Farm Dinner

Got back to the farm and the host prepared dinner for us — fried pork, fish, local veggies, shrimp, soup.
Then the tea. Honestly the best tea of my life. Tasted like it had honey infused but it was just the tea — a local black tea grown on the property.
In bed early. Planned a 4:30am wakeup for sunrise.

Day 5 — Tea Fields Sunrise + Traditional Tea Ceremony

Sunrise Over the Tea Fields

Woke up just before 4:30. Drank some of last night’s tea and walked out at 4:50.
Climbed ~100 ft up to an observation deck above the guest house.
Spent about an hour watching the sky change. Roosters, birds, farm cats, distant dogs.
We’re on the west side of the mountain so we saw the colors and the light hitting the surrounding peaks long before the sun itself appeared.
Stunning. Quiet. Grounding. Not in a hurry.
Then a steep hike up around the other tea farms — ~1,000 ft of climbing in the first mile, through bamboo, tea fields, and more cypress. Empty trails. Honestly enjoyed it more than the touristy parts of Alishan.

Tea Ceremony at the Farm

10am traditional ceremony with the only other couple at the farm. Three teas, three pourings each.
Standard oolong, high-valley oolong, and a small-leaf black tea.
High-valley oolong must be grown above 1,000m and gets better above 1,500m. Sweeter, smoother. Athena and I both liked it best.
Fun fact: green/oolong tea fragrance sits at the top of the cup — you transfer to a separate scenting cup and inhale the empty one. Black tea fragrance sits at the bottom — you smell the empty mug after drinking.
Methodical, beautiful, took almost an hour. Every movement deliberate.
We bought $150 worth of tea. Worth every dollar — these are leaves we literally walked past.

Fenchihu (Kind Of Overrated)

The owners drove us to Fenchihu (10 min) instead of making us take the bus. Lovely.
It’s the famous stop on the old Japanese train line from Chiayi to Alishan — we watched the train, looked at the food stalls, ate a bento.
And then ran out of things to do. 2.5 hours until our bus back. Walked some nearby trails, sat down for an hour, decided this is a 1-hour stop max.
Back to Shizhuo for an early dinner ~4pm at the same spot as night one. Devoured probably 3–4 people’s worth of bamboo shoots, fermented tofu, local veggies, and boar.
Bed by 8.

Day 6 — One Last Tea-Fields Sunrise

Going to bed at 8pm made the 5:30am wakeup easy.
Climbed ~250 ft up to a higher viewpoint than yesterday by 6am.
Set up the camera for a sunrise timelapse, then sat on a railing with Athena for an hour and a half.
Both of us kept staring in awe. Really glad we decided to stay 3 nights here instead of 2.
Back to the farm for the last breakfast: radish cake, egg, congee, sausage, local veggies, milk pudding, the sweetest Taiwan mango. And the honey black tea, one last time.
9:15am bus to Chiayi, then HSR to Kaohsiung.

Overall: six days that felt like two weeks. Sunrise on a balcony. Sunrise on a mountain. Sunrise over tea fields. Mountains so steep they look fake. Fog you can’t see through. Wild monkeys. The best tea of my life. Possibly my favorite stretch of any trip we’ve taken together.