Ambling through the sakura rain

Every year during mid March and mid April, there's always a festival in Alishan which you might not want to pass up-- the flowering season of Yoshino sakura.

After years of promotion and marketing by the authorities concerned, the annual flowering season of Yoshino sakura has become some kind of pilgrimage to outdoor oriented tourists. This year, I was one of the tourists who joined the sakura rush. It's a little bit unusual for me, for I was never a person who tried to catch any kind of fever due to the fact that the crowd always makes me uneasy. However, as anyone who is getting through this article sees, I've been having an extraordinary motive that call for my transforming. I am expecting a girl's smiles at all times, spontaneous smiles with happiness and bliss.

We started heading for Alishan on the morning of March 24th at about 6:40, that meant we got to wake up at a painfully early time for holidays. Except the annoying 30 minutes we spent on finding a parking space, the 3-hour driving to Alishan was unexpectedly smooth. We stepped in Alishan Forest Recreation Area at around 10, beginning our 7-hour, almost non-stop stroll in the sakura clouded pavement.

Bathing in the drizzle mixed up with mist, and taking a stroll under the full-blown blossoms of sakuras, it was so dreamy that I almost had an illusion of ambling through the sakura rain or surfing the sakura waves. The warmth I felt in my hand, passed from the tender palm I was holding, was the only thing reminded me that I was still breathing in reality.

The journey was just like tracing back to Eden. Misty rain, bloomy pure white sakuras, and the spectacular natural scenery of Alishan, all played the role as the hews of the picturesque paradise. But this paradise would be nothing more than a scorching desert without the most indispensable element: the vivid soul which is inside the girl whose hands were led by mine.

There is no denying that the journey was quite exhaustive, physically, since driving six hours and hiking nearly seven hours almost without a rest in one single day is never a easy task for any average man. However, if this is the cost that comes along with all the amazingly, beautifully things I have mentioned above, then it will always be a worthy deal above price.

Even though the weather that day made appealing snaps become missiom impossible and I am no Tom Cruise, compared with the beauts imprinted on my memories and the warmth simmering my heart, it was really just a meaningless flaw.

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