Is living in Jiaoxi as good as I think?

Taiwan Moving to Taiwan
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Since I finally found a fully remote job after more than 5 years in Taiwan, my wife and I are looking to move to Jiaoxi to escape the overcrowding/pollution/monkeys (street racers, not the actual animals) of Xizhi, while keeping the urban feel and proximity to Taipei for biweekly family/Costco visits.

Jiaoxi has plenty of modern housing/community developments, yet very few are being rented on 591, FB, or through real estate agencies. At the same time, the lights are off in most whenever we visit. I hope to get more info or find somebody who might know somebody who’d be willing to rent:

  • 2+ bedroom apt
  • Modern, say less than 20 yrs old
  • Proper kitchen
  • Furnished/half furnished
  • Balcony/terrace
  • None of those apartments split into 2 floors with 140cm ceilings
  • Max. 15 min walk from a convenience store/restaurants
  • Hot spring “bathtub”
  • Separate bathroom from the hot spring bathtub (ideally)
  • Indoor car parking space (ideally)

While this is a long shot, I’d like to make this thread more inclusive and ask any Yilan forumosans for their experiences. Is living in Jiaoxi as good as I think? Other towns in Yilan are too spread out, the convenience of walking for your daily chores is huge…

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Rainiest town in the world.

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With hot springs in Taiwan, I’d expect a fair amount of the world’s oldest profession (aka the sex trade) around. Not necessarily in your apartment, I hasten to add. But when selecting an apartment building, you may wish to keep this in mind.

Guy

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So you can go to the hot springs sans a date, good to know. :rofl:

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Yes rentals are (ahem) available should this be one’s way of doing things.

Guy

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Maybe check in Toucheng? I see lots of new high rises for rent on 591 there.

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I’d go for Toucheng over Jiaoxi.

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I would go for the Fulong Beach area. You mentioned Costco and so I imagine you’d be driving. Heading into and out of Yilan is terrible on the weekends. But if you have the freedom to choose not to travel on the weekends, maybe this isn’t a concern for you. I like the smaller town feel of Fulong, and also the ability to get away from Taipei people. Taipei residents invade Yilan every weekend.

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I lived in both Jiaoxi and Toucheng for 6 months each. Honestly I loved both.

Jiaoxi is great for hotsprings, free water, enough of basics for daily living, good mountains to climb, and easy to take a train around the east coast of yilan or a 1 hr bus to Taipei. Also a delicious but bit expensive bread bakery there. Also Wild BBQ (multiple branches around Taiwan) is my favorite.

The negatives are traffic to/from Taipei on weekends, the more frequent rain, the ocean haze (best way to describe it is a 360p tv with haze vs 1080p on a clear day where you can see yilan city). But the clear days were more seldom.

Toucheng is a bit more isolated but good for hotsprings (though I’m not sure if all water is free and many high rises you have to pay to use hotsprings), super close to the beach, great view of Turtle Island, more sunny days than Jiaoxi because it’s on the coast, has a couple buses to Taipei, some necessities such as Quanlian etc. Also a decent Mexican restaurant. Depending where you live, you could have a great view of ocean and typhoons while you work.

The negatives are it’s not as built up as Jiaoxi, less necessities, more isolated, not as major of a train station as Jiaoxi, still traffic to/from Taipei on weekends. You mentioned walking 15 minutes… That means the city, so you’re negating a lot of why in Toucheng. You would really need a scooter.

I found both places I lived in on 591 in modern high rises for about 15,000 to 20,000 ntd. Had balconies, great views, ok kitchens, etc.

Guess it just depends on what you are looking for.

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Bear in mind that I live in Xizhi. A little rain can’t stop me.

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Thanks for the rundown!

I thought of Toucheng too. I haven’t heard of the Mexican place, but there’s also a great Italian/Aboriginal restaurant called Kanea. I’m a lot more familiar with Jiaoxi and feel like the apartment offerings would be wider there, but being close to the ocean is definitely a benefit.

Traffic is a non-issue, since we’d likely never need to mimic the Taipei crowd, unless we’d rent on one of the streets where cars queue up to enter the highway, of course.

Just curious, where did you end up living long-term? Is it better than Jiaoxi/Toucheng?

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I’ve tried and tried to like Jiaoxi even considered having a place there but can find very little redeeming value compared to most other places in Taiwan.

Tourist trap, very little quaint feeling that is expected except for the area beside the stream, hellacious traffic at times, meeting people is going to be a turnover of tourists and not locals, buses, very few good restaurants and seems like the international places can’t last, low availability of shopping your malls or places to go when it’s raining, is there even a movie theater I forget, mostly farmers and small shop owners, not a lot of intellectual stimulation they could be found in other cities with more business and universities, I could go on.

Some good things are the train station, the stream in the middle of town, near some hiking areas and hotels, etc.

Lots of rain anywhere in that area so good to have options when raining or hot.

I don’t think there’s much of an international scene or foreigner scene.

Lots of better places in taiwan as a remote worker. Hualien, Taitung, Luodong even, theres n abouts would have more to offer in multiple ways.

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That’s Su’ao, actually (okay, not in the world but in TW at least)

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I was renting a place in Kaohsiung for city life and Jiaoxi/Toucheng for nature/hotsprings.

Also rented a place in Zhiben for a few months. But not much would meet what you’re looking for there in terms of rooms/shopping.

Now I am mostly in Kaohsiung and travel to Jiaoxi every so often. But I loved both Jiaoxi/Toucheng and loved the views. Waking up in the morning and seeing turtle island from balcony was just gorgeous.

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I like (some parts of) Toucheng. The “old” street is kinda nice at some points. The Bread and Butter Bakery was very good when I visited it. Avoid anything on the main, and horrible, stroad.

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Well, you sound just like my wife and I. We were looking at Jiaoxi but most apartments seem to be on the smaller size…we need at least around 40 ping to get all of junk inside. We ended up in Yilan City at a high end complex. But not the convenience you are looking for as in walking about to stores and such.

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In Jiaoxi it rains about 400 days a year!

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There’s a really good old-timey guava ice shop on the stroad.

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I lived in Jiaoxi for 5 years. It’s boring. If that’s what you’re looking for then you’ve found it. It is much more expensive and difficult to find housing because it’s a tourist trap. The hot spring water is free, which is nice. The retuarants are aimed at tourists and none really stand out. It does rain a lot; I remember one year, I didn’t see the Sun for three months.

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I know. I actually meant avoid living besides that road.

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