Hi Brick and welcome!
I have to go to work now, but briefly:
[quote=“brick”]1) Maps! I saw joseax talking about a nice volume of maps he has. Do they have any romanisation, or only characters? What exactly do I have to look for if I want to find them? Are they detailed enough to allow auto-navigation most of the time? Fortunately my Mandarin is coming along nicely ;)[/quote] Has you seen my post on this at;
[forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.ph … 860#138860](Pinyin and Characters of Same Map for Taipei and Taiwan?
Even in the beginning, when you don’t know any characters, you can still get by OK using a combination of one of the 1:100,000 book form road maps, and a single-sheet one with some romanisation. The road numbers are very helpful and generally they’re pretty well signposted, except in cities sometimes.