Tips on Taiwan

[EvilYoda]

So it's probably about time I start doing some research - I know a good number of people here either live there or know it well. I'll be there for a month starting 3/23...flying with my dad but I'll be on my own a lot (I'm 29).

Give me anything that comes to mind: food, bars, shopping, sightseeing, what not to do, where not to go, etc.

Also, I don't know if anyone will be able to help me with this, but are there gyms throughout Taiwan? I'll be staying either in Taipei or Taoyuan City. If not I can make it work but it'd be nice just to have a barbell available every now and then...especially considering how much I'll be eating.

Thanks all, looking forward to what you got for me.

 

[SsupernovaE]

It's expensive as they fuck.

 

[MaxFusion16]

No it's not

 

[DanTMWTMP]

EDIT: ugh, wall of text.. I was too excited to point out the awesome that is Taiwan, and I had to cut out several paragraphs because there's so many things you can do in Taiwan. I'm not even Taiwanese...

Please say that you'll be closer to Taipei, than be in Taoyuan.. . Well, ok Taoyuan is not that bad, but Taipei is infinitely more fun. ..Taoyuan = zzzzz.....

There are gyms that cost around... ~100NT (~3USD) per hour or two (but they never really check after the first hour). My girlfriend took me there, but I'll have to ask her where exactly they are. I can get back to you when I found out.

Taipei is modern, and cheap. Man, after being there for so long, I don't think 1 month is long enough. However, try to avoid shady motels that also have 2-hour rates. A lot of them are actually very clean, but still... every hotel room has condoms with 2-4 channels of porn haha.

My favorite night market in Taipei was shutdown recently... w/ more likely to follow suit to follow the new rigid health laws. Sigh, so sad.. my first date w/ the gf was there too. My absolute favorite nightmarket is in Keelung (Chi'lung). It's a cheap 55NT ride to Keelung from Taipei bus station (right next to the Taipei main station). Try not go to there on a weekend there.. It's so packed.
Oh, and tell the Pakistani dude who makes delicious meat wraps (heh, they're essentially burritos) that "Daniel from Meiguo says Hi." You can also tell that bum-artist dude in next to the nightmarket in the main underground crosswalk that "Daniel from Meiguo says hi." Avoid the train tracks there though.. UGH...

If you have a chance, I'd highly recommend hitting up Jiufen:
http://wikitravel.org/en/Jiufen

and Hualien:
http://wikitravel.org/en/Hualien (and the national park nearby, Taroko).
Hualien has this one mochi shop which has uber-delicious mochi snacks. The tinytiny nightmarket in Hualien has this ultra-delicious "Coffin Bread." It's essentially two fried slices of bread with a covered hole on top that looks like a coffin.. which covers the delicious meat in it.

I took trains/bus all around that country, and had an absolute blast. I practically lived there for about a third of my life in the past 4 years (due to work). Public transportation is so easy there, and getting around and talking to anyone wasn't an issue. Taiwan probably has the most density of English speakers of any asian country I've been to (except Philippines, and Singapore ahah).

Damn.. if you only have a month, then I'll probably recommend you take the train that goes along the eastern seaboard, and essentially go b&b/hostile hopping down towards Kaohsiung and Kenting.

If you want to get to know a bunch of young US expats, I recommend heading to "Playing Lounge Bar." in Taipei. My close buddy is a regular there, and if you want, I can PM you on the details of that bar. It's essentially a hookah lounge. http://www.taiwannights.com/en/bar-lounge/playing-lounge-bar-taipei-135
From there, sometimes we'd go to a club afterwards where foreigners get in for free (well, only on weekends). Yay for me!

The Taiwanese people are possibly the most down-to-earth, genuinely nice people on Earth. I'm not kidding. I've touched every single goddamn continent on this earth (well, I almost touched antartica.. I didn't disembark ), and I have to say Taiwanese people are the friendliest people in the world. I met my cute gf there, and I am absolutely stoked that I'll be there again for work this summer (Kaohsiung).

Oh, and if you're in Kaohsiung, be sure to visit "Bottoms Up" next to the Grand Hilai hotel (tallest hotel in Kaohsiung, hard to miss). It's the most unlikeliest place to find the best steak in Taiwan. A US expat from New York owns that place, and he's a great dude to chat up. On my first encounter with that bar, I passed out in their toilet until 3-4am.. my shipmate thought I ditched him, but he ditched me :'(

efff.. you can probably tell that I miss that place. It's my favorite country to visit in the world(with New Zealand being a close 2nd...). My taiwanese buddies back home in the US tell me that I know more about their country than them haha

 

[EvilYoda]

Danthemanwiththemasterplan (I miss that nick) - I appreciate it. I'm still figuring out how much time I'll be in any given location...my friend has a place in Taipei that I might be using. I'll definitely be PMing/emailing you for more information...taking a bus/train and sightseeing definitely sounds good. My parents will have plenty of places for me to see (like Kaohsiung and Hualien).

Thanks.

 

[Geocentricity]

Fly to Taitung, hop on a ferry to Green Island. Rent mopeds, ride around the island, enjoy the seaside hotsprings, gorge on outdoor BBQ restaurants, and go snorkeling in the reef.

Toroko Gorge, Keelung in the north for food, Danshiu for the nightlife and daytime biking across Bali....after two weeks of Taiwan you may not want to leave let alone a whole month.

 

[EvilYoda]

Nice, I'm sure I'll be eating nonstop as it is, so sightseeing tips are definitely needed.

I know I won't want to leave...but I'm just happy to be going at all seeing as how I haven't been since I was 12 or 13. I actually planned on doing an Europe trip this year, but this one happened to work out that I could go with my dad.

 

[micrometers]

Taiwan is all about food. They don't even do sports. They just eat.

I actually found the place to be remarkably clean compared to the USA, believe it or not. Then again I was living in a hipster hovel before packing up to go there.

They're also big into bicycles.

 

[EvilYoda]

Yeah, I think I'm going to tell my friend to keep an eye out for a cheap bike so I can ride it around.

edit: he's hooking me up with a SIM with data...so hopefully that'll help me from getting lost, LOL.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

You just EAT. I've taken my friends around Taipei and we've done things like eat 5 meals in 2 hours. I was ready to explode and so was he, but he loved it so much and we both just kept binge eating. Destructive. LOL. This is coming from a guy who's from Hong Kong too so you know the food has to be good if he's craving it too.

I recently went with my gf and a good high school friend of mine (the one I mentioned above) and we did a 4 day thing. We took the train down from Taipei and I took them to Hualien to visit Taroko Gorge. The second day we went to Taitung and then later the hot springs hotels. Beware of tourist traps there. We got screwed for a $60 Chinese food meal, and you know $60 gets you damn good Chinese food in the US, but we got some horrendous shit for Mainland tourists.

Kenting was the 3rd day and do check out the water sports.

We came back to Taipei New Years Eve and then did the whole 101/Fireworks thing. I also took them to see the flag raising ceremony.

These are all things I've done myself already which was why I had no problem creating a trip for my friends. If I had another day or two, I would take the ferry to Orchid Island from Taitung. I know someone mentioned Green Island above, but to me Green Island is too touristy. Orchid Island is just as beautiful and larger. Less crowded, and the experience is amazing. We went fishing with the aboriginals and eating fresh sashimi was ridiculously good. I climbed some mountains there too, and it basically felt like I was on the tropical island in Lost.

Clubbing is a cool thing we do, but as an ABC myself, when we go clubbing, half the people there are ABCs too. That may be because of the whole Christmas time and how everyone and their mom goes back to Taiwan, but we were at some club and some random girl approached my gf and asked "Where's the coat check?" in plain English. I ran into random college friends that I never coordinated with, but it's amazing how many friends you can run into at a nightclub 6000 miles away. There's a LOT of clubs you could go to, and I'll list a few: Luxy, Primo, Spark, Myst, Baby 18, Neo.

Feel free to pummel me with more questions. I go every freaking Christmas and sometimes multiple times a year. I've spent every New Years there since 8th grade, and it's practically a 2nd home to me. I'm still not perfect at getting around, but now with a data plan there, Google Maps is invaluable. You can be a true pro and catch the bus too. That one always throws my friends off who can only do MRT as its the easiest. Bus is the best if you want to get to every corner and don't want to walk as much in Taipei.

 

[waggy]

hmm i love tai food. to bad you stink to high heaven if you eat it

 

[MaxFusion16]

I spent a couple of days in Taipei a few years back, thought it was just meh; been there and done that on a much larger scale in shanghai, and personally I thought the food was better in shanghai as well. But it is clean though, people are polite, and the girls are cute. Lots of Japanese influence.

I think I passed out at luxy or something, it was a club next to some university.

 

[micrometers]

I can't believe how they live. Like, in many places you can see people's living rooms from the street, couches and HDTV's.

Rowhouses in the USA which I guess are the 19th century way of living aren't like this. Since Taiwan is a creditor nation to the USA, I kind of wish that they would build nicer homes for themselves instead of selling artificially cheap electronics to overfed Americans living in McMansions financed by subprime loans which really in the end is their money.

 

[adlep]

EDIT: ugh, wall of text.. I was too excited to point out the awesome that is Taiwan, and I had to cut out several paragraphs because there's so many things you can do in Taiwan. I'm not even Taiwanese...

Please say that you'll be closer to Taipei, than be in Taoyuan.. . Well, ok Taoyuan is not that bad, but Taipei is infinitely more fun. ..Taoyuan = zzzzz.....

There are gyms that cost around... ~100NT (~3USD) per hour or two (but they never really check after the first hour). My girlfriend took me there, but I'll have to ask her where exactly they are. I can get back to you when I found out.

Taipei is modern, and cheap. Man, after being there for so long, I don't think 1 month is long enough. However, try to avoid shady motels that also have 2-hour rates. A lot of them are actually very clean, but still... every hotel room has condoms with 2-4 channels of porn haha.

My favorite night market in Taipei was shutdown recently... w/ more likely to follow suit to follow the new rigid health laws. Sigh, so sad.. my first date w/ the gf was there too. My absolute favorite nightmarket is in Keelung (Chi'lung). It's a cheap 55NT ride to Keelung from Taipei bus station (right next to the Taipei main station). Try not go to there on a weekend there.. It's so packed.
Oh, and tell the Pakistani dude who makes delicious meat wraps (heh, they're essentially burritos) that "Daniel from Meiguo says Hi." You can also tell that bum-artist dude in next to the nightmarket in the main underground crosswalk that "Daniel from Meiguo says hi." Avoid the train tracks there though.. UGH...

If you have a chance, I'd highly recommend hitting up Jiufen:
http://wikitravel.org/en/Jiufen

and Hualien:
http://wikitravel.org/en/Hualien (and the national park nearby, Taroko).
Hualien has this one mochi shop which has uber-delicious mochi snacks. The tinytiny nightmarket in Hualien has this ultra-delicious "Coffin Bread." It's essentially two fried slices of bread with a covered hole on top that looks like a coffin.. which covers the delicious meat in it.

I took trains/bus all around that country, and had an absolute blast. I practically lived there for about a third of my life in the past 4 years (due to work). Public transportation is so easy there, and getting around and talking to anyone wasn't an issue. Taiwan probably has the most density of English speakers of any asian country I've been to (except Philippines, and Singapore ahah).

Damn.. if you only have a month, then I'll probably recommend you take the train that goes along the eastern seaboard, and essentially go b&b/hostile hopping down towards Kaohsiung and Kenting.

If you want to get to know a bunch of young US expats, I recommend heading to "Playing Lounge Bar." in Taipei. My close buddy is a regular there, and if you want, I can PM you on the details of that bar. It's essentially a hookah lounge. http://www.taiwannights.com/en/bar-lounge/playing-lounge-bar-taipei-135
From there, sometimes we'd go to a club afterwards where foreigners get in for free (well, only on weekends). Yay for me!

The Taiwanese people are possibly the most down-to-earth, genuinely nice people on Earth. I'm not kidding. I've touched every single goddamn continent on this earth (well, I almost touched antartica.. I didn't disembark ), and I have to say Taiwanese people are the friendliest people in the world. I met my cute gf there, and I am absolutely stoked that I'll be there again for work this summer (Kaohsiung).

Oh, and if you're in Kaohsiung, be sure to visit "Bottoms Up" next to the Grand Hilai hotel (tallest hotel in Kaohsiung, hard to miss). It's the most unlikeliest place to find the best steak in Taiwan. A US expat from New York owns that place, and he's a great dude to chat up. On my first encounter with that bar, I passed out in their toilet until 3-4am.. my shipmate thought I ditched him, but he ditched me :'(

efff.. you can probably tell that I miss that place. It's my favorite country to visit in the world(with New Zealand being a close 2nd...). My taiwanese buddies back home in the US tell me that I know more about their country than them haha

excellent tips. noted and subscribed to.

 

[EvilYoda]

Loving it! I'm in the middle of some gaming but I'll be back with more questions and replies later. Thanks guys.

 

[micrometers]

They also have some impressive rail. It's clean, and the architecture is interesting.

Also, lots of lesbians. Lots.

 

[rchiu]

food, food and more food. and Keiting National Park, Alishan, Beitou hotspring, yushan national park, all nice nature out door place to go to.

 

[EvilYoda]

Alright, so anyway...it seems like I'll probably take a couple days to venture south and see the sights (my mom's mentioned alishan multiple times). As for food, my relatives and friends will help me with that, as well as you guys and the internet. Drinking/partying-wise, it'll depend on what my friends want to do. I'm all for clubbing, but I'd also just enjoy a local bar and seeing how residents hang out.

As for the lesbians thing...that's kinda weird, hadn't heard that before. I'll keep an eye out.

 

[sdifox]

I can't believe how they live. Like, in many places you can see people's living rooms from the street, couches and HDTV's.

Rowhouses in the USA which I guess are the 19th century way of living aren't like this. Since Taiwan is a creditor nation to the USA, I kind of wish that they would build nicer homes for themselves instead of selling artificially cheap electronics to overfed Americans living in McMansions financed by subprime loans which really in the end is their money.

May have something to do with population density...


op, definitely go to south Taiwan in THSR. I think it was 1 hour 23 min or so from Tainan to Taoyuen.

http://www.thsrc.com.tw/en/

you can book online, and if you book in advance you get a discount.

 

[EvilYoda]

Definitely looking forward to my first time on high-speed rail!

 

[jupiter57]

They also have some impressive rail. It's clean, and the architecture is interesting.

Also, lots of lesbians. Lots.

Pssst.
Those aren't really "Lesbians"

 

[krunchykrome]

It's expensive as they fuck.

lol, no it's not

It's incredibly cheap

 

[Kadarin]

Pssst.
Those aren't really "Lesbians"

I think you're confusing Taiwan with Thailand.

 

[EvilYoda]

I had thought that, hah...but he mentioned "rail" so I assumed he was talking about Tai-wan and not Thai-land. *shrugs*

(I'm still oddly curious to see if Asian lesbians would be the same as their American counterparts...)

 

[rsutoratosu]

Yeah its all about the food, taipei has 4-5 night markets, as mentioned, I dont know which one closed up.

Jiufen used to awesome like 10 years ago, there are still some shops there the food is not as good now. You can bus it also, its like 3 buses from the Sago place in taipei. they do have a direct route bus but its slightly higher.

BTW do not jaywalk or eat/drink in mrt, they will fine you and dont play the tourist card. Signs are posted in english.. friend got busted and fined