Just an hour away from Taipei, Yilan is a nice and calm county where you will see a vast area with green rice fields, farmlands, mountains, forests and lakes. The Plum Lake is a good place where you can spend time to relax by the lake, take a walk or paddle boat in the lake.  There are a couple of restaurants and a few bed and breakfast place by the lake where you can spend a day or a weekend there. Don’t expect to see plums there! I’ve seen other posts saying that there are plums during the season (usually between end Dec and Jan/Feb). It was wrong! The name “Plum Lake” came after one of the senior government officials who commented that the shape of the lake with a little island in the middle looked like a plum flower. Not that there are real plum trees! I heard from a local that there were discussions about planting plum trees so that the name of the place ties in with “Plum” but it hasn’t happened yet. Who knows. May be there are some next time…