Tainan - filled with history and good eats.
Taichung - crime capital of Taiwan.
Taipei - the place to be if you want to learn the [strike]most standard Mandarin.[/strike] the language of the invaders.
I too have lived in Taichung for almost ten years, I’m wondering what people mean by ‘deteriorating’? Do you mean infra-structure?
I could definitely make a list of improvements for ‘foreigners’ living in Taichung over the last ten years.
In my mind, the foreigner community here is not as cohesive as it once was but I’d also venture to say that the numbers of foreigners (expats and English teachers) living anywhere in Taiwan has dropped in the last five years.
My general feeling is that Kaohsiung and Tainan have seen more dramatic improvements compared to Taichung in the last four or five years because they have spent the previous 15 remaining much less desirable places for foreigners to want to live.
Tainan is the new ‘Taichung’ in the sense that the ‘pioneer spirit’ that was once here for foreigners has since migrated to Tainan.
When I first got to Taiwan, foreigners living in Taipei had a VERY different experience of living in Taiwan than folks who lived elsewhere.
Also, don’t underestimate the weather thing. It is VERY significant.
I go back and forth from Taichung to Tainan all the time and Tainan is BROILING in the Spring and Summer. Kaohsiung even more so.
You can be in the mountains surrounding Taichung in about 20 minutes.
Having moved to Taichung recently I echo your comments that it’s previous ‘hippy foreigner’ or pioneer spirit is gone (along with most of its dodgy KTVs and gangsters thankfully). It was a cracking place many years ago. Now the bars and western restaurants are half-dead and run down even on weekends. I don’t bother setting foot in most of them as they have the atmosphere of the last dodo before it went extinct. My impression is there are half of the number of foreigners in town as there once were.
I think Taichung has probably improved but not to the same degree as Tainan and Kaoshiung, however I agree one of the reasons is definitely because those places were really dumps previously and have come on quickly in a short space of time. They both have the ocean nearby which is a significant plus for those places. Taichung has some good eats and great prices (once you search) but there is little going on in terms of new Western places opening. The Japanese, SE Asian and even Chinese food here is not as varied as I hoped though. For some reason there are tonnes of Indian restaurants though, so if you like your curry a trip to Taichung should be on your list. Taichung has a spanking new government area with luxury apts. dotted around it but what it needs is a commercial area such as Nangang or Neihu to hold it together (and prop up prices for all those investors from Taipei).
You mention mountains but I don’t find it very easy to get to mountains in Taichung (although I live on a hill in Xitun). If you live in Beitun I guess it is better. The cross central highway area and hot springs are very nice if a bit difficult to negotiate. I tend to go to Miaoli due to family reasons to enjoy the countryside/mountains but it seems so do a lot of Taichungers. The main problem with Taichung is both the lack and low paid jobs for locals and foreigners alike, they are hiring a lot more workers in the new science parks so it might perk up a bit this year.
Tainan is the only city in Taiwan I have never truly looked around except for the anping area which was really nice.