Alishan in Cherry Blossom Season is THE place to be! High up in Taiwan’s central mountain range, part of Chiayi County, its charm lies in the little red mountain trains that chug upwards and onwards each day before dawn, taking hundreds of visitors up to Zhushan Station, 2,451 m (8,041 ft) above sea level, the highest point of the Taiwan Railway System. Despite several days of rain and a cold front, bringing temps in Alishan down to 7°C, I was there on Saturday, joining hundreds of people all hoping to catch views of the sunrise over Yushan, 玉山, Jade Mountain, (Taiwan’s highest mountain at 3,952 m, 12,966 ft) and also perhaps a glimpse of the sea of clouds – boringly known in English as a cloud inversion (‘sea of clouds’ is a Chinese poetic term – and sounds oh so much better!) The last time I was in Alishan was Easter weekend 2018 so I was keen to go again. It was cloudy this time, which delayed the sunrise until it came out of the clouds, but hey, there was a big gasp of ‘wow’ from everyone when it did appear – and with the sea of clouds too! Beautiful!

“The Alishan area was originally settled by the Tsou indigenous people; the name derives from their word Jarissang. During the Japanese colonial era from 1895 onwards, Japanese expeditions to the area found large quantities of Hinoki Cypress Trees 檜木. Hinoki is a beautiful dark, fragrant wood, extremely hard so it is termite-resistant and also able to withstand humid conditions – so it doesn’t get mouldy. It is a highly valued construction material in Japan, which led to the development of the logging industry in the Alishan area for the export of local hinoki cypress and Taiwania wood. A series of narrow-gauge railways were built in the area during this time to facilitate the transportation of lumber from the mountains to the plains below, part of which continues to operate today as the Alishan Forest Railway, though now taking visitors to see the sights.”

There are plenty of ways and much information online about getting to Alishan and what to see and do. Ideally, you get to stay there for a few days and enjoy the nice hotels, sunrise, train trips and cherry blossom in a relaxed way. The way I did it was not the relaxed way, this way is for those in a rush – that is, by overnight bus from Taipei, door-to-door a 23-hour round trip. King Bus 國光客運 (known as ‘Kuo-Kuang-Hao’) goes once a week from Taipei Bus Station (next to the Taipei Main Train Station) at 20:45 pm on Friday night; the return trip leaves Alishan on Saturday morning at 11:30 am, and gets back to Taipei about 5:30 pm, depending on traffic. The cost is NT$ 750 each way, and for your admission ticket into the Alishan area, using your bus ticket, you then pay NT$ 150 instead of NT$ 300 per person. The mountain train is NT$ 150 per trip. Hotels in the Alishan area are notoriously expensive, so it’s worth it, honest, despite the lack of sleep on that bus! The bus journey from Taipei to Alishan takes about 6 hours, with a short break at a roadside 7-Eleven en route (take note: Alishan can be very cold, but the coldest place was the air-conditioning on that overnight bus – be prepared!) The second half of the night journey is a gradual ascent up the winding road to Alishan, through the tea plantations, though you don’t realize that is what you’re passing until the return journey in daylight. We arrived at the Alishan main gate at 2:45 am – the 7-Eleven there is closed at night, so walk on up through the Alishan entrance, to the 7-Eleven opposite the Alishan Train Station, which is open 24 hours, and happens to be the highest altitude of all 7,000+ 7-Eleven Convenience Stores in all Taiwan, hence the plaque! After not much sleep all night, it’s good to stock up on coffee and breakfast here, before heading to the Alishan Train Station.

Saturday’s sunrise was scheduled for 6:30 am (it’s about 20 minutes later than the official time, due to the sun having to appear above the mountains), and the train was leaving at 5:30 am – so the ticket office opened 30 minutes before that, at 5:00 am, with a notice saying that there were 300 tickets available. That’s a lot of people, and they needed 2 trains.

A long queue started to form at about 4:30 am, but I was near the front and got my ticket. Off we went, in a very crowded train (standing room only) for the 25-minute ride to the sunrise viewing platform at Zhushan.

There are several places to see the sunrise near the station and I went up to the higher one, a 15-minute steep walk up the road, but from where there is an even better view – especially given the clouds – and fewer people. I stayed up there for ages, it was beautiful! Once the sun really came out, it was very bright, so from there, I walked back down to the main sunrise viewing platform at the station, where you can buy soup, coffee and more breakfast and watch the 2 trains leaving Zhushan and returning down to the main Alishan Station.

Oh yes, and you can try hard to avoid the 2 monkeys that are determined to steal your breakfast, ha ha!

From Zhushan Station, it’s best to walk back down all the way, following the road and then the footpath, it’s about 40 minutes back to the main Alishan Station – or you can carry on walking down and through the forests, enjoying the fresh air, cherry blossom, magnolias, calla lilies, the large hollow cypress trees, walking all through the famous Alishan scenic area. The area includes the small Alishan Museum, and the neighbouring Alishan Elementary School, which I gather has only 18 pupils, it’s also the highest-altitude school in Taiwan. Walking around on all the footpaths and seeing everything took me most of 3 hours, and I ended up back at the 7-Eleven at the Alishan Station at about 10:00 am just as the clouds were rolling in, and also just as the crowds of people were coming out of their hotels having watched the sunrise and gone back to the hotels for breakfast.

By 11:00 am, it had started to rain, so I was glad to be leaving on the 11:30 am bus back to Taipei. But first, it is worth checking out the art gallery on the 3F above the bus station, where there was an exhibition of wooden sculptures showing the lumberjacks and others working in the Alishan logging industry – in fact there were many of these larger versions set up in the actual forest, I love ’em!

Alishan Cherry Blossom Season 2025 ~ well worth seeing not just for the cherry blossom, but also the magnolias and calla lilies, and of course those trees! Magnificent at any time of the year, and so huge! Interestingly, one of the notices said that the famous cypress trees still there at Alishan (and featured in my photos above) survived mostly because they were hollow, curved or deformed in some way, otherwise, they would have been cut down by the loggers and shipped off to Japan. The ones that remain are numbered and preserved for posterity, each with an individual notice, bringing delight to all the thousands of visitors that go to Alishan each year. Now, that’s food for thought!

🌸 Alishan Cherry Blossom Season 2025: must see, must go, the sooner, the better, it’s beautiful! 🌸