Accommodation and cost of living in Hsinchu City?

About an hour and 20 minutes, sometimes more, sometimes less. It’s pretty convenient, intercity buses to Taipei come every 5 minutes or so.

P.S. There are some photos of NCTU dorms on their site: http://housing.sa.nctu.edu.tw/?page_id=485&lang=en

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It’s not that inconvenient if you live and spend most of your time at the university. It’s a straight shot from there by bus downtown. Lots of bikes you can use too.

Eating at the university will be incredibly cheap, less than $3US/ meal. You are young so you can likely handle the change in nutrition - the food does taste great.

Hsinchu is no more boring than any other city in Taiwan, the differences are exaggerated, when you are truly busy there is no time to be constantly drinking at pubs. Lots of decent restaurants here, fantastic coffee shops, good markets (how many times do you want to go anyway), great movie theatres, and best of all it’s close to the mountains. Lots of tourist buses going to mountain destinations.

The great thing you may notice about living here is the range of options available to you … you can live cheap or fancy. Both are good choices, depending on your needs. But you won’t find many truly cheap goods here - Taiwan tends to be more expensive than US in general and Hsinchu, with its concentration of tech companies, tends to incorporate an “engineer tax”.

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I never took to Hsinchu although the wife says it actually has pavements these days, woo wee.
The traffic situation is abysmal for one.
I heard they closed down the old Japanese era city zoo, what’s up with that?

They’re rebuilding something there. Expanding the zoo, merging it with park nearby. Probably will take a while.

I remember that zoo in early days when the animals had open bleeding sores and people would poke the animals with sticks.

Yeah like most zoos in Taiwan perhaps. However we visited a few times over the last few years it wasn’t bad at all more like a small farm zoo almost. Nice amenity for citizens. Now what…Nothing at all? More buildings ? Where are the animals ?

Edit I checked and it is undergoing renovations, it will re open around July of this year.

FINALLY things are happening to upgrade Hsinchu’s civic space. The park (which honestly was getting quite shabby) is apparently being renovated. The area immediately in front of the TRA station (itself a wonderful structure) has been completely transformed for the better–perhaps taking a page out of Mayor Ko’s Beimen playbook? The DPP are far from perfect but my goodness nothing was happening for years and years in Hsinchu under the usual KMT mayors. I hope the town gets to be more liveable as I remain quite fond of it and enjoy visiting when I can.

Guy

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Zhunnan is a decent place too.

Gonna have to check that out. I was there a few weeks back and noticed some stacked orange cones and pipe and other construction materials being stored in open spaces in that area. I didn’t know why, but now I’m very curious to see what they’ve done.

Probably time to head over to SoGo 7th floor and see if the old folks have left an empty massaging recliner open in the napping roo…, er “sample room.” I can take a nap after I check out the park.

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I drove by on my bike this afternoon but couldn’t get near the place due to all traffic caused by temple parade

Entering a few arbitrary origins and destinations in Hsinchu City on Google Maps gave me the impression that the city (or the county) has a local bus service. But this September 2014 thread added a few scruples to the other pan of the scale:

However, there’s also this:

Do you reckon the bus situation may have improved since September of 2014?

Edited to add:

The link in the first post of the 2014 thread appears dead, but it seems to work if you put “www.” in front of it (and it may also work if you just plug hcbus.com.tw into the URL box of your browser):

http://www.hcbus.com.tw/

Edited to add again:

Some reviews of the service can be found in the bottom half of the left side of this Google Maps page:

https://goo.gl/maps/Mai1obEvugq

Greetings. I have been living in Hsinchu for nearly 5 years, and the public transit here has become a little better. Some bus stops have digital signs to indicate when the next bus will arrive. However, you will find that some buses aren’t as timely as Google Maps may indicate (e.g., GM says every 10 minutes and a bus doesn’t arrive for 20 followed by one or more buses immediately). However, an app for Android (and possibly iOS) exists to help with this: BusTracker Taiwan. It will help you find buses times and routes, train schedules, and, when in Taipei, MRT information. You will want to get an EasyCard, which you can purchase at most convenient stores, and this will allow you to ride buses, local trains (not the high-speed rail), and the Taipei Metro without having to fumble for cash; you simply purchase an EasyCard and add cash when you see fit.

Good luck with the move, and welcome to Taiwan.

Cordially,
柯明 Timothy H. Click, Ph.D.
Dong District, Hsinchu

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Yes, i heard that the transportation around got better compared previously. Actually i really do hope by the time i move over the constructions will be done else it will be quite messy though

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Buses 1 and 15 are quite frequent (usually about every 10-15 minutes). Other buses - not so much, once in an hour or so.

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My friend who went exchange to NCTU told that their student card doubles as easy-card by default, with that nice student discount.

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Thats good ! 1 card saves all troubles haha, other than transport, what else can i use it for actually?

U can use the card at convenience stores, other stores, maybe at library, zoo, musium, etc.

Like… EVERYTHING. It’s like Octopus card in Hong Kong, but better (debatable statement). You can pay with it at any convenience store and several supermarkets (PX-Mart, Carrefour, Wellcome), use it to rent a bicycle from bike sharing system, pay at several tourist locations (Maokong Gondola, Taipei Zoo etc), use it to ride trains across the whole country (even express ones but without a seat and expect the most fancy ones - Taroko and Puyuma expresses). Practically every bus (including intercity ones) in Taiwan accepts it, with some exceptions (like the bus which goes from Hsinchu to Taipei via Longtan, they don’t).

I use mine for supermarkets to avoid small change piling up, but since small change still occasionally piles up, I deposit it to EasyCard in remote (this takes a while and guy tossing coins into machine for 10 minutes may anger people) MRT station in Taipei once in a season. Those machines even accept smallest denominations - 1NTD, and that’s definitely “In your face, Singapore and Hong Kong”, where you cannot add such small value to your similar card.

I’d suggest getting a bicycle. I got an old crappy one for just 500NTD (his some nice pink/purple patterns on the frame too :slight_smile: ). But it will pay for itself within a month over using a ubike/bus every day. I like to think the extra exercise does me good although riding alongside busy Taiwanese traffic and breathing in the scooter fumes and smog maybe not so much…
You can’t go for a license unless you have a Taiwanese ID that’s valid for at least one year.

I’d also suggest going with the dorms. Not that the rent is expensive in Taiwan but still by renting your own place you’ll be paying more than half in one month of what you’d pay for a semester in a dorm. It also gets pretty lonely here, by myself and away from the university. If you do want to rent best you get a local friend to help you. I don’t think it’s that hard to find something with a minimum period of 6 months. If you can read some chinese have a look here https://rent.591.com.tw/?kind=0&region=6

The only night market I know of is at the city god temple but I found that pretty disappointing. The weekend flower market around the zoo is nice though. Bought a pot plant for my room :slight_smile:

Saw this advertised cheap place recently for 11000.

HSINCHU CITY LOOKING FOR ROOMMATE
NEW beautiful, fully furnished apartment with excellent location in Hsinchu city?

Available: MASTER bedroom with private bathroom.
Location: building right across from Cotsco.
Price: 11k (+ two month deposit)
Extras: building has pool, parking, sauna, cinema, lounge area with free coffee and snacks and more.

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