A portion of the extended holiday was spent barbecuing and exploring part of Taiwan’s quieter-side. A friend rented a cabin in Sitou [溪頭], Lugu Township [鹿谷鄉]. It was a great weekend featuring food, KTV, and bugs.
Our group’s cabin was the one on the right:
One of several grills cooking on a cool Fall evening [sorry Michael, no Dutch Ovens]:
After a long night of grilling and KTV, we set out on foot to explore:
Dashigong [大石公]: a massive house-sized rock.
The sign to the left advertises the specials at the cafe up the stairs that is located above the rock. At the rock there is a small Buddha statue. If you donate $10 NT you can write your name and a note on a piece of wood and hang it for good luck. We donated money but opted out of writing a note and wasting wood.
Along our brief expedition we encountered several creatures. Our first was this butterfly:
The dragonflies were all flying low from the on-again off-again light rain of the morning:
A moth taking a break:
This spider was incredibly fun to take pictures of…
…it mostly involved me balancing on top of a brick wall because I haven’t invested in a powerful zoom lens for the D40…
…I took a shot from up close with the flash and I think that may have ticked him off, he fell (or jumped) to the bottom of his web and started wildly flailing his legs.
And the final critter is this Long-Horned Beetle [Locust Borer?] we saw fly overhead and land on this tree:
The Daily Bubble Tea 
funny you should mention that Todd, as HC and i had to cancel our plans to cookout with the family due to having a bad case of stomach flu! i was supposed to be cooking with Dutch ovens too… we’re just going to have to use them in Miaoli with Andres!
as always great photos and excellent reporting. looks like you guys had a great time. wish i could have joined you! the most i could do was sit at Shao-hui’s for while, close to the restroom!
Great pics! Especially the Locust Borer [?]. I wondered what that was. Took some pics of one over at MJ’s factory once. A gorgeous insect.