... a silent place in Taipei?

ZhiShan Park (芝山公園) in Shilin
Confucius Temple
Taipei Fine Arts Museum

Personally I find Taipei to be fairly quiet for a big city.

I couldn’t really agree with that. There are few parks and the noise of all the traffic, especially scooters can be pretty intense. Contrast with London where you could pop into a proper park or green or even a square off the main road and easily get away from the hustle and bustle.

Go to a K書 (a study center). Plenty of them on Nanyang Street. They rent out booths and even little rooms for study. They have a strict policy of silence.

Otherwise, the local library, or a hiking trail, or a park, or the woods, or 阿水的家 in Tianmu, which is a very quiet teahouse (policy of quietness enforced by the owner).

I dont think its possible to find any place… that has zero other humans… you are on an Island buddy with I think 6+ million people?

23 million actually. But most live on 1/3 of the land so you can escape very easily.

Your problem might not be Taipei per se, but your migraine. I happen to have bouts of migraine too from time to time, and I cannot think of a place anywhere, except my bed, were I would feel well.

The National Library across from CKS Memorial Hall, as suggested, would be my place to go. Apart from the typical “library smell”, which I actually kind of like, it’s cool and noise-free. There are even sound-proof study rooms for rent.

Don’t know where the OP lives but here at the foot of Elephant Mountain we’re 15 minutes away from downtown and we enjoy perfect silence (with the exception of birds, cicadas and sometimes frogs).

Come over here!

1 Like

Ha, wait till the MRT opens in your neighborhood. :wink:

That is still years away for us. I will probably have left Taiwan by then. Don’t care :slight_smile:

Another library offering cool and quiet is the one in New Beitou’s hot spring park. Great architecture, lots of wood, and green trees outside. Only drawback is that there always seem to be some construction work going on somewhere in the neighborhood. But inside the library it should be quiet.

I forgot to mention the Academia Sinica campus in Nangang: silent and beautiful. On rainy days or in winter, you can also choose one of the many, many libraries. The one in the Humanities building (west end of the campus) it’s the newest and quietest one.

1 Like

This is why I am so glad that my apartment faces a pretty much dead street with little traffic. :thumbsup:

I am always told I am in an “upscale” part of town, wherever I happen to find a hotel.
I am always told I am paying too much for a room, wherever I stay. “You could do better with your money.”
I am always told how pleasant Taipei “can be”… By people living here, both locals and foreigners.
Good lord.

The stench woke me up today. It reeks. Sewer smell in a hotel room so strong it makes you want to vomit. Using the shower it’s like showering with urine. Not the first time, usual stuff here, like the roaches, or the bastards burning trash everywhere and filling the air with filthy soot and cancer, who will say “you don’t respect other people’s traditions” when you’re choking in sickening smoke in front of them.

When asked to be changed to another room, I’ve been told everything’s full, and also that the smell is “normal”…
1 ) I’ve been given a number of reasons why the stench is so horrible, while at the same time 2 ) they try to convince me that it really isn’t that strong, it must be me. It’s insane. I don’t care either way, it is not my problem. I pay way too much just for a room with decent living conditions, and at least admit so if you can’t provide one so I can search elsewhere. 3 ) Do I have some “health problem” ? Am I “too sensitive” to smell ? – They ask. This is always the next step, blaming it on the customer.

Same as when the AC broke in another hotel and instead of fixing it or changing my room they tried HARD to convince me to stay without it. I’m a paying client with a request for you to fix a problem, do it, period.

WTFing hell. Ah, yes. Life as always in Taipei.

I was once in a room facing a big avenue, the noise unbearable. After complaining ( I had requested a quiet room ) I got one facing the back, a “quiet alley”… Which was a parking spot for scooters. 24h day and night non-stop coming and going of scooters, plus Chinese screaming their heads off and spitting loudly whenever they had a conversation while parking, 14:00 in the afternoon or 3:00 in the morning. It was even worse than the avenue.

Every time I’m forced to spend any time in this cesspit I have to go through this kind of thing, lacking sleep, basic cleanliness, and living in horrid conditions because the people here want / like / what ??? / living like this. I mean, I get it when you’ve got no choice. But it’s not like they’re poor or at war here to live miserably and filthily and happily embracing it.

I consider TAiwan and Taipei noisy, dirty and messy. However, it’s hard to believe that you can not find a decent and peaceful place where to stay. There are.

You start to see why locals often adopt “apeshit” as the default mode of complaint. Mere squeakiness often will not cut it.

Not a mystery at all, I had three or four bad, incapacitating migraines in my whole life until now. I have one every few days whenever spending time here.

Where ? Please post any address or phone number, it would be precious information for me and a bunch of Japanese colleagues who come here for work. ( Although they just put up with things in a way I can’t, they would love to do without the mold and pests, noise and screams, burning smoke, stench, etc. )

  1. You need to find a hotel with double pane windows. The noise from the streets you described can only be so loud when the windows are inadequate.
  2. You Japanese coworkers will have a higher level of street noise tolerance than you do, since it isn’t any quieter in major Japanese cities (or US cities if you live in an apartment downtown. Heck I once rented a room in a townhouse that looks quiet, but my room is right up against 680’s noise wall, and the sliding window was broken and the noise and bugs were to be reckoned with as well.)
  3. Which hotels did you stay in exactly? How much is your budget? If you stay in something like the W hotel and still had the same complains, it might really be you… If you stayed in those hotels built 20 years ago with single pane windows and a night market near by, then yeah, you might run into noise and smell.
  1. Does not make a difference.
  2. I live in Japan. My Japanese coworkers complain more than I do, but to themselves only. For them it’s like complaining that water is wet. Taiwan is disgusting, much mumble and 我慢するのことだけです。
  3. Ranging from private apartments or rooms to 4 star hotels. 4 star hotel had ants in bed and bathroom, lovely.

EDIT : by does not make a difference I meant, if it’s not one thing, it’s another. Example that 4 star hotel. Silent, check. No stench, check. Clean ? No. Not just dirty, ants in bed. WTF.

Again, if anyone has numbers or addresses pkease post tgem. I’ve received generic advice for years on how I could improve living conditions without any, “go here, try this place” answer.

What’s your budget for hotel per month? you might find an apartment in a quiet area. There are areas rather quiet in Taipei.