I can do the upgrade to a 34 cog gear for under 2,000 NT. I might do this sometime.
You can pay over a period of six months. I don’t know the details of how that’s done (whether there’s interest, whether a foreigner can do it, etc.). When you go to the Giant shop and see bicycles in the 100,000 NT and well over range, 28,000 NT starts looking not so crazy.