Fitness Centres in Taiwan

Any comments, suggestions or personal experiences about Gold’s Gym, California Fitness or any other local fitness centers.

Which is the best deal for the money? Do they run specials?

Best Facilities? I have looked at them but would also like to read comments from those of you who have worked out at any of these places.

Do any of these centers have foreign fitness trainer/s? or are they all taiwanese?

I’m looking for a place that is not swarming with a bunch of young xiao jies and shuai ges!

Thanks in advance.

Then my gym is the right one for you. Lots of older people and regular people, definitely not a meat market.

www.beingsport.com.tw

Gold’s has a really good trainer, named Sonam. He’s Nepali, fluent in English and will set you up on a good program. Great guy.

As for the rest of the trainers there, I got tired of them always trying to chat me up with broken English as I was trying to work out.

One advantage to Gold’s is that the music is not nearly as ear-splitting as California.

Friend of a friend works at California Fitness.

Apparently there is some chance the entire chain might be closing.

Not rumour-mongering here just thought it might be helpful info. & somehting members/prospective members may wish to ask about.

Thanks for replies

Not rumour-mongering here just thought it might be helpful info. & somehting members/prospective members may wish to ask about.

Don’t think they would tell a prospective member who is ready to put down the money for a 3 year membership that it is closing. COuld be wrong here, but…

YEs the ear splitting music at california is definitely a turnoff.

golds: and yes, the way they follow you around “being hospitable” , speaking in broken english but not even bothering to ask whether I speak Chinese was not appealing either. I can understand chinese but it is best I keep my mouth shut when it comes to speaking in chinese.

beingsport.com
where is this located? Is the meat foreign or local? Besides older meat is fine!

Yes, I hope it’s true!

But I fear it’s not!

California treats its customers with a staggering callousness and disregard for decency. That was my experience at any rate.

I would feel nicely vindicated if it were true.

But that’s in my dreams.

K.
former chagrined customer of California

The staff at the Xi-Men California has been really cool to me. Towel-room guy is really friendly and bald counter-guy is nice. Also, the girl who renewed my membership has always been really sweet.

The new staff are usually the d1ckheads, but that’s just cause they’re new and you just have to shake em off on the stairmaster.

I think Cali’s fine. I like the music, too. I’ve never thought of it as a meat-market. Then again, I always :wanker: before I go. Just kidding. :uhhuh:

One time I had the problem of one of the staff at California being too helpful. I started to get that “old-lady-on-the-bus” feeling (“I don’t need yer help, young man!”) but that was only one time.

If people bother you, just do what curly-hair-stud-guy does (he’s a regular foreigner at Cali - are you a Forumosan, Mr. Curly-hair?). He wears these headphones while he’s working out. Just get a Nike fanny-pack or whatever and put a little MP3 in it and no turtle-heads will poke you in the butt-eye.

And if you ever plan on traveling to another Asian country:
California has branches in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Gold’s has branches in Japan.
Alexander’s in in Shanghai.

[quote=“Sinister Tiddlywinks”]The staff at the Xi-Men California has been really cool to me. Towel-room guy is really friendly and bald counter-guy is nice. Also, the girl who renewed my membership has always been really sweet.

[/quote]

One of the younger towel-room guys, whom I’ve never talked to or barely looked at for that matter, looked up my phone number from their records and called me. He wanted to go have coffee but “I can’t let anyone know at California he is gay because they hate gays” (which I thought was funny, since the Dinghao branch is like a mini-Castro) and he “really needs this job because he’s a student.” Obviously, I was like, WTF? Not happy about this invasion of privacy and not happy that he’s still there taking towels despite complaining to them about this. I’ve also had run-ins with their tanning staff over time slots, but I guess their tanning services have folded. The place started out nice, but what kind of fucking health center advertises liquor and cigarettes, as CA has done in the past?

I’ve heard stuff from friends of a friend who work there that they will close, but I’ve also heard from other friends of friends that they are doing well, so who the hell knows? If you choose CA, don’t get your membership through them, you can get it much cheaper on Taiwan’s ebay.

The location information is on the website, lazy lazy!

There are three in Taibei: GuTing, MinSheng Community, YongHe.

That place is so not meat market it’s meatless. Like a vegetable market. :laughing:

ha ha and I prefer vegetables!

I am not lazy, it was just a matter of time. I quickly looked at a few pages but the address was not obvious. Later, when I had time, I took a closer look at the site and found the addresses of all the locations. And made a call to them. They were helpful and professional. Thanks for info.

You are welcome. Maybe I’ll see you there soon.

I didn’t know that memberships at California were transferable. Or how else could people sell their memberships online on E-bay? I don’t understand.

From what I understand, it’s about 5000NT to transfer Cali Fit memberships.

I just got some insider info from my hot trainer:

He says our gym might be buying out Gold’s Gym.

Thanks a lot for recommendation. I have been to BEING and am quite impressed with their well designed and professionalism of staff. The staff is really great…available if you need assistance, but let you alone to do your workout.

I would not be surprised if calif closes or if BEING buys out Gold’s What they offer is far superior and to both of these places.

[quote=“914”]The location information is on the website, lazy lazy!

There are three in Taibei: GuTing, MinSheng Community, YongHe.

That place is so not meat market it’s meatless. Like a vegetable market. :laughing:[/quote]
Not being able to read chinese makes it a little difficult to find…not a matter of laziness. As a matter of fact, I still haven’t found the addresses :help:

Ok Vannyel. I can give you the closest address in Engrish if you want to check out the gym.

Thanks…I am in Wanhua near the Youth Park so which do you think would be the closest? Guting?
Is it like other gyms or do they have a fixed price? I hate bartering :wink:

Yes, GuTing would be the “closest” for you, though it seems quite far.

台北市羅斯福路二段91號B1
服務專線:(02)2369-9299

B1, #91 Roosevelt Road Section 2
(Right next to the GuTing MRT Station exit)

I didn’t barter. But if you want to join that gym, pm me. A trainer from my gym became a sales person at the GuTing location. He should give you the same rate I paid (minus the transfer fee, of course). I paid one year at just under $11000. But this included a transfer fee from another member to moi.

So go do your research and if you let me know if you like it or not.

Good luck!

I am wondering what exactly the " just under 11000 NT$" includes. Is this the sign up or enrollment fee or is that just the monthly cumulative for the year?