Living In Taoyuan

[quote=“monkey”]If you live in Taoyuan City near the freeway or in Nankan on the opposite side of the freeway, you have a 40-minute commute to downtown Taipei. That’s about the only positive thing I can think of.
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Nankan is an oasis of culture and entertainment. There are now two malls. Also, Costco may soon be building a store behind Taimall. Taimall itself has an excellent pub. For those who enjoy hiking there is a small mountain. Nankan river now has cycle paths. At night, you can hang out with many kindy teachers outside 7-11. If you say NanKan wrong it sounds funny, too.

[quote=“tomthorne”][quote=“monkey”]If you live in Taoyuan City near the freeway or in Nankan on the opposite side of the freeway, you have a 40-minute commute to downtown Taipei. That’s about the only positive thing I can think of.
[/quote]

Nankan is an oasis of culture and entertainment. There are now two malls. Also, Costco may soon be building a store behind Taimall. Taimall itself has an excellent pub. For those who enjoy hiking there is a small mountain. Nankan river now has cycle paths. At night, you can hang out with many kindy teachers outside 7-11. If you say Nankan wrong it sounds funny, too.[/quote]

Let’s not forget that Taimall has such subtle and tasteful exterior decoration. Also, where are these famed areas around Taoyuan City that are okay? Bade? Guishan? Neili? Why these are all the Paris, Venice and Vienna of Taiwan, respectively!

Seriously, one of the most exciting things my wife and I used to do there was go to that huge, 24 hour pet store (why anyone needs to buy a rhinoceros beetle at 3am, I don’t know, but don’t let anyone tell you Taoyuan is not convenient!) called Rainbow Fish so I could look at iguanas.

Another thing I like about Taoyuan? The way Zhongzheng road inexplicably divides around that temple downtown. Try getting across there on foot! Now that’s entertainment, and exercise, enough any time of day or night, and day of the week! Oh yeah, and Taoyuan is famed for its pedestrian access generally…not! Likewise, going the other way on Zhongzheng Road, I love how after Ciwen Road, there’s a set of about six traffic lights that always go green, green, green, red, green, green, and how when you get that red in the middle, you have to wait 90+ seconds until the next green, despite the fact that you only drove for all of fifteen seconds before getting that red light. Brilliant! Really, the whole city is just a gem of urban planning!

You don’t love Taiwan enough.

[quote=“tomthorne”][quote=“monkey”]If you live in Taoyuan City near the freeway or in Nankan on the opposite side of the freeway, you have a 40-minute commute to downtown Taipei. That’s about the only positive thing I can think of.
[/quote]

Nankan is an oasis of culture and entertainment. There are now two malls. Also, Costco may soon be building a store behind Taimall. Taimall itself has an excellent pub. For those who enjoy hiking there is a small mountain. Nankan river now has cycle paths. At night, you can hang out with many kindy teachers outside 7-11. If you say Nankan wrong it sounds funny, too.[/quote]

The Nankan river is basically just an open sewer. It’s not fun to cycle along :ponder:

You can rub excrement into any description of Taoyuan city and I’d agree with you…But, there are some superb burbs in the outskirts.

Long term Taoyuan County resident.

I’ve said it before–Taoyuan is not all that bad. Immediate downtown–not so good; areas like Da Yo Road are somewhat better. I managed 11 years living from Ping Jen to Nankan, and enjoyed my time. Tiger Head Mountain stretches quite a ways for hiking, and you can head over to any of the universities (Nei Li/Chung Li) for sports such as basketball, soccer or even ball hockey. I found it much easier to practice Chinese on a daily basis as well. Taipei is not that far away for museum/cultural trips–wasn’t a place I ever wanted to live.

Keep an open perspective–I know quite a few others who have lived in the area for 15+ years and enjoy themselves.

Dayou Road is as much of a hole as anywhere else in Taoyuan. It’s only drawcard seems to be that lots of foreigners live around there, though that’s not a drawcard for me.

Tigerhead Mountain is good if you’re not looking at the views of Taoyuan City (and the giant haze floating above it), and there are usually far too many people there, not to mention all those crappy food stalls about half way up. The one good thing I will say about Tigerhead Mountain is that my wife found our dog there. That said, I once had to peddle like a banshee on a mountain bike ride as I got chased by about thirty dogs.

I quite like that pet shop, too. Last time I went, they had these baby parrots (or some other kind of tropical bird) on display. Because they hadn’t grown feathers yet, they had this pinkish wrinkly skin. Freakishly fugly things they were.

But the shopping is one good reason to go to Taoyuan I suppose. They have proper-sized shops and car parking. Taipei feels like some sort of dwarves’ village where you have walk sideways around the shops because there’s not enough room to move without knocking all the displays over.

monkey: Yeah, sure. Taoyuan has shopping, though shopping is not really an activity I like, and besides which, 90% of the stores sell the exact same crap. Gaudy clothes? Check. Bizarre slimming powders you dissolve in tea or other “health products”? Check. 10 NTD plastic crap? Check. Horribly fattening and/or unidentifiable food? Check. Comic books? Check. I don’t think it’s that much of an exaggeration to suggest that almost everything else that is on sale can be bought at Carrefour (and Taoyuan has two of them, plus another two in Neili, and probably more in the general vicinity), making almost every other store in Taoyuan redundant. Like I said, I’m not a big shopper, plus the downtown area is absolutely awful for shopping because of the terrible traffic (including the public transport), poor parking options and difficulty to move anywhere as a pedestrian.

Regarding Rainbow Fish, whilst I used to like going there if we happened to be in the area with nothing to do for fifteen minutes, I would never have bought anything from there. I think that pet stores are generally fairly immoral. Firstly, should half of the animals they sell even be kept as pets? Secondly, the commodification of dogs at those places is awful. Especially in Taiwan they end up selling dogs like stuffed toys in a toy store.

When I first lived in Taoyuan there was this really cool restaurant out by the stadium in a giant old post and beam wood structure. Looked like a tavern in an old kung fu movie. Had the best gongbao jiding. Great place to hang out and have a few pints with some great food.

Out near Tigerhead is one of the few remaining intact Japanese-era Japanese temples.

So there.

Great, but how often is someone going to go to the Japanese temple? Once? Twice? Then only after visitors from back home come over. There’s still a real lack of stuff to do in Taoyuan, plus it’s an ugly shithole with awful town planning and traffic.

How often can you collect stamps, look at butterflies, bird watch, hike the same trail, sleep with the same person? You are so limited.

All these positive posts about Taoyuan have changed my mind. Taoyuan is the place to live. I would gladly give my left nut to rent a place near the train station.

Well, 25,000,000 people visit Taoyuan every year!! I think it must be pretty damn awesome to attract that many people!! :roflmao:

I actually like the post-modern urban grittiness of Taoyuan with all the factories, industries and endless sprawl. Although they should have used this in their tourism slogan:

Taiwan Touch Your Heart. Taoyuan, scratch your taint.

[quote=“Mucha Man”]When I first lived in Taoyuan there was this really cool restaurant out by the stadium in a giant old post and beam wood structure. Looked like a tavern in an old kung fu movie. Had the best gongbao jiding. Great place to hang out and have a few pints with some great food.

Out near Tigerhead is one of the few remaining intact Japanese-era Japanese temples.

So there.[/quote]

Agree on the Japanese-era Martyr’s Shrine. The fact that a completely wooden structure could still be standing in Taiwan after a century boggles the mind. Not only has it withstood typhoons and earthquakes, but it has resisted rot and fire, and been overlooked by thieves, bums, and truck drivers (who seem to have hit every single signpost in Taoyuan).

GIT, Carrefour corrupts even the strongest-willed. As far as I know, it’s the only place south of Wugu that sells sticks of French bread. And if you’re willing to try every single sample offered to you on a cocktail stick, you could probably walk out of there with a full stomach. What scares me is that one day, some time in the distant future, those obasans with the track pants and bouffant hairdos and are going to start looking hot.

It’s properly called blight in design circles.

How often can you collect stamps, look at butterflies, bird watch, hike the same trail, sleep with the same person? You are so limited.[/quote]

You’re right, but let’s be serious here, what are people generally going to look for in a place in terms of living? Restaurants, nightlife, sporting clubs, cinemas, outdoor activities… You could also have mentioned that Taoyuan has lots of shops selling really gaudy fashion, which would probably be a drawcard to someone (certain Taiwanese, perhaps?), but not to the average person.

What do you mean? Why is that scary? They are hot. Aren’t they?

As usual, a lot of Taipei people chiming in with responses. I’ve lived 10 years in the Taoyuan area-- from Taoyuan city itself, to Zhongli and Yangmei. It’s not nearly as bad as described. Granted, it doesn’t have the glitz of downtown Taipei, but I’d sooner choose Taoyuan over most of the cities in New Taipei, especially places like Banqiao and Xinzhuang (hell on earth, if I’ve ever seen it). Taoyuan city, itself doesn’t have much going for it at first glance. However, you quickly find you can get most things you want there with ease. Prices for most things, from rent to restaurants, are significantly lower. The price of a taofang in Taipei city will get you a 3 bedroom palace in Taoyuan (it’ll get you a whole house with a garden in Yangmei). Jobs are relatively plentiful and competition scarce, so you can find what you like at slightly higher pay. Nightlife? There are some places. I’m out of the loop these days. Nightlife for me is going to a friend’s house. However, Taipei is never too far away if you really want it (I usually find I’m happy to leave when I’m done with it). Green space? Taoyuan city has Tiger head mountain, really quite a large place with trails that go on in different directions. It’s a good light hike/walk place where you could stay all day exploring. As mentioned, there are the universities with their sports fields. National Central university is actually a nice walk in itself. If you want more, then you head out into places like Longtan and Daxi. There are plenty of mountains there. Yongan harbour offers a seaside destination close to town.

Taoyuan is not for everyone. It’s more for the kind of person who doesn’t want to live in Taipei. It takes a bit more effort. There isn’t MRT, so you either have to get yourself mobile quickly or learn the bus system. English appears far less often on menus and comes out of the mouths of people far less often than in Taipei. For some, this will be a hardship; for others (like those who write posts about having to trick locals into speaking Chinese with them), it’s more of an authentic experience-- a place to really use Chinese on a daily basis. It’s also a place to save money. As mentioned, most things are cheaper and work is plentiful. There are also fewer of the high priced distractions that Taipei has. It’s really up to the individual to decide what s/he wants out of a city/region. There are a small group of westerners who have lived in the area for quite a while and like it. Others can’t stand it. YMMV.

GiT, do you honestly think I am defending living in Taoyuan?