My only criticism of this one: I would have muted the background music when the ceremonial music is going on. Otherwise, 
Sure, the background music/original sound in general is improvable. I love shooting and editing videos, but it’s really time-consuming, especially on a slower computer. Thanks for the feedback, Chris!
Great videos
“Bucolic” might be a nicer description of the southwest coast. Alright, it’s a little bit boring too, but it really grew on me in this strange way. Something about the emptiness of the landscape really speaks to me. That’s not the sort of thing anyone is going to go see as a tourist… but I enjoy passing through and have had some luck capturing some interesting imagery there. Plus as someone who appreciates ruins, well… there’s plenty of those scattered around the southwest coast 
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Thanks, Xeno! Don’t think we saw any ruins, but we didn’t look closely, but I guess there must be quite a few abandoned houses in the area.
Yes, there are many. Here’s one. Here’s another out on the alluvial plain just north of Nankunshen temple. Actually, the entire western coast is sinking into the sea due to land subsidence. All those aquaculture ponds require a lot of water… and people have been pumping so much groundwater out of the ground that the land has slumped and flooded in many parts, especially right next to the sea (which is featured in Beyond Beauty: Taiwan From Above). Anyway, don’t mean to get off topic here…
Leisure farm in Neihu. Passed this farm many times, finally got in there to have a look. Farmer was very friendly. Would have loved to pick some fresh strawberries, but was not the season.
Earlier this month we made a trip to Nantou in central Taiwan. Here’s a video of our first stop, Jiji. A bit of a strange place, we found lot of the stuff around the railway station tacky and cheap, probably catering to local tourists. The 4-person bikes are not really in good shape and you have to be careful not to hurt yourself. Not the best way to move about, really, but we had fun nevertheless. The beef noodles were OK, not much different from Taipei’s beef noodles, though. The Green Tunnel is nice, but if you come from Europe, you won’t even notice that there is a “green tunnel” when driving on that road.
I didn’t really like Jiji but I did like Checheng, a much more serene place altogether, you might want to check it out too (unless that was your next stop).
Nice to hear you tell it like it is. I don’t really see the appeal of all the tourist stuff around the station in Jiji… but the Wuchang Temple is pretty cool.
As Doraemonster notes, Checheng is a step up than Jiji, though I would tend to say the most interesting sight in Checheng is off-limits for family-friendly travel videos 
[quote=“Xeno”]Nice to hear you tell it like it is. I don’t really see the appeal of all the tourist stuff around the station in Jiji… but the Wuchang Temple is pretty cool.
As Doraemonster notes, Checheng is a step up than Jiji, though I would tend to say the most interesting sight in Checheng is off-limits for family-friendly travel videos 
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Yeah, the earthquake temple, we should have gone there, thought of it when it was too late.
One of your haunted abandoned theme parks?
Thanks! I really enjoy these!
A really awesome old woodworking factory. It’s a big part of the history of the town… but now the site is nothing more than overflow parking. (For reference, photos: 1 and 2.)
A really awesome old woodworking factory. It’s a big part of the history of the town… but now the site is nothing more than overflow parking. (For reference, photos: 1 and 2.)[/quote]
Man, that place must have been a gold mine in your eyes. Majhong tiles, Mercedes limousine? Awesome stuff.
Second clip from our trip to Nantou. Shuili Snake Kiln and two restaurants. Didn’t expect much from the Snake Kiln, but it’s actually quite a pleasant place. Meat balls and duck meat? Well, just so so for my taste, but I am not a food expert.
Third clip of our Nantou trip. We stayed at the Jiu Qiong B&B, which is located a few miles south of Shuili at a village named Shang’an. Here’s their website: shuili2007.myweb.hinet.net/subcostata.htm (only in Chinese). Turned out to be quite a nice place. Very friendly owner, who introduced us to the tea of his tea plantation and took us to the grape farm. Very clean too (the B&B, not the owner), and great surrounding. Forgot to film more of the guesthouse, need to remember that the next time. We often stay in interesting places. Went for a walk, there is a suspension bridge, which was cool. We actually walked across four suspension bridges on this trip, which I liked. The grapes we picked were sweet and juicy, but when we bought some, I was a bit surprised that there was not much of a price difference to Taipei super market grapes. The plum product factory is just the typical tourist trap, complete with a strange assortment of cartoon statues outside. We went to the area too early to see the plum trees in bloom, we saw just a few blossoms here and there. It is supposed to be quite a sight, the blossoming plum trees and as backdrop the high mountains with Mt. Jade in the center. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any snow capped mountains on the trip either, like we had hoped for, cause it was too cloudy up there.
Here is a great video, showing why Taiwan can be such a lovable place. Only in Chinese, but the images speak for themselves. 
Next clip from our Nantou trip. We went to the indigenous (Bunun tribe) village of Wangxiang. Not a very special place, just a village, clean though, and with friendly people. I think there are homestays there, but we didn’t stay very long. There is also a suspension bridge. Then we headed for Dongpu and made a stop at the two bright red bridges on the way, the Sun and Moon Bridges. Interesting to see where the highway was originally, and how it apparently was destroyed by a massive landslide. Then, at Dongpu we walked across yet another suspension bridge, this one quite pretty. In Dongpu itself we saw many lanterns, the type of which you see during the Lantern Festival, not sure why the have the lanterns a few months before that festival.
We went to Dahu, the strawberry capital of Taiwan, two weeks ago. I kind of like the Miaoli area, not necessarily the strawberry center there, but the countryside with surrounding hills. We went there on a Monday, so not that crowded. Don’t want to know how many people there are during a weekend.
Day One of our recent trip to the Maolin National Scenic Area.
We went to “Du Mama” thinking that it was a restaurant. Turned out to be a shop selling indigenous-style food, they were making jinafu when we stopped by. Were very friendly people. The food was OK, but I think lot of food stuff prepared by indigenous people is quite oily and we have been eating quite a lot of indigenous food lately. The Majia Visitor Center is just a visitor center, but the location is nice. You can walk to a waterfall there, which we didn’t. At Majia there is also an indigenous park, which we didn’t enter. No idea if it’s any good. We were at the entrance on a weekday and not a single soul was entering or exiting. Then we went to Rinari, where the people of the village of Haocha, which was destroyed by a typhoon (Morakot?), found a new home. The village is still quite new and ultra-clean. I have seen really dirty indigenous villages and also some really clean ones. This must be the cleanest. The people there are very friendly and visitors have the option to stay in private homes (real “homestays” not just by name; the kids of many residents are working in the city, so there are many spare rooms available for visitors). We paid something like NT$1,000 per person. The dinner was nice too but did cost NT$300. It’s not a big tourist attraction, but we had a nice afternoon there. We didn’t have time to go to Sandimen, Wutai or Dewen (which was recommended to us). Need a bit more time to do that.
Second day of our trip to Maolin. If you haven’t seen the masses of crow butterflies, this is the time of the year to go. The numbers are staggering. You don’t even have to go to the forest to see them, cause they will come down to the village on some days and sit in large numbers on the road behind the village. The restaurant at Maolin was a bit on the dirty side, but there are not many lunch options in the village. The three bridges we saw were quite cool and the walk up the boardwalk gives you great scenic views. The high-up suspension bridge was under construction during our visit, so we didn’t go there. Duona was less nice than I remembered. Just a small village with indigenous people. The hot-spring pools in the valley below the village have not been re-built, but villagers told us that that will happen sometime in the future. All in all I like the Maolin/Duona route, very scenic, though the weather was not ideal on our trip.
Not sure if anyone is watching these videos. I’ll post them anyway, thinking that they give anyone who is planning a trip a better idea of what going there is like. Any comments are welcome. 
Third day of our trip to Maolin. We spend the night at the Pu-Lao Hot Spring Hotel. Was OK. I dipped into the hot-spring pool in the morning and it was very nice. Probably because the temperature was only about 40 degrees, not boiling hot like in other places. The trail behind Baolai is quite scenic. Lots of plum trees and nice views into the valley behind Baolai. We took the road from Baolai back to the Maolin area. The road on the right bank of Laonong River is much narrower than the one on the left bank and there is still a stretch of dirt road ( not yet fixed after Morakot?). From the left bank you have good looks at the 18 Arhats Mountains. The farm we visited is at Dajin on that same road, a bit north of Maolin. The farmer is very welcoming and receives quite a few tourists (including mainlanders, which surprised me). The dates/jujube are nearly the size of tennis balls and taste great. We only stopped in Meinong for lunch at the Meinong Folk Village, which is a tourist trap more than anything. The coffee you get there is very iffy, strange tasting. I spilled all of it in the parking lot and didn’t even mind. Had a City Cafe one a bit later and even that was better tasting.