Alishan’s cherry blossom season is to begin on March 10, with the number of weekend visitors being capped at 16,000 per day, the Chiayi Forest District Office said.
The monthlong festival is to run until April 10, with the Yoshino cherry tree in front of the Forestry Bureau Work Station expected to bloom first, the office said.
The Jushan hiking trail (祝山步道), which has cherry blossom trees on both sides of the trail, is the best place to view Yoshino cherry trees, it said.
Alishan House, an upscale hotel at the Alishan National Scenic Area, is another popular spot to view cherry blossoms, it added.
Lee Chung-chang (李忠璋), director of the Directorate-General of Highways’ (DGH) planning division, said that visitors parking their vehicles on both sides of Highway No. 18 — the main gateway to Alishan — often caused traffic congestion.
To avoid traffic jams, the Alishan Forest Park administration has decided to limit the number of visitors on weekends to 16,000 per day, Lee said.
The figure includes 10,000 group visitors, 2,000 visitors staying at Alishan House, 2,000 independent visitors and 2,000 for those visiting after 11am.
The restrictions are to apply on March 12, 13, 19, 20, 26 and 27, Lee said.
The section from Hudi (湖底) on Highway No. 18 to Tatajia (塔塔加) on Highway No. 21 will be closed to traffic from 6am to 11am during those three weekends, he said.
Group tours must purchase tickets for entry to the park in advance through the Chiayi Forest District Office Web site.
For independent travelers planning to arrive between 6am and 11am, they can park their vehicles at the parking lot at the 61km mark on Highway No. 18 and take the bus to the park. Bus tickets can be purchased in advance at the 7-Eleven, Hi-Life and Family Mart convenience stores.
Independent visitors can also take Kuo-Kuang Motor Transport’s bus services leaving from Taipei, Taichung and Kaohisung. They can enter Alishan Forest Park at a discounted ticket price NT$150.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not