Going to Taiwan in a few days.
What should I expect and what should I wear for the summer heat?
>>1280605
If youre nor used to heat, stay inside during the middle of the day, its a pain to do anything with the humidity and heat. Also expect in my opinoin the best of asian food. Its like they took the best from each country and mashed it up in their own.
expect concrete on the west, green on the east.
if you're into contemporary art, better look up some exhibitions. okay, i actually ran into some awesome art just strolling around, but i got the feeling that there was much more to those.
also i appreciated that jade cabbage for some weird reason.
food is just so, so good. google taiwanese food and make your list.
the random streetfood i loved the most, out of the chains din tai fung was nice, esp. their soup dumplings.
my personal favorites were the many forms of the beef noodle soup.
>>1280616
Din Tai Fung is the Olive Garden of Taiwan. Tourists should not go there. Stick to the night markets, they look pretty gross sometimes but the food is good.
Visit elephant mountain in Taipei, and a couple markets, and the Ximen and Xinyi districts. Go to Tainan (a few hours south) if you have time.
>>1280605
This is fortuitous. I'm going there in a few days and I'm trying to find out exactly how long I should go before hopping on a plane up to japan. Is 5 full days not counting travel to and from enough to get a feel for Taiwan? I'm hoping to see Taroko Gorge and some nature on the coast.
>>1280605
>what should I wear for the summer heat?
Lightweight thin clothing. You need some clothing to keep the mosquitos off, but you can't wear much because the heat and humidity are unbearable.
If you burn easily, bring a hat and long-sleeved tee-shirts, and LOTS of high-SPF sunblock. The sun here is brutal. In fact, even if you don't burn easily, bring those. . . .
>>1280610
>in my opinoin the best of asian food.
You must never have had Thai or Vietnamese food. Taiwanese is gummy, overly-sweetened crap. Everything has to have sugar in it.
>>1280635
>Din Tai Fung is the Olive Garden of Taiwan.
Yeah right. One of DTF's locations in the U.S. has a Michelin star. Of course that doesn't transfer to other locations of the restaurant, even though in the case of DTF the food is as close to identical across all the locations as the company can make it.
The night markets truly are shit quality food. I enjoy going to them once in a while, but I'm not expecting to find anything good; they're sort of like fairground food in the U.S., lots of fatty deep-fried garbage. Also, although OP probably won't die from it after a week-long tour, they are known for using toxic non-food-grade oils for their frying (unrefined cottonseed oil, for example, which contains a chemical that causes sterility in humans).
>>1281280
>Is 5 full days not counting travel to and from enough to get a feel for Taiwan? I'm hoping to see Taroko Gorge and some nature on the coast.
Taroko is a long train ride from Taipei. You'll need a day to get there, assuming you're flying into Taoyuan. If you're going to spend time in Taipei, it's a two to four hour train ride from the Taiwan Rail station next to the Songshan MRT stop in Taipei. Two hours if you get an express train, four (or more, possibly, depending on the route) on a regular one. DON'T try to take a cab or a limo there; the road is fucking dangerous on the Hwy 9 section of the trip.
>>1280605
https://www.rt.com/news/397977-typhoon-nesat-evacuation-blackout/
>>1281325
tfw we drove all the way through the east coast, highway 9 and smaller roads along the sea... during some torrential rain, too. they did close some parts that happened to fall into the sea. i would not recommend it to people who just got their licenses, but it was beautiful.
>>1281343
You absolute madman!
I did it a couple of years ago because I was stupid and believed Google Maps' "two hour drive" crap. Holy shitballs, that was a fucking terrifying drive. I can't wait for the new road to go through. Hwy 9 is supposed to be a pretty drive, but I couldn't watch any of the scenery because I was too terrified about going off a cliff or getting run over by a maniac or getting forced off the road and into the "ditch" that they put alongside it -- a vertical-walled concrete gap that is the perfect size to capture an entire tire and completely destroy your vehicle. It's the single most retarded piece of highway engineering I've ever seen here, and that says a lot.
>>1281336
The international news media always tries to create bullshit clickbait articles about Asia. For some reason, they do that for typhoons hitting Taiwan. Last summer, or maybe it was the summer before, my mother was all worried because "SUPERTYPHOON ABOUT TO DESTROY TAIWAN!!!" We didn't even get any drizzle from that one; the track was projected to miss completely for at least two days prior to the "we all gonna die!" article getting written, and it didn't even come close.
As for this one, (1) It wasn't even a typhoon when it hit, it was just a tropical storm, (2) we didn't even get a day off for it because it was just rainy, (3) maybe a few small areas lost powerlines, but it sure as fuck didn't happen in the north. I've seen worse "blackouts" because of hot days and high A/C loads.
>>1281336
me again >>1281744
I just opened up and read your RT article, and I doubt very much that those photos were even from Saturday. I'm in Taipei and we only had a couple of hours of moderate rain in two sessions. It got a little gusty during one of them, but nothing that would knock scooters over.
Those photos look like they're from 2015's Soudelor.
>>1280605
Its hot and wet,
Wear lightweight breathable clothing.
I'm wwoofing here atm
Anyone here got any travel hints/tips/info on taroko gorge and hualien?
Cheers
>http://www.oia.ntu.edu. tw/study-at-ntu/why-study-at-ntu/fees
>Estimated cost of living (including rent): TWD 84,000~113,000 ( USD 2,800~3,770 ) per semester
How realistic is this estimation?
Can you lead a decent life with these sums in the biggest cities like Taipei or Kaohsiung?
Also, how recommendable would it be to learn Hokkien besides Mandarin?
>>1281325
>Taroko is a long train ride from Taipei
It's more like 2 or 3 hours to Tarako and then an hour bus ride in. It's worth it go to Tarako
>>1281744
you survived, too! but seriously, it's beautiful, maybe have someone drive you next time. some of the engineering choices are debatable, but it made me feel safe that it really seemed like they were constantly monitoring the condition of the road during that crazy rain. they closed some parts down right in front of us, parts that cracked/sank too much. we only drove around for a week, so i don't recall maniacs? it all depends, they were fine from a european point of view.
(the only thing i hated was that long tunnel between the east coast and taipei, and how fucking slow everyone drove in there... i was going mental.)
it's so nice, i want to go back to highway 9, really... esp around taroko, and the south end.
>>1280605
Me and my girl are in Taiwan for a few days. If you're here and not at the goddamn end of the red line or something like that let me know. Let's meet up and drink some KaoLiang!
>>1280616
>that jade cabbage
don't forget the jade ham please.
>>1284087
What's wrong with the end of the Red Line? It's nice up here, close to the beaches and the air is a shitload of a lot cleaner than downtown.
>>1282506
You can live reasonably well on US$1000 per month. If you're in Taipei you will have to rent a room in a shared apartment to stay within that budget. If you're outside Taipei you can probably get a studio on your own and stay within that.
Note, that doesn't include alcohol. If you go out and get plastered every night, you're going to spend thousands a month. Alcohol is not cheap here.
>>1282506
Does that cost of living include the tuition?
84000 is above the average monthly salary I think, so its seems too high. My apartment was 12000 and other expenses were about 20000. I lived cheaply.
>>1284741
It's boring and the further you go from downtown, the dirtier it gets (which is saying alot since even downtown is grimy)
>>1280635
I think you should definitely have to go to din tai fung. The xiao long bao there are really amazing. Tried at a lot of places, but that one was the best for sure. It's also still pretty cheap.
>>1284741
I meant more like in terms of meeting without going too far out of the area.
But too late! We've moved on to japan now.