Welcome to another day in Taiwan!
Today we've made our way to Sun Moon Lake.
Now, we are biking around Sun Moon Lake today.
When we went to rent our bikes last night, things took a turn for the interesting.
We'll show you what we mean in a little bit.
What is that dough?
Oh this is amazing.
For now, we're starting down at Sun Moon Lake at one of the statues that tells you how high
the water level is at Sun Moon Lake.
It's right here!
Now these frogs tell you the water level of Sun Moon Lake, and if you can see all nine
of them, it means that the water level at the lake is really low.
We can definitely see all nine frogs, so a little bit of a drought in Taiwan right now,
but hey, it means we get to see all nine frogs!
We are starting our bicycling route down near Ita Thao, and
we are going counterclockwise around the lake.
The water level is definitely low, but it's still beautiful here,
with the mountains around it.
We can see some temples off in the distance, which I assume are going to come to at the
end of our Loop, so I'm kind of excited to see those.
No fishing with electricity, poison, or explosives. What the heck?
Look at this cool art.
They're trash cans!
Well, we are a little bit further along and it looks like we found a bike path, which
would be a lot safer because we have been biking along the road, sharing it with cars
and a near miss with the bus.
When you go around the corner, it could be you, a car, and a bus.
I had to hit my brakes.
I had to slam on them.
I was going, oh swear word!
(We can't say that on YouTube.)
Anyhow, I slammed on my brakes and everything was fine.
Nobody fell.
Nobody honked.
Everybody just stopped and slowly went, so it was fine, but just know that you're going
to be sharing the road with cars and buses, and if that gives you some anxiety, this is
probably not for you.
Well, we made it to Wenwu Temple.
At least, this is the top of it.
We kind of came in at the wrong area, looking for a bathroom.
Wow, this is absolutely beautiful and massive.
It's so ornate. It's stunning.
One of the most beautiful temples we've ever been to, judging by the back of it...
and that's just the temple that she's been talking about.
The view is also fantastic!
Well, we finally made it down to the front of the temple and there's all these English
explanations, so the front is probably the best place to start if you visit Wenwu Temple
- and you should visit this Temple, because it is absolutely gorgeous.
It is one of the most unique ones that we've ever seen in our travels in Asia, and the
setting overlooking the lake can't be compared to anything else.
Absolutely beautiful.
Make sure that you come here if you come to Sun Moon Lake.
I nearly fell.
Just underneath Wenwu Temple is a series of 366 stairs,
and each one is labeled with a date.
We have cheated and not gone all the way down to the bottom, but we've gone down to the
May section, because Bill's a May baby, and then we'll stop at June, which is my birthday
month, and then we'll go back up.
Along each stair tread is the date, so you can find your birthday, and there's also written
in Chinese, celebrities who are born on the same day as you.
All birthdays are represented, even February 29th - leap year babies.
It's kind of cool, plus there's an amazing breeze as you come down
from the temple, which feels so nice after being just a little bit warm.
The only problem now is that what comes down must go back up.
I'm glad we only went down halfway.
Even just coming up from May is a lot of steps.
In case anyone is watching this and looking for information about how long it
takes to visit the temple, we've been here for two hours, and we tried to move as fast
as we could, but it does take us longer when we're filming things, so I would allocate
a couple of hours if you come this way.
We've come upon some kind of bamboo park.
We're going to go check it out.
On second thought, regarding the Bamboo Trail, we've gone on it for a little bit and
we're not 100% sure that we're in the right place and it's 1:30.
We haven't had lunch yet.
We're trying to make it back in time for the night market in Ita Thao, which ends early
at this time of year, so we are deciding to press on.
We've seen lots of signs saying don't feed the monkeys.
Haven't seen any monkeys yet, which is just fine with us.
We haven't been able to film the view out the side very much, but it is stunning.
We made it to one last Temple just
before they closed.
This one you see behind me, I think, is the last Temple before we get back to where we
began, and we made it with 15 minutes to spare.
The colors inside were so vibrant.
This Temple is a lot smaller than Wenwu Temple, but the setting overlooking the lake, with
the mountains in the distance, is absolutely spectacular -
and did I mention the vibrant colors?
Absolutely beautiful.
I'm so glad that we made it to this one, with just a few minutes to spare, so we could look
around and enjoy it.
We've been enjoying the drum ceremony for like the last half hour.
Unfortunately, we had a mic fail, so you don't get to listen to it, but we enjoyed it.
Check out this elephant, too. Look at how cute he is!
We still need to tell you about the bikes that we've been on today.
Hopefully you've been paying attention to this video, because it's really interesting.
We love to bike in scenic areas like this.
There's no better way to get closer to Nature and also see a lot at the same time, so we
set out to rent some electric bikes last night.
Well, these are not the normal electric bikes that we rent.
In fact, I'm not even sure you could call it a bike.
It's more of like a bike meets a scooter.
We've kind of been calling them scoot-bikes.
You don't even have to Pedal, which feels like cheating - like a lot of cheating.
But it's also been a lot of fun, and I think it's something we'd recommend.
Biking around this has taken even longer than we expected because there's so many fun places
to pull over and take photos, not just of the lake, but also of the things that are
around you - like this!
Wait, wait.
Where'd he go?
Okay.
Obviously we did not coordinate that ahead of time!
There's all sorts of cool places where you can pull over and just take
amazing photographs, so it has taken us even longer than we expected.
I'm so glad we got here just in time, but as usual, everything takes longer than we
think it should, because you know, recording things for you guys, but now we really have
to go back without stopping again.
We promise, because we've got to get to this night market and we know it closes early,
so it's time to boogie back.
Boogie away, Bill!
Well, that was way more fun than I expected.
It was also far faster than I expected it to be.
Also far more dangerous than I expected it to be.
I don't know. I thought it was fun.
I mean, I didn't hit anything.
The only danger was myself.
You fell that one time.
So did you! You just didn't capture it on camera.
If it wasn't on camera, it didn't happen!
We're here and places are still open!
It's on the late side for a day that's off season, but we are really excited about our
first pick.
The guy ahead of us in line seemed to come here often, and they seemed really excited
about it, so we ordered what they had.
In other words, we have no idea what this is.
This looks like a breakfast sandwich?
We think it has pork in it.
We definitely saw cilantro and egg.
Is it breakfast?
I'm super excited.
What is that dough?!
It *is* a breakfast sandwich.
That's delicious.
The bread is not like a white bread.
It's made of something different.
I wonder if it's actually millet, which is something
that this area and this town is known for.
The cilantro is really fresh and bright.
I'm just getting into the egg and cheese and the pork, so hang on.
I'll be right back.
If it's a breakfast sandwich, it's like the best I've ever had.
This is absolutely delicious.
I would eat this, not every day, but multiple times a week.
I absolutely love this.
It's the right mix of salt and cheese and egg, and the cilantro - really, I'm a fan
of cilantro on my breakfast sandwich.
McDonald's needs to do this.
They've got work to do.
Well, we're trying something here. We don't have any idea what it is.
They're fried balls, so they've got to be good, right?
Here goes.
It could be tofu, could be chicken.
It's good. It's not stinky.
It might also be fish balls.
From the same booth, we also ordered millet with some thing on it, and it was fried up
on the griddle.
It's all soft and gooey, and it's super hot, and it smells like peanuts.
Okay, I'm super curious.
What??
What is this??
I thought Millet was like a grain, but this is melty, like cheese.
It's super warm.
It's a sweet like honey and peanut coating that we have on this one.
It's absolutely delicious.
Oh my gosh.
It's so good.
This is what Millet is?
Do I need to order one? Uh-huh.
Wow.
I did not expect that to be sweet.
I thought it would be more savory.
I'm delighted that this is sweet.
It's so, so delicious, and Bill might have to get his own.
I don't know.
I understand millet is a grain.
How does a grain end up as something chewy like cheese?
This is amazing. The Taiwanese really love their night markets.
One of the reasons we stayed here is that this town has a very active Night Market.
It's one of the smaller towns that you can stay on, on the lake, but it has a night market.
Great food.
For our next dish, we've got wild boar on a skewer.
We understand it's a specialty in this area.
Let's give it a try.
That is really good.
It tastes a little bit like ham.
Slightly more gamey, maybe, but they've got a nice brown sugar and soy glaze with some
sesame seeds on it. It's just really tasty.
For our next item, again, we're not totally sure what this is.
She said to eat it sort of like a hamburger.
Just dig in.
I think there's some rice inside and some green onions.
I really have no idea.
Do I eat it from the underside or the top at first?
This is going to make a mess. Sorry.
That is an air fried rice purse.
The outside is doughy and crispy.
It maybe is a skin of something?
I'm pretty sure it's chicken skin.
Is that a thing?
Somebody tell us, because it's so crispy and it tastes just a little bit like some kind
of meat grease.
That sounds bad, but I don't mean it in a bad way.
It is really good.
It's just kind of hard to eat.
Fortunately, it fell in half so now I can eat it like this.
This is millet mochi. Don't really know what that is.
It's the same thing we had on the grill, but not hot!
That is strangely delicious.
That's about it from the Night Market.
We're full and we had a great time.
If you enjoy watching people bicycle around very Scenic Lakes, then you should check out
our video from Lake Annecy, France, because today absolutely reminded us of that Lake,
which is so unexpected.
Taiwan and France!
Check out the video up here and see if you agree with us.
See you next time.
Thanks for watching!
Bye!