If you search online about how to get to Alisan, there will probably be 3 ways:

1) train

2) bus

3) sketchy granny

Somehow we were approached by the sketchy granny and took the car. The reason is because the train was under maintenance, the bus had a long queue and the price is reasonable.

Each passenger had to pay 300 TWD for the car. (the bus was 250 Twd).

Eventually, I came to know that the driver will take 250 TWD while the sketchy granny take 50 TWD and she is in charge of many vehicles.

Our car have a mixture of Japanese, Indonesian and China people. My driver cannot really speak English thus we became the translator from Chinese to English. Zzz

We stopped by hinoki village, a area with Sakura flower, a tea shop and they drove us to our hotel(must insist the driver and say sketchy granny said that)

The driver mention that there are different temperatures within the mountains, so sakura from different area blossom at different time. This indirectly ensures that tourist would be able to catch the Sakura even if they don’t come exactly different blossoming period. ( Somehow we were lucky to see this as it was blossoming at Alishan)

This was 1 of the tea shop that we went. The driver made many emphasis that he only bring people here to try and we are not obligated to buy. The tea here is selling at 600 TWD whole those at Alishan is 800 TWD (other places like ximending was also 800 TWD)

We catch a meal at 1 of the shop at Alishan. This meal cost us 1000 TWD as we shared with 2 other new friends that we met on the journey.

Our hotel was surprisingly atas(good). It was a bit pricey but the services was good. There was even a staff who brought as to our rooms and explained the three facilities to us.

We decided to went to take the train first as we decided to take ride sketchy granny car to mountain top for another 300 TWD. We need to take up at 4am for the train but 5 am for the car. Haha. Lazy.😴😴😴😴😴

We took the train to Zhaoping Station and realise its really nothing special. Its similar to the train in Hong Kong Disney.

We ventured around the area and went to sister Lake to take photos. There were many trees, lake and bridge to take photo.

We managed to walk back to our hotel from Zhaoping. (since its downhill, I do not recommend the other way. There were many stairs in the route.)

Also, did I mention that dinner is provided in my hotel. Its one of the nicer buffet I have ever ate. There even have Hagen Dags ice cream. There was so many variety and even someone to cook noodles on the spot(not nice. Lol. 🤣🤣🤣)

Our hotel even provide night activity. We went to do star gazing and there was someone explaining the different types of stars to us. The session was in Chinese though, so I am not sure if foreigners understand. It was quite fun and the instructor will use the laser to point out the stars in the sky.

So tired. Haha