旅行は私の人生なのだ

2010.2.7

Feb 7 is the first time I go to Alishan (Mount Ali).

It's unbelievable that I'm 31 years old, but I've never been to Alishan before. 

Anyway, there are lots of attractions in Taiwan that I've never been.

I just wonder what my life is like when I was a student.

I seem to stay an study in Kaohsiung all my life, and I didn't think about travelling somewhere.

The only thing I could do is studying.

I'm glad that since I get working and traveled in Tibet in 2005, my world get opened and changed.

After that, I'm enthusiastic about travelling aboard, and sometimes go travelling in Taiwan with my friends.

Today we will rent the motorcycles and ride to Alishan, and I'm exciting about trying my new-bought camera, Canon EOS 500D.　

The interesting of going to Alishan get doubled because of the new camera.

As for the photographing, I still take photos with the traditional film-based camera which could be bought in a cheep price in the past, but the films and developing the photograph still cost lots of money.

Since 2005, as I bought my first digital camera, photgrahing becomes much easy, much interesting, and costless. I don't have to buy the films, and I don't have to develop all the photographs.

Although digital camera is already a good choice, there are still some restrictions with them.

You could not change the lens, and you could not change the shutter time and the aperture.

As I took lots of pictures in Japan and New Zealand, I decide to buy a digital single lens camera.

As we arrived at Chia-yi city and rent the motorcycles beside the train station, we go to the restaurant introduced by the staff of the motorcycle rental.

The famous dish in Chia-yi is the rice with shredded chicken (雞肉飯).

 I'm sorry that I order my favorite food, rice with braised pork (魯肉飯).

 I love this simple but delicious food.

And rice-cake soup (粿仔湯) also tastes good.

Our third order is the rice sausage (米腸). Not bad.

　It may disappoint you that we didn't order the rice with shredded chicken. Sorry.

After taking some snacks, we ride towards the Alishan.

The best thing that you ride the motorcycle is breathing the fresh air, and you could stop anywhere you want.

Besides, you don't have to worry about finding a parking place.

So we stop for a while at the unknown flower farm beside the road.

It's interesting, of course, with the DSLR.

 My camera is equipped with the 18-200mm Travel Lens.

I try to shoot the small butterfly, and I think the telephoto effect is not so good as the telephoto lens with more than 300mm focus.

But the good telephoto lens is always quite expensive. So, the focus of 200mm is still acceptable.

Riding towards the mountain area, there is an attraction for resting and photographing.

After all, riding for a long time will cause the "Bottom" unpleasant.

The bridge is named "天長地久橋 (Teng-Chang-Di-Giou-Chiao)", and the name means that the couples will be together forever.

Keeping on riding, we suddenly find the Cerasus serrulata (山櫻花), which is a kind of cherry bloom.

  Though the weather is cloudy, we are still photographing very happily.

Because this is the first time I used the DSLC and I'm not used to all the functions of it, some pictures dosn't look very well.

Someone said, Practice makes Perfect.

I try different sets of aperture and shutter time, and the photos look clear.

I think that is the best thing DSLC could do. Even the weather is not good and the light is not sufficient, you still could take clear and lightful pictures with the camera.

Saying goodbye to the unknown tree, we continue moving to the Dayina Valley (達伊娜谷) where was once famous for the fishes, named "Varicorhinus barbatulus" (高山鯝魚).

I have to say that I didn't have any knowledge about the fish and how they look like.

In the half way, we stop at the tea farm and eat something here. The scenery is nice.

When we arrived at the Valley, the condition is quite bad. The valley seems to be damaged by the typhonoe very seriously.

Of course, I think the fishes are all dead or disappeared. That's pretty sad.

Although we overcome the bad road to the tourist center, there is no people here except for us and some fool tourists like us.

Thus, we only stay here for a while, and I think this place has showed us how terrible the Mud Flow are.

By the way, the mountain pig is very "handsome".

He seems not to see the tourists for a long time, and tries to stretches out his head.

I like the photo of him.

The road condition is not as bad as we heard before, but people always describe something too dramatically that the effect will become bigger than we think.

Basically, most of the road is good for driving or riding.

Only three sections are under construction for the falling rocks damaged the roads, and these sections are under traffic control that only allow one-way passing at a time.

The cars need some patient to pass these sections, but the motorcycles could pass much easily.

Before the dinner, we finally arrived at the main area of Alishan National Scenic Area.

There is a restaurant just opposite to the post office which was recommended by my mother.

We enjoy the chafing dish a lot.

I think it would be better to try some dessert, but unfortunately they don't provide for the tourists are few.

Our hotel is at the upper area where is good for watching the sunrise in the early morning, so when we finish our dinner, we take the shuttle bus of the hotel there.

Although the few tourists is not good for the business of Alishan, we are luckily benefited from it that the environment is very quiet and we don't have to avoid the crowd.

By the ways, the price of the hotel is also cheaper than the usual time.

Ha, before I sleep, I try to use the long shutter time to shoot the scenery in the dark night.

It's funny with the DSLR.