MAGIC HOUR

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 that perhaps what I wanted most in life, in the end, is stability.