January 28, 2007
阿里山
Took advantage of the half-price fares of the Taiwan High-Speed Rail during the shakedown period to take a group trip to Jiayi via HSR then up to Alishan on the refurbished Japanese-era mini-train. The HSR was smooth as silk and fast-fast-fast, but the old logging train was just as impressive in its engineering as the Japanese engineers had to carve their way around and through the steep Taiwanese mountains with dozens of tunnels and clever switchbacks. It probably didn't hurt that they had lots of forced labor available.
Even with the HSR it was quite a trip up to the mountain and it was just about sunset by the time we got to the final stop. Just in time to meet up with our tour guide and get some great shots of the sunset. Having the manual control of the DSLR really helped in getting a good exposure of the background sky in balance with the flash exposure of the group in foreground.
Even though the weather was cold and damp and we couldn't see the sunrise, a good time was still had by all, which is what a weekend trip is all about, right?
Posted by mikewang on January 28, 2007 09:31 PM