I DO NOT go to (open air) traditional market. I go to nearby Carrefour or Pixmart, so I can be sure I don’t buy lower quality or expired food such as eggs. Chinese merchants including Taiwanese are dishonest if they can get away with it.
Fresh veggies at wet markets are half the price, fresher, and not hiding problems behind plastic packaging. Dry goods are not something worth getting at wet markets. I get eggs sometimes, never had a rotten egg
Please do enjoy your shopping experience at the hot, humid, smelly, crowded, dirty, smoggy, muddy wet market. I am sure all this trouble worths the half-price veggies for you. And you can spend all your time running to seperate places, one for veggies and the others for dry food.
I will add that, for veggies, I only buy organic.
You can avoid wet market and still get good and cheap fruit and vegetables in places like rt mart or like this one I found recently
https://maps.app.https://goo.gl/DfzJkC35aD1dDt2r7
That’s not the one I go to
It can get crowded, but I typically go early on a weekday afternoon when it isn’t crowded
And meat at Costco. Buying lots at a time means fewer trips
And a grocery list is a life hack. When something gets low put it on the list. That way it is easy to pick up when convenient and on sale.
True it served me well but got it stolen then never spent the same amount of money on that quality again.
I’ve been to @tt’s for food. It’s great! He sure knows how to pick the ingredients for quality.
Getting it with less sugar and no bubbles works easy 
This 100%. Nothing compares to the value really, and not only does it taste so much fresher, but it also feels cool to support local business/not a big faceless corporation for once.
I can’t believe I forgot this huge one. Bathrooms here, even in really modern developed areas, might have 0 toilet paper. At times it feels like a coin flip, if they have some or not. Carrying some tissue in your bag is extremely useful and you will be thankful one day to do so, pretty much guaranteed.
My desire to not que up and then wait for the bubble tea is stronger than my desire to drink bubble tea. Simple as that. I drink it about once a month.
Other restaurants are more difficult because the sugar options are so much tastier than the non sugar ones. No sugar dou jiang is like 1/10 compared to with which is like 8/10
Milk tea is hard to avoid too. It just goes sooo well with everything. Although at home i never drink english style tea with sugar.
My personal rule related to this is to never buy to discounted chicken in supermarkets. Ive done it several times and it was already off when i opened it (on the day of purchase).
Build up your mental map and punctuate your time and space with plenty of weekend excursions. Lots of places are most likely within easy reach.
Specific hack:
If you don’t have the TPass and you live in Danshui.
If you feel a hankering to go to Keelung, the 862 bus is 8 sections of $15.
That means the Taipei Pass, which provides unlimited transit for one day is cheaper than a round trip.
I’m addicted to milk tea.
This is the real one
Get the FUCK out of the city and continually find more ways and reasons to do so. It’s good for ya. Realistically, if Taiwan was just some flat ass Island but with the same cities, I’d have left a long time ago.
I agree generally with afterspivak that normal straight tea here can be good if you go to the right shops, but milk tea is delicious. Just get it with low sugar. You’ll get used to it. Even just getting half sugar is much better eh.
When on the bus, say “借過” (jiè guò) and watch the people in front of you part like the Red Sea. My ex- taught me this in my first year here (before there was an MRT in Taipei, so I took the bus most places) and it was like a magic word: easy for even me to pronounce reasonably clearly with an immediate reaction from people who heard it. No more “duibuqi” or “buhaoyisi” - just “Jie Guo!” and everyone in front of you reacts instantly.
My other magic word is “洗手間” (xǐ shǒu jiān) - I struggled for YEARS with “廁所” (cè suǒ). Then, in Taiwan, I learned to say xishoujian while rubbing my palms together like Ebenezer Scrooge telling Bob Cratchit he was docking his pay for using the xishoujian one too many times that day. Try it like that and the person you are talking to will instantly know what you mean no matter how hopeless your Mandarin pronunciation is.
Certified organic can be tricky to get in Taiwan, but some key organizations have popped up to monitor and sell “safe” (toxic chemical free) produce and other products: Cotton Field (棉花田) is one, Leezen (里仁) is another. My preferred coop (modest membership fee required) is Homekeeper’s Union, with details in the hyperlink should anyone be interested:
Guy
I’m not following the issue with wet markets. IME they are excellent.