Back in Taiwan to visit

My wife, boy, mother and I have been back in Taipei for 3 days now and we are absolutely loving it. We did a trip up to Danshui and visited some friends who live in one of the new developments, and then went to the beach (in the rain!)- it was great. We really like how Danshui has grown and the urban living within close proximity to both nature and Taipei City proper.

We even survived a pretty bad pollution day the day before, which wasn’t all that different than the smoke we have been dealing with in Canada during the summer lately ( we probably had only 4 weeks of clean air last summer).

It has been mostly catching up with old friends and reaquainting ourselves with Taipei. We realized how much we like Taipei, the artsy vibe with lots of stuff always going on, all pretty close to nature, day trip wise.

It has definitely made us all think very seriously of my “early retirement” at 50 ( 5 years from now) when I can take my pension. I see how easy it would be to work a few hours for a visa, work towards an APRC for five years, and have my pension and our savings to pad what I make until CPP and OAS ( the 2 Canadian government sponsored pensions) kick in at 60 and 65 respectively.

And thanks everyone for the restaurant tips. We have been able to go to some of them so far, we will see how many we can get by tomorrow night. Overall enjoying our visit to Taiwan!!

6 Likes

Welcome.

And the weather is nice too. Enjoy your stay.

Thanks Icon. It is great to be back, if only for a short time.

The ol country.

Have you tried bubble tea yet?

Taipei has really improved over the years and when the air is clear and the weather nice it’s a pretty good place to be. Lots of new bike paths, mrt lines, parks, cool cafes/restaurants and even a few great craft beer places. Driving seems to be less chaotic than just a few years ago and U bikes are a huge success. And of course the level of safety should never be under appreciated.

Now we just need some more urban renewal done properly and improved air quality. But I feel it’s definitely moving in the right direction and more and more people are aware and proactive in solving these issues. IMO, retiring in Taipei isn’t a bad choice at all. Especially considering where you’ll be leaving.

I didn’t try the bubble tea this time, but it was popular before I left ten years ago, so I have had it more than once. It is ok, but not something I go out of my way to have. I do love a Jinji Lucha though - we had quite a few of those while we were there, and they we’re just as I remembered: fantastic!!

The list has really narrowed down now: Taiwan and Mexico. Ecuador is a possibility, I suppose, but my wife doesn’t really have it in the running, especially after this trip where we enjoyed Taiwan so much. It really doesn’t hurt that we have friends in the Taipei area, and friends that have children the same age as our son.

We have dropped Malaysia from the list, after visiting there this trip. It wasn’t quite for the same reasons as Tommy (but his experience definitely wasn’t ignored), but overall it isn’t a place we want to live for a long period (we still want to visit more though).

Next year we are going back to Mexico for a bit of a longer trip, but Taiwan is still a strong first place for us. I guess there is still the possibility of staying here in Winnipeg until I turn 55 (instead of 50), but we will see how we are both leaning towards the 50 “early retirement”. We will see.

tommy never wrote about malaysia, perhaps you meant andrew?

Yeah sorry, Andrew.