15,000 for my rooftop. 7 mins by scoot to 101. I wouldn’t want to live here without a scooter although there is a fairly regular minibus.
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Yeah it differs to be honest, mornings are about 55-60 mins and afternoons can be anywhere from 70 to 90 mins going home. I have a new job lined up that is half the distance that I am traveling now so August it’ll be better.
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Absolutely. It’s a dumbass politically-motivated administrative designation, not a fucking location.
- If you’re stood at Tunhua Nanking and I ask you to point me in the direction of NTC, what are you going to do? Start spinnning, man, it’s a fucking donut.
- It’s impossible to address mail to NTC without adding the actual district. There’s no fucking there there.
Consequently, when discussing location, I continue to refer to either Taipei County, or the specific district.
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What is the best hiking trail in Tamsui?
If that’s a question for me: I don’t know. I used to semi-regularly drive my scooter up Yangmingshan (the backdoor Balaka [?] route] and go hiking up there, but I haven’t done that lately - my scooter is now older than some of my university students, so lengthy drives worry me.
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If you can find the hiking trail from Pingdengli to Xiangtian lake in the next couple of days then do that. Because of the rainfall the lake is actually a lake at the moment and it is spectacular.
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It is for anyone lol ^^,
One more time: one hour commute in Taipei/Northern Taiwan is hell. Driving conditions are not ideal. Moreover, we have typhoons, horribly cold/hot weather, earthquakes. You do not want that. It ain´t worth it. If you do not have to do it, don´t.
First of all, DO NOT rent from abroad. Now you are looking at Google maps. Conditions on the terrain are different. rent an Airbnb or any otehr temporary location at the beginning and then look carefully and patiently for a permanent place. Trust us on this: do not rent from abroad, do not rent without witnesses, check and recheck.
You do not have to travel an hour or two to find greenery and if you do have the time to do so on weekends, you will be amazed, awesome natural wonders, trails, discoveries, trips on buses, trains and bike will be awesome. Just not commute.
Near 101 we have the Medical university area, Liuzhangli, Muzha, Shenkeng, Xizhi, etc. all within 10, 20 maybe 30 minutes bus or metro commute. Thsi is important: ridng a scooter here, while common for locals, is peril to your life as a newbie. Too many youngster have been lost. Please do consider this. Most people in the city use public transportation, which is very clean, reliable and cheap. And safe. Scooter is for routes that are not that well served or any otehr choices, and mostly by old hands who drove bikes before and if you ask them they have had their accidents. You have other options.
The key here is convenience. Taiwanese liek convenience… If the closest 711 is a kilometer away, your abode is not convenient. You could live in Elephant Mountain, but if you pay 30k and must wait for a minibus every 40 minutes, that is not convenient.
Ona side note, if you want to know about the kind of critters we deal with, see my thread about huntsman spiders. Mosquitoes, especially the little black gnats, are the devil. And the local cobras populate the riverside parks.
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A good way to do it. Saw tons of good places to go on weekends.
Definitely checking this out! I’ve heard of those parks! Thank you.
I tried to get around a lot of Taipei on my last trip, it’s quite sprawling.
Is Taipei big on noise pollution? I’m a singer 
Migrating sounds like a good bet for my second year. (Just finished reading the Huntsman thread…)
You might be right there! Think I’m going to wait till I arrive to find a place after all these great bits of info.
You look like your enjoying it 
Noted. This has been very educational.
Haha bless you. Sounds like a short commute to work and weekends in the hills is the way to go. Glad your commute is better now! Hope the nightmares stop. 
Thank you for the really helpful extensive reply. This answers questions I didn’t even know I had. 
Had been wondering about the wisdom of driving a moped! Pretty much vetoing the commute, as pretty as Yilan is. The convenience of the hostel was A+ for food in the city, etc.
I’m not ready for cobras and critters. I read your whole Huntsman debacle, yikes.
Guess I can stop googling apartments for now, looking in person makes a ton of sense. If you don’t mind me asking, when you say witnesses…helpful Taiwanese friends or like legal witnesses?
And Estate agent or 591’ing it?
Again, thank you so much!!
Helpful Taiwanese friends.
Keep Googling so you can set up some appointments and have a general idea.
You can still visit Yilan. A bus ride away, pretty nice place, good food.
Take a train to Hsinchu or Miaoli. Great biking and hiking. As a matter of fact, we recommend newcomers to get out of the city during the weekend. Helps to keep the mind at peace.
Daan park is actually pretty cool but maybe too urban for what you may be looking for. There are several hiking options close to town that make for great day or half day trips. You’ll love it.
Just watch out for the critters.
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To take in consideration, parks in the city are pack with old people, I’m coming from a country where parks are always full of young people chatting on the lawn lol
Hiking is great, so many hiding gems really near the city
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I’m not sure what’s there to consider.
My first work place in Taiwan was on the same block as my apartment. If I ran, I could get there in under 1 minute easily lol (it was a small block). Then I moved to about a 10 minute drive away and now I drive a far distance to work and back.
Dude misses his hacky sack?
Whatever happened to hacky sack…seems like no one plays it anymore…
It left town with the mullet and MC Hammer pants.
yea the new taipei city thing is a bit annoying. “where do you live? new taipei city.” always triggers me. new taipei city covers a huge area, that does not count as an answer.
The Kaohsiung City expansion is even more annoying - I can’t find them now, but I’ve seen international news stories about earthquakes in “Kaohsiung City”, and it’s talking about something way up in the Baolai area.
I do wonder what “New Taipei City” does to weather apps or forecasts. Yes, thank you, Wulai and Danshui and Banqiao and Pingxi all have the same weather, right?
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