Sorry if this belongs in some prior thread, but I haven’t found any that quite sem to fit the bill.
My wife, 6 1/2 year old daughter and I will be moving to Keelung in two weeks, and we’re not sure about whether to bring certain things with us, get them there, or forget about it. I’d greatly appreciate any suggestions you might have:
Sewing machine. How much for a basic model suitable for making clothes?
Camping equipment. Is there much of any place to camp, accessible by public transport and not too long a hike?
Show and sock for my size 13 feet. (I need new Nike Air running shoes about every 6 months and walking-style, black shoes at least once a year for teaching).
English books for our daughter, especially chapter books (she’s past Junie B. but not quite up to Harry Potter, at least, not on her own, though she’s close). Is there much at that level available in libraries?
Yeast for baking. (And while we’re on the subject, are whole wheat, bread, and rye flour at all available?)
More in the future.
Thanks for any help you can give us.
Thanks for the tip on shoes. I thought that would be necessary. I never found shoes I could wear when I taught in Japan.
For clothes, I did okay there. I’m 182 cm. and not too heavy. Do I need to get shirts and slacks for teaching and bring them with me? Or was your suggestion about clothes only for the really tall?
For clothes, I did okay there. I’m 182 cm. and not too heavy. Do I need to get shirts and slacks for teaching and bring them with me? Or was your suggestion about clothes only for the really tall?[/quote]
182cm will be considered tall in Taiwan. However, I think you’ll be able to get clothes in Taipei. Fat people are the ones who really need to bring clothes with them.
I am not even sure if I want to camp here… the weather here is just horrible… maybe if there’s an air conditioned tent or in the winter if it’s not too wet…
Sewing machine. How much for a basic model suitable for making clothes?
Camping equipment. Is there much of any place to camp, accessible by public transport and not too long a hike?
Show and sock for my size 13 feet. (I need new Nike Air running shoes about every 6 months and walking-style, black shoes at least once a year for teaching).
English books for our daughter, especially chapter books (she’s past Junie B. but not quite up to Harry Potter, at least, not on her own, though she’s close). Is there much at that level available in libraries?
Yeast for baking. (And while we’re on the subject, are whole wheat, bread, and rye flour at all available?)
More in the future.
Thanks for any help you can give us.[/quote]
I brought mine as the ones I see here seem very fancy and expensive. I am sure there are cheaper ones, though.
camping is great, although a bit hot now. Hiking definitely ! Lots is accessible by public transport - there are even a couple day hike books (Taipei Day Hikes 1 and 2 by Richard Saunders) and some good hike ideas in the new Lonely Planet. Hiking gear is a bit expensive here. Widely available, but not particularly cheap.
there is a bookshop near the MRT in Banqiao called Olivia books that rents books. They have a nice collection , but I am not sure about chapter books.
Libraries not sure, but lots available in new bookstores. Magic Treehouse might be great for her…
Yeast for sure is available, as for good flour… probably someone , somewhere here knows where… let me know - there might also be more info if I were to read the Where Can I Find thread.
Best of luck with your packing and big move.
Hope all goes smoothly!
Thanks for the info. For flour, I found a post that said Sogo, although I don’t know if it’s still in existence. (The Japanese parent company went belly-up.) is it still open and still selling organic whole wheat flour and rye flour anyone?
Do you know of any used English (or Japanese) book and/or magazine stores anyone?
Good flour is available at any of the better supermarkets (City Super, Jasons, Breeze) as well as at organic shops. You can get yeast at these places too. One of the best organic shops for fresh veggies is called Cottonfields; there are several around the city.
I disagree with you Kage that camping equipment is expensive. It’s cheaper now than most of what you find in Vancouver. Tents are dirt cheap if you pick them up at Carrefore, and clothing is very reasonable now.
Lots of places to camp that you can get to by public transport within an hour or two or the city. Fulong beach, Nanao, Wulai, Pinglin, Jinshan, Yangmingshan. Further afield, Kenting, Wuling Farm, quite a few places along the east coast, etc. Get the new Lonely Planet as there are a lot of places mentioned. And the Taipei Day Trips for hikes. The north is littered with trails. You can hike for days starting at the end of the gondola line which is accessible from the end of the MRT line. Perfect family hiking terrain.
There are also a couple kids camping places I’ve heard people mention. I can’t remember where so start a separate thread on that.
I don’t know if I would trust a tent from Carrefour - it would seem on par with Canadian Tire tents - tried that in the Oregon rain - once.
But yeah, MM is right, you can outfit yourself with extremely low cost stuff. I just prefer to do without until I have the money to invest in quality.
Used books:
Whose Books in TianMu
A couple (often very good) shelves at Grandma Nittis Restaurant near Taipower MRT
… others?
Taibei has sewing machines from around $4500 (e.g. Costco, for a VERY basic Singer) to $6500 for a slightly nicer Brother, on up to billions. You can run a search, and if you don’t find a thread on it, start a new one in Where Can I Find…? (but please do search first) There are also threads on clothes and shoes for big and tall.
Others have given good answers on the rest, although many of the answers are Taibei-based. You can do shopping runs from Jilong (Keelong) if you don’t find what you want there. Yeast and various flours, some organic, are available at better groceries (the yeast I get at Wellcome is fresh and active; I get rye at Wellman’s in Tianmu) and bakery supply stores (again, you can search for those threads for addresses).
Local libraries often have poor selections in English, though.
A few years ago we were camping at our “meadow” site in Kenting and a friend popped down to join us…He had his Taiwanese wife and son, they’d never camped in Taiwan before. They showed up and pitched a Carrefour tent.
About 9pm that night the mother of all winter SE coast squalls came in off the coast and belted us with huge rain/wind for nearly 8 hours without letup. I was concerned by the flimsiness of their tent and went out to take a look. Sure enough, it was collapsed on the ground, seams let go, water pouring in, broken poles, the works. They were huddled in an old Yue-long Sunny at 4am, tired, wet and cold. They never camped in Taiwan again.
Wookie and spouse were bone dry in their metroasis two man tent, as were we in our (back then) Costco Ridgeway Kelty special. Both tents were only 500NT more than their cheap ass Carrefour counterparts.
If you are really into camping…bring your tent from home.
I’ll see how much we can take with us on the plane. Probably not much for camping, but maybe at least my 2-person North Face tent and at least one small Thermarest and one lightweight sleeping bag. If we camp a lot, we can buy more, but it’s so expensive to mail stuff from the U.S. now (unless someone has a better suggestion). In any case, presuming we stay beyond the first year, I can bring over lot more, more than we would want to carry on public transport anyway.
Ok, dunno about all organic crap, that’s just a pain to find here, but whole wheat flour is in general available from either Carrefour or Geant and they both sell packets of dry yeast for something silly like NT$35. Plain flour is also found there or in Costco if you want to buy bigger packs. I’ve only found rye in CitySuper, although I haven’t tried the specialty baking shops. I’ve also bought flour when I’ve been abroad (Singapore, HK and the Philipines), as CitySuper tends to run out quite quickly. However, don’t expect to have an oven here, as that’s not very common still, only some newer, more expensive apartment buildings have them. You can get a big-ish oven in Costco for NT$8500 that should be good enough for a loaf or two, or you can get a large “toaster” oven here for about NT$1700. The one I have isn’t brilliant for baking, but it does the job. There’s also the option of getting a bread maker, the one from Costco once again isn’t great, it’s a bit of an outdated model compared to what you can get these days, but it’s just over NT$2000 if I remember right.
I don’t think you need to worry about bringing sleeping bags, as you can get some decen one here very cheap, although they’re a bit shorter than the ones I’m used to from back home. I got a crappy tent in carrefour here, but it’s good enoug has long as it doesn’t rain, but it was dirt cheap, but I don’t think I’d recomment it to anyone.
You can get large basketball shoes here that should fit, but I dunno about other stuff, as it’s the only shoes here I’ve seen that are over size 11. You might want to have a browse here - shopping.pchome.com.tw/ for stuff like a sewing machine, although I have no idea what it’s called in Chinese. They also have a bunch of camping gear there and just about everything else, at least it’ll give you an idea of what it costs here.
Sewing machine. How much for a basic model suitable for making clothes?
Camping equipment. Is there much of any place to camp, accessible by public transport and not too long a hike?
Show and sock for my size 13 feet. (I need new Nike Air running shoes about every 6 months and walking-style, black shoes at least once a year for teaching).
English books for our daughter, especially chapter books (she’s past Junie B. but not quite up to Harry Potter, at least, not on her own, though she’s close). Is there much at that level available in libraries?
Yeast for baking. (And while we’re on the subject, are whole wheat, bread, and rye flour at all available?)
More in the future.
Thanks for any help you can give us.[/quote]
I remember my mother commenting on how cheap the sewing machines were here, but I don’t recall how cheap. ANyway, they are plentiful so you won’t have much trouble finding one.some examples
Camping equipment is plentiful and cheap as hell in Taiwan although some of the imported stoves cab be pricey depending on the brand. bags, mats, tents are specifically the cheapest deals here, but Gore Tex accessories can be expensive. As someone said already though, with the humidity and early morning heat Taiwan isn’t the best place to go camping most of the year round. Best from October to March I think, but very wet at times too. Campsites range from very nice grass areas with basic showers and nice views to crappy concrete slab pitches, god awful amenities and forced use of site owner’s gas stoves (500nt a time), BBQ cleanup fee (300 a time) and other stupid charges. There are no general standards to camping here and it can be very hit and miss at times. I prefer guest houses to be honest, but keeping a tent comes in handy at times.
Finding large shoes has often been a difficulty for some people as the large footed people often end up asking online where they can get larger sizes, so bring some with you to start with. I would recommend the excellent brand Merrell for all times of day and all types of general activities. Firstly they offer much more support than running shoes which have been proven to only offer positive support for a max of two weeks at three hours a day. I used to wear them too, but standing up would cause my lower legs to ache after a day’s work. Merrell cures that by offering great support of the foot’s ankle and sole, relieving the lower leg of much work trying to maintain a straight leg because of the mushy cushioning of typical branded athletic shoes. Merrells tend to last as long as the sole has grip. Another good brand I’ve recently discovered is Teva, but I haven’t tried as many pairs yet as Merrells.
English books are plentiful. Taipei has Page 1 in the 101 building which is Asia’s largest English book store (far bigger than any in the U.K. BTW) public libraries have some English sections too, but I’m not familiar enough to comment.
Yeast can be found at Carrefour supermarket, City Super, 101 Jasons. Its not typically found at local shops, but I always used to ask at local bakeries if they could put some in a bag for me and I’d give them a few coppers in return. They are usually quite willing to scoop some into a bag for you, but you must keep it in the fridge. BTW useful tip: pizza base made from local flower should be 3 parts Gao-Jing (high glucose flour) to 2 parts Dee-Jing (low glucose flour). This will be approximately the equivalent to plain flour. Certain local packets with “plain flour” written on them are not and will not work as well as mixing those parts yourself. This took me an age to learn and I was eventually told by a baker. It works too, I make pizza bases all the time now. Also always keep your flour in tightly sealed pouches and boxes as there is a specific type of bug that will otherwise infest your flour storage area.
Thanks Swede and sulavaca for your helpful replies.
About the prices of ovens, I read on some other website that tabletop ovens were cheap and plentiful. A toaster oven, of course, won’t do, no matter the size, because you can’t control the heat. Anyone else care to weigh in on oven prices. (Of course, we could eat more rice . . .)
I’m definitely going to bring 3 or 4 pairs of shoes, plus my good, basically new hiking boots. I’d better get some new socks, too.
Keep those wonderful suggestions coming, kids! They’re sooooo appreciated.
[quote=“henro”]About the prices of ovens, I read on some other website that tabletop ovens were cheap and plentiful. A toaster oven, of course, won’t do, no matter the size, because you can’t control the heat. Anyone else care to weigh in on oven prices. (Of course, we could eat more rice . . .)
[/quote]
Yeah, we’ve got a thread on that too (pretty much any common question like this). The lowdown: small ovens (about 22" x 12" face) are common and inexpensive, around $3000. They’re too small for a turkey, but acceptable for pizza, lasagna etc., although you might want to go to a flooring store and ask them to cut a couple tiles to fit your oven, then put them in the bottom as a pizza stone.
For something a little bigger and higher quality, $7-8k at the baking supply under the Minquan bridge in Taibei. For bigger, real Western ovens which can handle a turkey, you’re talkin’ big bucks (see above thread).
Just to help get you started on using the search function more efficiently, select the Food forum for food ingredients like flour, Health for medicines, and WCIF…? for miscellany like ovens, and that will help pare the results down for you. It works best if you select ‘topics’ rather than ‘posts’.
Costco has a very good oven at present for about 7,000nt. Its stainless steel and fits small turkeys. I haven’t the opportunity to invest in Costco’s just yet as I am still using my years old oven I bought from RT mart which I paid 2,300 for. They can rarely be seen for that price nowadays as dragon bones said they are about 3,000nt now and won’t fit a turkey, but will fit a goose or chicken. The one I have is terribly insulated too making it expensive to run and inefficient at keeping much heat in, during the winter this is especially apparent. I feel that long term the more expensive 7,000nt oven would be a much better choice and easier to clean. I line mine with tin foil now as I learned the hard way.
Thanks for the further oven tips. We would use ours mostly for bread and cookies, and maybe the occasional bunch of bagels for Sunday breakfast, so size isn’t so important. I guess we’ll just see what we can find when we get there. Or rather, my wife will see what she can find, since she’s the baker in the family.