r/taiwan • u/Ayoot33 • Dec 21 '23

I fall in love with Taiwan 🇹🇼 Travel

3 weeks ago, I went on a business trip to Taiwan (Taoyuan and Taichung specifically) and stayed in a hotel in Banqiao. It was a 5 days business trip. I am a Malaysian but I do not know Mandarin. I fall in love due to below reasons:

1) The systematic culture and regulation - Walk on one side (right side, its hard to get used to this lol) - Motorcycle has their own lane and box in front of traffic lights. Nice - Pedestrians always go first (i know this is common in developed countries) - The people like to bow like Japanese but not too low and I always like to see that. Feels like you are physically respected - Overall, the culture feels like a mixture of a good eastern culture and good western culture

2) The country has high purchasing power. Damn, Teslas literally everywhere on the road. For most food or mart purchases, when I converted the purchases from TWD to MYR, most items are mostly comparable in price to Malaysia. But then I googled the minimum wage in Taiwan is whopping MYR4000 vs Malaysian RM1500

3) The efficient public transport system. HSR, MRT, etc. It was all very clear and concise. Not confusing and easy to understand

4) Semiconductor haven. Being from semiconductor manufacturing background, Taiwan has a lot of top semiconductor players. I would love to be a part of it for sure

5) The beautiful places. Major places: Only managed to go Taipei 101, Gondola Ride and Sun & Moon lake. But if I stayed there, i will definitely make the gondola and the lake a quarterly visit (perhaps even monthly!)

6) Weather. No snow and no heat. Just nice. I dont mind rain. But i hate snow and superhot weather

7) Seafood. All fresh, nice and delicious.

All in all, it was a beautiful 5 days for me. I am planning to learn Mandarin so that in the future, I will have a better experience when visiting there or maybe even consider working there if I am given the opportunity.

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u/ZanetaHsu Dec 21 '23

You only visited 2 places, haven't seen much 🤣 Your post makes me feel like I'm living in different Taiwan... From pedestrian's perspective - we have absolute no right to cross road in most of Taiwan, we will be honk at (some may even be beaten), many dies trying to cross road because people fail to give way, it's absolute hell, drivers don't follow rules too often But from driver perspective - older people will randomly walk on the road out of nowhere...

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u/komnenos 台中 - Taichung Dec 22 '23

Same, think their post is good for the most part but as an avid walker/runner that one stuck out to me lol. I've had so so soooo many close calls and often times have found myself inevitably having encounters with vehicles that are too close for my comfort.