I have been to Muzha part of Taipei for a short 2 month visit last year. My girlfriend lives there and she wants me to find a place to rent close to her. She has a couple friends who need a roommate so this is ideal for me.
How is the Muzha area? Rent prices, neighborhood, schools close by, transportation etc.? Any input is welcome. Thanks! 
Do an effinā search.
Thereās a lengthy thread on Muzha around here somewhere.
I live there.
Itās nice.
[quote=āJosefusā]Do an effinā search.
Thereās a lengthy thread on Muzha around here somewhere.
I live there.
Itās nice.[/quote]
If you can find it please link. A search for Muzha turns up dozens of pages with reference to ME! 
If you like hiking, fresh air and mountains Muzha is great. Great tea houses up in the mountains, too. Easy transport into the downtown area on either MRT line. Rent cheaper than downtown. Quick access to taipei 101 area, or City Super for high end imported groceries. Great fruit stand. Nice jogging and walking paths by the river. Will connect soon to the main lines so you will be able to bike from Muzha all the way to Danshui.
No movie theatre but with the new tunnel itās only 15 minutes or so to Warner Village. Oh wait, there is a theatre up in the university. Public access on Tuesday.
Some areas to consider: Wanfang MRT station area. Along the river. The small community near Jenda Universityās main gate.
I live right by a second run theater in Muzha.
2 movies for 50 nt.
Is there a cheaper place in this country?
There are at least 3 of them here in Muzha/Jingmei.
I live right by a second run theater in Muzha.
2 movies for 50 nt.
Is there a cheaper place in this country?
There are at least 3 of them here in Muzha/Jingmei.[/quote]
Where?
its horrible here, i mean in muzha. dont live here, i mean thereā¦ 
I live right by a second run theater in Muzha.
2 movies for 50 nt.
Is there a cheaper place in this country?
There are at least 3 of them here in Muzha/Jingmei.[/quote]
Where?[/quote]
The best one is about a block away from the Muzha rd/Xinhai intersection.
Go across Xinhai from the 7/11 and travel about a block. There is like this yellow and green arrow pointing into an alleyway. The theatre is back there. There are always 8 movies playing at any given time, so lots of choices.
I went to see Mr and Mrs Smith at that theater with my GF last september. Its a small old thater but very cheapā¦never would have found it if she hadnt shown me. The trails up to the university are great! There is a public swimming pool not far either.
I live right by a second run theater in Muzha.
2 movies for 50 nt.
Is there a cheaper place in this country?
There are at least 3 of them here in Muzha/Jingmei.[/quote]
Where?[/quote]
The best one is about a block away from the Muzha Rd/Xinhai intersection.
Go across Xinhai from the 7/11 and travel about a block. There is like this yellow and green arrow pointing into an alleyway. The theatre is back there. There are always 8 movies playing at any given time, so lots of choices.[/quote]
What? You mean out there by Discovery Hill? I canāt believe I donāt know about this. Which street is it off? From Muzha/Xinhai which direction do you walk?
I think Jo is talking about å ęę²é¢. Hereās a link. Coming from NCCU or Muzha, take any of the bus #6s (660, 666 and 606?) along Muzha Road to Jingmei. Get off just before you get to the Xinhai Road intersection. Itās in a side alley on the lefthand side of the road (facing toward Jingers). Thereās a fruit shop out the front of the lane on Muzha Rd, along with some adverts for current movies.
Mucha is generally a good place to live. Iāve lived here, Jingmei, Zhonghe, Yonghe, Nanking East Road s.2, and down near Shida - each for extended periods. I have asthma, and Mucha is just about the only place I can actually get through a winter without being as sick as a dog through respitory (sp?) complaints. Pollution is down compared with most of the rest of Taipei and TP county, though the incinerator just up from the Zoo is cause for concern - an enviro friend told me recently that the dioxin readings for Mucha are about 2000 up on Californiaā¦ If you worry about this kind of thing, think seriously about the East Coast. No getting away from the fact that much of the rest of Taiwan is a toxic waste dump.
Does he have any real stats on that and the research to back it up? I heard that myth when I first moved to Muzha and the EPA shot it down. They admitted that the incinerator was pumping out excess dioxin but that was before they spent about a billion NT to upgrade all the incinerators in Taipei. They probably still produce too much but 2000 times. Come on. Weād all be dead. Ridiculous overstatements like are what have discredited the enviro movement worldwide. Sounds like something from david suzuki in the late 80s. 
Does he have any real stats on that and the research to back it up? I heard that myth when I first moved to Muzha and the EPA shot it down. They admitted that the incinerator was pumping out excess dioxin but that was before they spent about a billion NT to upgrade all the incinerators in Taipei. They probably still produce too much but 2000 times. Come on. Weād all be dead. Ridiculous overstatements like are what have discredited the enviro movement worldwide. Sounds like something from david suzuki in the late 80s. [/quote]
Hope youāre right MM, and I will check back with my friend. I querried the figure at the time, but he was adamant. Heard anything recently about the jump in emissions at night from the Mucha plant? They used to do the worst of the burning after dark to avoid any unnecessary attention. I lived at Feicui Chengbao (āGreen Castleā) on Xiuming Road (on the NCCU side of the river) and at night, standing up on the roof of the building, you could feel/smell the smoke drifting across. Not so during the day. Admittedly this is just an anecdote, but with the amount of compensation money the waste disposal company pumps into local schools, probably representative of something more. However, if youāre right about the tech upgrade, this might now be a thing of the past. Again, I hope youāre right.
The upgrades were real and happened about 6 years ago. As for the smell of smoke, well, thatās not the way incinerators work. They burn within the chimney and the ash is collected and buried. Dioxins can and do get released but these are not smokestacks with open flues.
The smoke you are smelling is likely comign from the other side of the university on the south side of the river. There are numerous farms along here and the idiot farmers are always burning their garbage and grasses. You can smell the smoke kilometres away.
I am thinking of asking a friend to do a soil sample for me from the university area. That would reveal just how polluted the area is in general. If there are massive amounts of dioxin in the air then it would be in the soil too.
Interestingly, the government tried to test people in Muzhaās blood for dioxin levels about 6 years ago when news came out that the incinerators were letting off more dioxins than accpetable. Oddly they couldnāt get enough people to cooperate. And no I donāt think that they were scared of the results and buried the info. Nothing in taiwanās recent history suggest such a thing is likely.
I just donāt think the levels could be so high and dangerous and no one knows about it except at a whispering level. Look at last weekās news about high levels of mercury in peopleās blood. Why release such info, and tell people to avoid fish, and keep other forms of pollution secret?
If Taipeiās cancer rates were through the roof I could beleive this. But they arenāt. Where they have risen there is a direct correlation to lifestyle choices such as drinking or chewing betelnut.
2000 is definitely an exaggeration - itās more like 100 to 1000. A few years there was a big stink (har har) about incinerators around Taiwan, mostly over excess dioxin emissions from incinerators that burn medical waste (which, ironically, they started burning in order to stop people from illegally dumping it, especially at sea).
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/local/archives/2001/03/31/79790
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2003/10/30/2003073914
Remember Meinung? That was around 100.
The EPA has been insisting in recent years that dioxin isnāt a big problem (and thereās some truth to this since dioxin poisoning comes primarily from food consumption) - http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2002/07/24/149461 - but then again there are those who believe that the Taiwan EPA is in bed with heavy industry (surprise surprise). One thingās for sure, though - dioxin aside, thereās a lot of other nasty stuff in fly ash: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2003/01/23/192047
Sorry none of this is specific to Mucha. I recall that after some linkage of dioxin to cancer risk among local residents, the Mucha and Neihu incinerators were retooled a few years ago.
I live right by a second run theater in Muzha.
2 movies for 50 nt.
Is there a cheaper place in this country?
There are at least 3 of them here in Muzha/Jingmei.[/quote]
Who in its right mind wants to see secondhand movies :s 
Theres a lot of movies out there I would have loved to have seen on the big screen but never did. This old second run cinemas are C O O L
The other great thing about Muzha is that you will, depending on which area of the suburb you decide on, be within good proximity to the MRT. Iām a few stations up, near Wanfang Hospital, and it only takes 10 minutes to get downtown once on the train. 
Thatās reassuring MM. You seem to know what youāre talking about here. Perhaps weāre not living in a toilet after all. Apologies for peddling hearsay as fact.