The Place We're at Now: Taipei, Taiwan

We've come to the land of bubble tea and...semiconductors? Are we glad we did?

This is a regular feature about where we currently are in the world: how we ended up there, what it costs, and exactly what we think.

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Brent and I didn’t know much about Taiwan.

We knew it was an island in East Asia — roughly the size of Maryland. And we knew the big city was Taipei.

We knew about the history — most notably, in the aftermath of World War II, the losing side of China’s civil war moved here.

And we knew about the “Taiwan Miracle,” which is when this area underwent rapid industrialization in the second half of the 20th century, making it one of the four economic powerhouses known as the “Asian Tigers.”

Oh, and since I love super-tall high-rises, I knew about Taipei 101, which was the tallest building in the world when it opened in 2004 (and is now the eleventh-tallest).

And that’s about all we knew.

We’ve since learned that almost all of the world’s semiconductors are made here, and Taiwan is also the birthplace of bubble tea.

More importantly, this is China — kind of. Even though it’s only recognized by a handful of small nations, Taiwan refers to itself as the Republic of China (ROC), as opposed to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which is the Chinese mainland.

But there are just facts, not the heart and soul of a country or city.

Are we glad we came? If we had to do it over again, would we?

Read on to find out!

How did we end up here?

As we explained in a previous article, we’d planned to stay a couple of months in South Korea, but we hadn’t been able to find decent, affordable lodging in the place we wanted to be.

So we pivoted, looking for a different country. Since we had to be in Hong Kong in September, and Taiwan was sort of on the way, we figured: why not stop there?

This makes our decision sound sort of slapdash and impulsive.

Which is exactly what it was!

But this isn’t to say we hadn’t wanted to come here. Friends had recommended it, and it has long been on our list of potential “nomad” stops.

Plus, it’s one of Asia’s less popular tourist destinations — which, in our mind, is a good thing.

Where are we staying? What does it cost?

We are staying in the Xinyi District, possibly the most expensive part of town. It’s home to Taipei 101, a massive shopping and entertainment complex, and it’s surrounded by more skyscrapers with more malls, most of which are connected by sky bridges.

These sky bridges provide welcome relief on these hot days.

We’re living in an older neighborhood about a ten-minute walk from Taipei 101 and those shiny malls.

We spent the first month in a one-bedroom apartment that was far too small for us.

Through Airbnb, we paid $2,377 USD for thirty nights, or $79 USD a night.

Our first (small) apartment.

We didn’t like the size of our apartment, but we loved our landlord, and working with him, we found a much larger apartment for the last five weeks of our stay.

Our new apartment.

How much did this one cost?