The noise in Taipei/new Taipei City is driving me crazy.
I recently bought some wireless audio earbuds listen to Mandarin Chinese lessons while iout walking, I can’t hear a thing walking in the street.
Try find a quiet place no chance! some wanker has a radio blasting away.
Cycling down river paths wind cancels out the sound.
I seriously thinking of moving out of Taipei, little trip to Taoyuan recently seems quieter? Certainly cheaper! My friend bought a new 2 bed 14 floor apartment 4million + 800 thousand for underfloor parking.
Overlooking a concrete plant and HSR
Just went for a walk in Taoyuan out of the busy section of the enormous and expensive highrises. Smaller neighborhood with a smaller public school…two or three blocks over. It wasn’t too bad.
I guess I should say, truly, reliably quiet…And there’s certainly different levels of noise. I agree that the main streets in the cities can be terribly noisy. I always tell colleagues or family if they get me on my mobile, sorry cant help the noise , this is Taiwan.
I’m in my relatively set off the main road apartment with the windows open. I hear the constant ambient noise of traffic in the distance , there’s some birds chirping, somebody playing a saxophone…kids knocking around, a truck or bus beeping every few minutes in the distance . somebody just gunned a scooter…Somewhere . Neighbours dog upstairs is scrabbling around a bit. And this is my relaxing quiet time . Saxophone guy has started up again.
Taipei back alley here. Scooters roaring up the lane. Often I won’t notice, other times I feel annoyed by it. Woman downstairs for some reason perks up at about 12am every night. Starts talking, or more accurately, shouting at her husband. Don’t hear anything from her all day! Upstairs truly weird, single guy, gets home from work, goes dark for a few hours after tea, then at around 1-2 am starts shifting shit around his apartment, screwing, unscrewing stuff it’s hard to understand what motivates him. Screw permanently loose?
Frequently cars park, left running out front of apartment, owners get out for a smoke and chat on their phone. Can happen anytime. This time last week at night some little boy driving Daddy’s e class with his airhead girlfriend out front, we asked them politely to move on but they refused, sat their in the gutter smoking and looking at their phones for a good hour maybe two. Great night out.
I remember when I arrived in Taipei, twenty years ago. The noise of traffic, kids screaming, cars beeping and dogs barking drove me insane. I couldn’t sleep for weeks.
Now I’m so used to it, I can’t sleep without it.
Silence unnerves me.
Apart from the intermittent drills and jackhammers that happen periodically in the apartments above me. There is a special place in hell for those c**nts.
It’s that occasional scooter that’s the problem. I shouldn’t need the air conditioning now, but I do need the windows open - and then mostly it’s quiet enough to sleep, but once or twice a night a roaring scooter is going to wake me up. Two nights in a row I’ve woken up in the middle of the night and opted to close the windows and turn the a/c on instead.
