Category: 旅のエッセイ_Travel Essay

I believe the joy of travel actually lies in the planning stage. I take my time creating a detailed itinerary, putting a considerable amount of effort into it. After all, God is in the details.

For the trip to Taiwan this year, the weather was particularly unpredictable in advance. I had given up on my plan to trek in Alishan. When I arrived in Taichung, however, the weather forecast turned out to be better than expected, so I decided to try reviving the Alishan plan. I remembered the general outline of the plan, but I had forgotten even name of the hotel and had left materials such as the trekking map at home. Even so, I tried to replan by recalling my memories, but it was a task that required a lot of mental effort.

Since I could not secure Alishan Forest Railway tickets, my visit to Alishan fell again and I decided to focus on photographing the Alishan Forest Railway instead. The guidebook I brought to Taiwan explained how to ride the Alishan Forest Railway, but it did not mention where to go to photograph it. I started my research from scratch.

In Taichung, I acted as a tour guide for my family, so I had to plan my schedule in spare moments. After struggling with research, I finally managed to put pieces together a plan for photographing the Alishan Forest Railway. After photographing the railway, I decided to visit a wet market and a former sugar factory in Chiayi, but even with them, all would be completed early in the afternoon.

It was already late at night when I finished my plan for Chiayi. By that time, I no longer had the mental energy to think about what I would do after Chiayi.

I had tour guide tasks on the next day as well. Considering that I would need to use the spare time to make various arrangements, my time was really limited. I had to pick plans to fit my schedule from the vague backup ideas I had considered before the trip. The candidates were Keelung, Kaohsiung, and Taitung. My reasoning was that with such a wide geographical spread, the weather would be good somewhere.

The closest to Chiayi is Kaohsiung, I could make it by the time of sunset at Kaohsiung Lighthouse. It is a beautiful lighthouse, and since it was cloudy at the last time I visited, I could not miss a chance to see it on a sunny day.

The problem was the following day. I already had visited most of the places I had wanted to see in Kaohsiung. The only place left was a temple that supposedly had amazing night views, but I figured I could easily visit there after seeing the lighthouse. Since I was not interested in art museums nor shopping, it seemed difficult to spend a whole day in Kaohsiung.

That leaves Taitung or Keelung.

Because I used to live in Taito (台東) Ward in Tokyo, I had been wanting to visit Taitung (台東) in Taiwan. So, I had done a bit of research beforehand, but it seemed there was no spot in Taitung itself where I was particularly interested. On the other hand, if heading out to the countryside from Taitung, there were beautiful rural landscapes and coastlines. However, traveling around eastern Taiwan by public transportation seemed quite challenging. Besides, it was going to be a one-day trip, I needed to narrow down where I actually wanted to go. By that point, I already lost the mental energy to think that far ahead.

That left Keelung, but my main draw there was a local fish market that starts around 3 a.m. However, after watching the sunset in Kaohsiung, the southernmost city, I wondered if I would really go all the way to Keelung, the northernmost city, by passing Taichung and Taipei in the middle. I have noticed my stupidity, but even with my limited mental capacity at that time, I could tell that would be ridiculous.

I overthought things late at night and lost my ability to think clearly. I was left with no options and got desperate. It would be more accurate to say I “remembered” rather than “came up with the idea,” but I decided to take Breezy Blue, the same train I took last New Year’s holidays. It was the only thing I could think of which would make the most of the sunny forecast. I managed to book tickets at the very last minute.

On the day of Breezy Blue ride, I planned to wake up early in the morning and head to Zuoying Station by subway. To board the Breezy Blue, I needed to go to Fangliao. The rapid train that goes Fangliao originates from Taiwan Railways’ Xinzuoying Station, which is adjacent to the subway Zuoying Station. Furthermore, the high-speed rail back to Taipei also departs from the adjacent High-Speed Rail Zuoying Station. Ultimately, everything effectively is the same station. If I went ahead and stored my suitcase in a locker at Xinzuoying Station, I was sure to secure a seat on the rapid train and could travel without heavy luggage. God is in the details.

I surely got a seat on the rapid train at Xinzuoying Station, but I could easily find a seat even at Kaohsiung Station. I supposed demand for ordinary trains in southern Taiwan was not strong.

From there on, it was obvious that things were mostly the same as last year. The only difference was that I realized I could place my suitcase on the overhead rack in the passenger car as other Taiwanese travelers did. Since riding the train was the main focus of the trip, it was an itinerary that involved very little carrying of luggage anyway.

As it turned out, there was no need to wake up early and went to Xinzuoying Station to use a locker. Moreover, lockers in Taiwan seem to be hourly-based rate, and using one for about 12 hours ended up costing a fair amount.

Overthinking when you no longer have the mental energy to think about is truly something to think about. The devil is also in the details.

I was going to visit Taichung for a family matter. Since I am considered a frequent traveler, I suppose I was asked to take the role of planner and guide. That said, I had never been to Taichung, so I did not think I would be much help for them.

In any case, I would have liked to visit Taiwan during the dry season, which seemed to be from the fall till February of following year. However, my schedule during that time was already packed with trips to Guilin in November and Hong Kong in January. I normally would avoid February because it coincides with the Lunar New Year holidays in Taiwan. However, this year’s Lunar New Year was luckily in late February. On the other hand, February 11 was Japan’s National Foundation Day, a public holiday, so I could squeeze a five-day break in mid-February. It is odd for a guide to dictate the schedule, but I suppose this is what people call a paradigm shift.

I am not the kind of person to spend five days in Taiwan just as a guide. I plotted a paradigm shift from a guide and managed to carve out two days of free time.

While working on the tour itinerary as a guide, I began planning my own schedule. I hoped to visit Alishan in Taiwan for a long time, but I had put it off because Alishan Forest Railway had been partially suspended its operations for quite some time. I recalled seeing news that the Railway had fully resumed operations, I started making the necessary arrangements.

Perhaps because the Alishan is a resort area, the hotel cancellation policies were strict, with a full penalty charge if canceled within five days or so of arrival date. I kept looking the weather forecast of central Taiwan for two weeks prior to the visit, but it had forecasted raining. Since it was the end of the dry season, the weather might have been unstable. Alishan is famous for its sunrises but I just wanted to photograph the dense forest. Since the sky would not be visible in most of my shots, clear weather was not strictly necessary, but rain would definitely be a problem.

I checked the forecast almost every day, but even though the cancellation deadline approached, the forecast did not improve. I had no choice but to give up on Alishan. I had a few alternative destinations in my mind, but I decided to make a final decision on where to go after checking the weather forecast at the last moment.

When I arrived in Taichung, it was cloudy as predicted besides it was unusually cold for central Taiwan. Since the temperature drop was unexpected, I had booked a hotel without heating. It seemed I was not a good planner after all.

After arriving in Taiwan, I checked the weather forecast again and noticed that the weather was supposed to improve just for the two days while I had free time. Temperatures were on the rise starting from the day of my arrival, so it did not seem like it would interfere with trekking at Alishan. The weather in Taiwan was also undergoing a paradigm shift.

I decided to go to Alishan and started making arrangements again. However, it was too late that I could not get a reservation for the Alishan Forest Railway. There was an option of taking a bus to Alishan, but since I had originally decided to visit Alishan because the train service was resumed, there was no point in taking the bus.

Just as I was about to give up on Alishan, I found that the Alishan Forest Railway depot was open to public as “Chiayi Loco Shed Park.” At first, I thought it might be something like a museum, but upon closer check on Google Maps, it appeared to be the facility utilizing an active depot.

By the way, back in high school days, I found the truth that “if you climb Mt. Yarigatake, you cannot take photos of the Mt. Yarigatake.” Therefore, I should assume that if I ride the Alishan Forest Railway, I will not be able to take photos of the Alishan Forest Railway. So, I decided to change an Alishan photography plan to an Alishan Railway photography plan. This might lead to another paradigm shift.

After my family tour guide ended, I began researching the Alishan Forest Railway itself at the hotel in Taichung. After about an hour, I learned three key points:

・The locomotive is coupled to the downhill side of the train for both uphill and downhill trips. Therefore, if I want to photograph the uphill trip, the rear of the train is the best point.
・The locomotive and passenger cars are coupled not at the depot, but at Beimen Station, which is located near the depot.
・Zhuqi Station has a vast siding with a mountain in the background that look like Alishan.

These should be enough to make a paradigm shift.

I took an early morning express train from Taichung to Chiayi. It was cloudy in Taichung, but when I got off the train in Chiayi, it was sunny and clear. When I tried to put my suitcase in a locker at the Chiayi station, for some reasons, a 100-dollar bill was not accepted. A Taiwanese woman who was trying to use the locker also had same trouble. We tried it together and found out that coins worked, but I only had bills. In the end, she paid the locker fee for me. I was very grateful.

Carrying only my camera bag, I walked to Beimen Station on the Alishan Forest Railway. I just managed to photograph the first train departing as a deadhead train. If I had waited for the storage room was opened at Chiayi Station, I might have missed this.

Since I had some time before the second train, I headed to Chiayi Loco Shed Park at the time the Park opened. They were preparing a locomotive for the second train at the Chiayi Depot. I was able to photograph the locomotive leaving the Depot. So far, things were going better than I had expected.

The final and biggest challenge was Zhuqi Station. Not only was the train already full, according to my theory, once I was on a train, I could not photograph the train. I needed another paradigm shift.

Fortunately, I was able to use Uber in Chiayi to call a taxi. If I took a taxi ahead of the train, I could photograph the train as it arrived at Zhuqi Station. The taxi driver seemed suspicious why a foreigner would want to go to such a place, but I was in the middle of a drastic paradigm shift. If I explained that, he would probably find it even more suspicious.

When I arrived at Zhuqi Station, there were a few clouds, but I could see the majestic mountain ridges. Since there were no other high mountains in the vicinity, I was certain the mountain must be Alishan. So I thought. I was finally able to photograph the Alishan Forest Railway with Alishan in the background. So I believed.

That mountain had to be Alishan. Starting with my family’s Taichung tour guide, I piled up radical paradigm shifts. Having come this far, I wanted to avoid the ultimate paradigm shift.

I thought to myself, perhaps what I wanted most in life is stability.