Video Post #1: A Short Ride through the City

Today has been a great day so far.
 
On our second attempt (the website failed to explain certain document requirements pertaining to one's living situation) we successfully applied for (should receive it in about a week) my resident alien certification which is proof of my residency in Taiwan and will let me re-enter the country if I leave, open a bank account, etc. We also ate at a Chinese-Korean restaurant run by some friends from church and I shot some video with my new local cellphone as my coworker drove us back.

I even got a peek at the sun this afternoon as it made a very brief appearance through the clouds which have covered the sky since my arrival. It also hasn't rained at all today, the first dry day since I arrived. Hope it stays dry tomorrow as well, during our student outreach trip to a riverside area north of Taipei.

Doesn't look like much, but after two weeks of nearly continual rain,
there might as well have been trumpets

Anyway, to the main point of today's entry:
I wanted to give those of who you have never been to Taiwan a street's-eye view of the area around where I live. It's not like the richer, more metropolitan Taipei City further north, nor is it the beautiful countryside with mountains and rice paddies, but it looks like where many Taiwanese live and work. It's winter here and a comparatively bad air quality day, so the sky is a bit bleaker than in most pics of Taiwan you'll see, and it's not freezing but quite chilly with the north wind blowing.

I've visited Taiwan enough times that it was a fairly normal ride for me; I already can't look at Taiwan through the eyes of a stranger. But some of you can, and that's where, as the future short-term team coordinator for TEAM in Taiwan, I need your help:

What stands out to you in these videos? 
What seems unusual or different? 
Leave me a comment about it! 

Two notes:
1. Sorry for the clarity. YouTube's encoding degraded the video quality, which was quite good before. I might be looking for a new video upload site for future videos.

2. You may want to turn the sound down a little on the first video and a lot on the second one. These are my first experiments with driving videos so I'll try to do something for wind noise on future ones. If anyone has helpful suggestions on that topic I'd appreciate that feedback.




(PS: I had to shrink the embedded video to keep blogger from messing up the post formatting for mobile phone viewers. For everyone else, follow the link at the top of each video to get a non-pint-sized video)