today i finally landed in taipei, will be interviewing for ESL teacher jobs tomorrow…so i’m staying in hostels/hotels until a job is offered to me and i can look for an apartment…HERE’S the problem:
when i got there i was gobsmacked at how rundown and dingy it was. when i sat in my room i immediately logged onto the net and started looking for a new place. i ended up giving up after 30 mins and checked out of the hostel, carrying my two luggages with me all over the place TRYING to find a hotel.
somehow all of the ones i went to were booked up.
anyways, after and hour of going in and out of hotels…right now i am staying at the YMCA closeby Main Station but at almost $100USD a night, i cant do this for even two weeks. plus on saturday (2 nights from now) i have to check out because all the rooms are booked.
where can i stay hotel or hostel that is affordable and DECENT. 40-50USD/night is my range.
does anyone know any sites i can look at…other than craigslist and tealit? i am desperate to find a place quickly…
my first day in taiwan is not going well…
pls pls help. i should be out sightseeing and what not…but im online looking for a temporary place.
Good Lordy, I also stayed there my first day here. Awfully expensive, and yes, very ugly. The bushiban street makes for a very depressive sight -not to mention the air quality.
The hotel near my house charges 2000 something nts, and I’ve seen the ads for several other nice looking hostels -I was considering sending my family to one in Taan that charges only 1600. Dunno how much the international house is these days…
By the way, it also rained like the Great Flood the first day I got here…
I’ll attach some links…
ps.
the hotels around Taipei Main Station are not top of the line, plus now we have the Mainland tourist invasion…
I don’t have an immediate answer for you, but since short-term (e.g. 1 month) boarding house lodging might be an option, you might want to specify your gender, as such lodging is sometimes gender-specific. Then someone might know of a cheap room open somewhere. I know a lady who has in the past rented small, clean but basic rooms out for something like NT$8000/month (about US$7.80/day), but only to female college students and working ladies, and on a monthly or minimum 2-month basis, I think; I don’t know whether she has anything open right now.
i really don’t know what to do. i’d like to book something ahead of time instead of lugging around my bags like a lunatic.
if i ask a hotel they won’t refer me anywhere, cabbies don’t speak english (obviously, i know this).
i’d like something that has an ensuite bathroom or if it’s shared bathrooms…something with multiple stalls, toilets and not ONE per floor.
You might want to get further away from Taipei Main Station.
There’s a guy in my office who comes up a few days a week to Taipei from south Taiwan. He stays across the street at a “Love Hotel” I guess would be the best way to describe it. He said they told him it would be like $10,000 a month if he wanted to pay in advance.
I know usually these places are pretty scumbag, but there’s a few that don’t look that bad (as long as you don’t think about what goes on in there ).
Anyway, this is around the TaiPower/Guting area, so it might be a good place to look at as I don’t think there are as many visitors around here.
City Inn (near Taipei Station, also mentioned above) gocityinn.com/
You are obviously a bit fussy and don’t want to stay in a hostel, but for around NT$1,000 to 1,500 per night you should be able to find many suitable choices in the area around Ximen and Taipei Station.
My apartment near Tech. Bldg MRT & Da’an Park has an empty room at the moment & I’m pretty sure the landlord is willing to rent on a short-term basis if you’re only looking for a month or so.
It’s around $8000NT/month, incl shared bathroom (shared w/2guys who are a bit messy - glad I have my own), kitchen, TV, internet, etc. Would probably require 2-month deposit, so if you’re already short on cash that might present a problem…
After being here nearly a year I can say it’s overpriced & a bit crowded for long-term stay, but the location is great & it’s ok for the short term. PM if you want more info.
[quote=“sjhuz01”]My apartment near Tech. Bldg MRT & Da’an Park has an empty room at the moment & I’m pretty sure the landlord is willing to rent on a short-term basis if you’re only looking for a month or so.
It’s around $8000NT/month, incl shared bathroom (shared w/2guys who are a bit messy - glad I have my own), kitchen, TV, internet, etc. Would probably require 2-month deposit, so if you’re already short on cash that might present a problem…
After being here nearly a year I can say it’s overpriced & a bit crowded for long-term stay, but the location is great & it’s ok for the short term. PM if you want more info.[/quote]
Let us now if you sorted it out or if you are still wandering. The shock of it all is huge but hang tough.
If you are 30 years old or younger, you can stay at a youth hostel which s dirt cheap. I stayed one in Taichung for about 500 TW a night, private everything with breakfeast.
Perhaps you can consider staying in another city (Taichung) and commuting back and forth from Taipei to save money. Although perhaps your opportunity cost is a bit high, so it may not work. But that’s what I would do if I were in your situation.
An $8000/mo. room is only NT$267/night. I moved into a $5000/mo. room on my first day, in a young couple’s apartment in Taibei, and lived there 5.5 years. They didn’t speak English, but it was a great way for me to learn Chinese quickly!!!
So there’s no reason to be moving to another city; you should be able to find something locally, with a little perseverence and luck. Check out the ones wix posted, and my website; you might need to grab someone who can help you with the language to do it, but there are plenty of listings; the Taibei city listings are here:
[quote=“Dragonbones”]An $8000/mo. room is only NT$267/night. I moved into a $5000/mo. room on my first day, in a young couple’s apartment in Taibei, and lived there 5.5 years. They didn’t speak English, but it was a great way for me to learn Chinese quickly!!!
So there’s no reason to be moving to another city; you should be able to find something locally, with a little perseverence and luck. Check out the ones wix posted, and my website; you might need to grab someone who can help you with the language to do it, but there are plenty of listings; the Taibei city listings are here:
Two things I learned last time I tried to book a hotel room in Taipei:
[ul]- Most hotels have totally useless websites or forward you to a Chinese-only booking system.[/ul]
[ul]- hotelclub.net has a surprisingly large choice of hotels in Taipei which can booked online. Right now they have a room available for US$38/night through their “last minute” search (“rooms are clean & nice” ).[/ul]
thanks for all your help.
i ended up finding a short-term lease in zhonghe for around 30USD a night (sorry, still can’t convert figures to NT yet…but i’m working on it). i’m moving there on sat morning.
hopefully it works out and i start to learn my way around taiwan. i really feel like a fish out of water, somehow i expected it to be much easier.
also, i’m gonna be walking around dropping off resumes to cram schools. can anyone recommend an area (pls use MRT stations as a reference) where a lot of cram schools are located? every street/intersection looks the same to me at this point.
There are a few around Jiangzicui MRT in Banqiao.
PapaJordan’s (exit 3 turn right and right again - on Juang jang road, I think), Alphaville (exit 3 turn right), Hess (exit 3 , turn left),
Down the road 7-10min walk from Hess (sidestreet on the left by the pet store) is a Georgia school. Turn left at the fire station and you will see Socrates. Don’t know much about either of these.
I recommend Hess. Mainly because I work there and love it, but also they are more open to hiring, uhm, a more mixed ethnicity than many schools here. (Not always the case, but sadly some schools care about that crap - sorry).
(For Hess, apply through the website, not at the school. They just hired a new training group, but sometimes have “off-season” hirings of smaller groups. You need a degree for the government work permit.)
Other schools I have heard good things about : Happy Marian, PapaJordan’s
And the usual some good and some not so: Kid Castle, Giraffe (I think these are franchises, so the goodness may vary between branches)
Also a few on ZhongShan road (the road with Starbucks) a block from Fuzhong MRT.
Kojen and Wall Street at least.
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