Taiwan Cost of Living, 2003-04
Tainan, Taiwan
I was living in Tainan, Taiwan from November 2003 to September 2004. This is the 4th largest city in Taiwan, located in the south-western part of the country. Prices differ a bit there compared to other parts of Taiwan, mostly they are lower. That said, there are a lot of things that I could NOT find there that are found in other cities in Taiwan.
Cost of Living
Just looking at the prices alone will not give you a fair idea of the cost of living. You have to balance out what you earn (assumption; you are working locally) versus what things cost.The average starting hourly salary for foreign English teachers in Taiwan is 600 nt per hour. That is with little to no experience teaching. Salaries do vary from this amount, usually upward, but I have heard of a few lower amounts. Also, most teachers are paid for teaching hours ONLY; not prep or correcting time) and these rarely work out to 40 hours for one job. (Although some gung ho folks do work this much by taking on more than one job). I think the average workload is 20-30 hours per week. I had a part-time job at 18 teaching hours. Nice!
Cash please
I can not stress enough how much of a cash society Taiwan is. Yes, there are ATM machines and you can use your Visa card here and there. But most bills and payments are paid in cash. For example; my apartment rent, utilities bill, cell phone time (pre-paid), and salary are all dealt with in cash. Even my rent deposit was all in cash.
Currency Conversions
The prices on this website are listed in the currency that the item/cost was incurred. That is why some items are in US dollars and some in Taiwan (NT) dollars. My two favorite places for conversions are as follows:For one currency conversion (nt dollars to aussie dollars) :
For multiple currency conversions( nt dollars to aussie, south african, canadian dollars all at once):
A Few Details
This list is in alphabetical order.Prices are from
November 2003-September 2004
unless otherwise stated.
Airfare:
One way ticket from San Francisco to Kaoshung. Bought October 2003 in San Fran. $409.60 from STA Travel.
One-way ticket from Kaoshung back to SFO 14,200 nt/($417 US). Local travel agent Jacqueline Phone 07 216 0515 or 07-272 9302. She is in Kaoshung but I did all pricing and ordering via email and phone in English. (in English)
Airport Shuttle:
From Tainan to Kaoshuing (KHH)300 nt, one way06 2726 119 or 2731919 or 0937398994 Chinese speaking only
(I had a friend call and make the reservation in Chinese.
ARC- Alien Residency Card:
4,400 nt + 1,000 nt. November 2003. took about 5-6 weeks to process.Passport size pics:(you need these for your ARC and most ID here like gym, drivers license, etc)I dont remember the initial cost, but it was something like 150 NT ($4.40 US) for 6 pics and the photo on the disk. In the US it cost me about $10 US to get 2 pics like this for
my passport. Extra prints of this photo; 10 prints was only 120 NT ($3.50 US). whoa!
Banking:
I had an account with the post office, mostly because it is a novelty for me. The service is minimal and rude, but I rarely used the service, so there it is. There are international banks here like Citibank and American Express. There are also reputable local banks…I just dont know them from first hand experience. Here are some fees you might like to know about:Fee to open account at post office: 0 (my favorite price for a fee)Fee to wire money to US account: mail transfer (slowest and cheapest): 160 nt. How slow? My first transfer took 3 weeks.
Books
(English Language)
There are a few options to buying books in Taiwan. New, used,book exchanges and ordering online are the main ones. 1. Ordering online: http://www.booksatcaravan.net/ I researched ordering from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and a few other US based bookstores. But the shipping cost (if they shipped here at all) always made it expensive. These guys are based in Tokyo, Japan AND they sell used books. I emailed them and checked, they DO ship to Taiwan, for a very reasonable price.
2. New Books
In Tainan, there are Eslite, Caves and FNAC bookstores. Their fiction prices for English language books is either the same as back home or a bit more. All new books. Eslite has a decent travel and fiction section. Caves is mostly for ESL teaching books, most of their fiction is movies-to-books fiction. FNAC has my fav selection of new English lang. books. Prices for fiction vary from 350-600 nt per book. Travel books in English are in the thousand nt range.
Taipei has Page One, the mac daddy of bookstores!
3. Used Books
There are a few used bookstores in Tainan, but they are 99% Chinese language ones. There is a used bookstore on Beiman Road, just south of the train station. Not sure of the exact address, its near 3C (a huge computer store) on the train station side of the street. Buying books off of someone who is leavin is usually the cheapest option. Check the links page for Tealit and Forumosa “for sale” boards. Also, the Tainan Yahoo! board is good.
Taipei has loads of used bookstores. I spent a lot of time wandering around the Taipower MRT station area (my hostel was there). Grandma Nitties rest. had a TON of books for sale (they buy too-but only on Sunday) and there are many small bookshops in that maze in that neighborhood.
4. Book Exchange
Hit or miss really. But there are more and more places doing this in Tainan. For starters there are the tried and true places like The Greenhouse Restaurant and Go Dutch Cafe. Then there is the Greek Rest. in town (on Gongyuan Road) and Ocean Area Rest (off the Dongmen circle). Just bring a book, and ….exchange.
A place to find books to exchage is:
http://www.bookcrossing.com/home
Here you can register a book of your own and see where it ends up AND/OR you can search the city you are in and see if there are any books you want around.
Cable Internet/Cable TV:
Thanks to Sarah, here is some info on hooking up Cable Interne/TV in your apt here in Taiwan (Tainan at least) :Cost for hookup:(this is thru GIGA)
cable line- $1000nt (not sure if this is hookup fee or
only a deposit of some sort)
will be $570nt/month thereafter, paid every two months.
cable internet- slow speed (512/64) $1000nt deposit for
modem, and then $699nt/month or else $1950nt if you pay 3
months at a time. first month is free. this speed is
more than adequate.
prices for the other speeds are as follows: 1.5m/128K
$850nt/mo, 2400/3 mo. 6M/256K $1199nt/mo, 3300nt/3 mo.
I didn’t sign anything or give my credit card (or any
other) number that made it look like it’s a one year
contract, though I suspect it actually is one if what
my boss said is true. Not sure how they’d enforce it
though.
You have to order cable TV to get cable internet, though
I’ve heard that you don’t have to have a phone line to
get DSL. Cable internet is apparently cheaper.
The call to hookup was placed mid-week (either
wednesday late in the day or possibly thursday) and
they hooked us up the following monday morning at 9AM-
they were very prompt with showing up, actually
arriving at the specified time which would never
happen back home. This was probably the only strange
thing! the dude who set us up had good english, though
I had to show him how to adjust the settings on my Mac
cause as he said pretty much nobody has them around
here. Luckily I knew what to do as the help line
person didn’t seem to know, either.
We didn’t call to get hooked up ourselves, my boss
called for us, though i suspect that as with most
things here it wouldn’t be too hard to find somebody
to speak english with to place your order.
by the way, we had to give him a fistful of cash when
he hooked us up, the $2000 plus $699 for first mo.
internet. Will pay cable and the net bill at 7-11 like
every other bill, come a month or two.
Cameras:
disposable- 160 nt-500 nt.devleloping disp camera-disc and hard copy-27 pics; disc, 270 NT, feb 5, 2004looking into digital cameras right now. So far it looks like they range from 5,000 to 15, 000 nt and up.
Sony DSC-U50
Digital Cameras. Note: there are places to shop around and bargain and all that. So the price I paid is not that much cheaper than what I would have paid in the states. BUT, I hate shopping, and was sick of thinking about buying this damn thing, so I just went in and poof walked out with a digital camera.
What I bought: Sony DSC-U50, cost 8900 nt, 267 US. this only allowed me to store 12 pics on the camera, so I bought a memory stick for another 1980. Pics were a hit or miss, so I ended up selling it before leaving Taiwan.
Cell Phone:
Cost to buy used one (with shite battery lasting power): 1500 nt. (I could buy a new battery, but dont see a need really. I rarely use my phone.)
(note: sold it for 1000nt)
My cell phone worked off of pre-paid phone cards, I bought the ones that are 300 nt each. they come in larger amounts. each one lasts me about 2 weeks. Incoming calls are free, outgoing calls are expensive (a 10 minute call to Kaoshung, which is only 20 miles from Tainan, was about 100 nt.) I used it mostly for text messages. They are cheap.Here is a cost breakdown for the pre-paid cell phone cards I bought at 7-11:300 nt, 3-5-04
300 nt, 3-24-04
300 nt, 5-6-04
300 nt, 5-31-04
300 nt, 6-18-04
Clothes:
Jogging pants at Hang Ten: 399 ntTank Tops at Y. & L.K. and The Net: 100 nt eachShoes that eternally hurt my feet: 200-300 nt
Winter coat, Lee name: 1000 nt. I love this thing. I look like the adbominal snowman in it….look :
Me and my winter coat!
pants: casual,brown khakis. waist too high and they make me look like the stay puff marshmallow man, but other than this they were fine the one and only time I wore them. 590 nt
Computer, desktop
Bought in Tainan, on a small street off of Dashiue; address 258 Yule Street. Here is their info: www.on3q.com, phone 06-2371040. I bought it for 7000, sold it for 5,000 7 months later. Yippie.
Here were its vitals:
CPU: Intel Celeron 566 mHZ, 128 MB RAM, HD: 10.2 GB, ADSL ready,Win 98, floppy and CD drive.monitor, keyboard and mouse.I did keep getting viruses though, but found a place that would completely reformat my computer with Win 98 for 550 nt. No disc needed, no questions asked. Nice. They are Jedeng PC, located on Beiman Road, a bit south of the train station. 06 228 7147. No English, so bring a friend or note.
A note about the place I bought the computer. Its best if you know quite a bit about computers. A lot, actually. There were problems I had right away, even with takin a friend of mine who knows computers really well with me. Lets just say that the way things were dealt with was a hair away from shady.
Dentist
100 nt per visit, more for meds or extra serviceI have been to a few in Tainan. Cleanings tend to be rough but complete. I could not get any of em to take x-rays even though I explained pain in my upper left area of my mouth. I had one horrific experience where the dentist said that my teeth were “uneven” and he then proceeded to drill away part of the bottom of that tooth. He did it so fast that I didnt have time to stop him. I wonder what my dr at home will say about that damage.(update; no major damage done. whew!)I sought out all English speaking Dentists, but would go to one who didnt speak Chinese if they were highly recommended to me. I went to a recommended English speaking dentist my last week in Tainan, and she was really great. A bit less rough and easy to understand. Here is her info:
Sue (her English name)
Yining Dentistry
80 YiDong Road
Near Cheers bar. Its real close to the Indian Rest and Linsen.
Phone number: 06-275-2440
I had to make an appt a week in advance, and did so in person. Her staff does NOT speak English, so if you call for directions or an appt, pls keep that in mind.
Drinks:
iced tea: plentiful all over the island at local tea stands. prices range from 10-30 nt per glass.freshly squeezed fruit juice: also plentiful all over. Amazing stuff! Probably my Fav things about Taiwan! prices range from 20-50 nt, depending on fruit.water: yup, its bad to drink the tap water. I did it a few times when I was too lazy to go down to the filtered water dispenser down the hall, but the taste and the feeling afterwards are not worth it. Bottled water range start at 16 nt, there are many brands and some taste just as bad as the tap water. All sizes of bottle are available. sparkling mineral water is available, just not as easy to find, dont know the price offhand.
in season fruit is usually very cheap to buy. My favorite right in March/April was tangerine juice. 6 medium sized bottles are only 100 nt. they squeeze it right in front of you. Nice!
Eye Laser Surgery-Lasik
20,000 nt with referral (aka, write my name down, silly!)
Hsin Ho Mei Lasik Center in Kaoshung http://www.dreyes.com.tw
886 7 222 525 Phone Number
Other costs:
-eye meds
week 1-500 nt, 1 bss and 1 kingman
week 2-550 nt, 1 bss, a gel and one kingman + 385nt at Cosmed for one Corneregel
(5g) and 1 fake tears
week 3- 569 at Watsons for 1 Corneregeel (10 g for 449) and fake tears; 120nt x 2
packages (.5ml x 20 twisty caps)
week 4- 120 nt for one fake tears and 300 nt for one BSS
(note: the BSS hurt my eyes more than it helped. If I remember correctly, it was for disinfectant purposes. Since it was a month since the surgery, I stopped using it and the pain went away fast!)
week 5- 449 for more gel, 120 for tear drops
week 6-500-2-10 g eye gels from dr in kao
and then I came home. After these meds were done I didnt need anymore! Yippie. Occassionally my eyes are a little dry, but usually its when I do NOT sleep enough or are in an overly air conditioned room (movie theatres were hard when I first came home, now, 5 months later they are no problem at all.)
Sept 2005 update; Got my eyes checked by a Lasik Dr in the states recently and all is a-ok. Perfect vision still (minus a tiny bit of astigmatism remaining in my left eye, which the dr said was so tiny that I should not worry about it.)
Food:
Beverages: see Drinkslocal food is plentiful and cheap. you can get a bowl of noodles for 40-60 nt, a huge serving of dumplings (think potstickers) for 50 nt. One of my favorite places does a mean (good) Kung Pao chicken for 80 nt, rice is 10nt more. Then there is hot pot, rarely over 200 nt, pasta places are all over, rarely over 160 nt, and fast food. Fast food prices tend to be the same as in the US, McD’s hamburger is 30 nt, Starbucks coffee is 50 nt-110 nt, etc, etc.In Tainan there is one decent Thai food place, a bit pricey but worth it, a few sushi places, one Indian place, and loads of pasta places. Other cities in Taiwan have more variety.
Gym:
Max’s Gym-Tainan. 3 month membership, started 12-12-03. 5,500 nt
Haircut
June 2004, Taipei, randomly selected place near the hostel I was staying at (where I got my nightmare x-mas tree haircut) 570 nt.I got a slightly better cut a few months before, also in Taipei, for about the same price. There are cheaper places too, esp for men. But I thought this price was very reasonable, and you usually get an intense and wonderful head massage before the cut. The first place I went to was so fancy shmancy that it even had individual tv’s with headsets for each chair. And nice tea.
Hiking/Nature walking:
You have to pay a fee for a lot of hiking trails and nature areas. Here are some I have been to:Kenting National Park: 150 nt weekends, 100 weekdayTsengwem Dam: 120 nt for one person.
Hostel/Hotel:
Note: Hosteling as a whole is not very common in Taiwan. There are a few around Taipei and random one or two others around the country. The Taiwanese tend to travel in big groups, so the idea of staying in a dorm room with a bunch of strangers is a very foreign and weird idea to them. This is what I am told anyway. No worries, where there are no hostels there are cheap hotels….but then that makes it a bit harder to find other travelers to play with! Welcome to Taiwan.Kenting: There is a hostel there, but I was really quite knackered by the time I made it down there, so I took advantage of the hotel worker on her scooter who was waiting at the bus stop to take customers to her hotel. I liked the place I stayed at, very basic, but cheap and private.Kenting Hotel: 500 nt per night. Single room, private bathroom with standup shower and western toilet. Cable TV, Air, hairdryer, discount on electric bicycles. And the woman who runs it, Lee-en, is really nice and speaks basic English. It is a bit behind the KFC off the main road. 08-886-1208.
Kenting: Kin kin Hotel (behind KFC on main road)small single room,own bath. 300 nt
Taitung: Gringo Hostel (can not recommend it enough!) email: amigopub@bigfoot.com, phone 089-355565, address: #52, shing-sheng road. 200 nt per night for dorm bed. comes with free admission to a local bar, the amigo.
Taipei:
1. Fortuna Hostel (I LOVE this place!)
http://www.fullgass.net/fortunahostel.htm
Chris Bryant, owner
Ding Zho Road, Section 3
Lane 27, Alley 2, No 5, 3F
*** 5 minute walk from Taipower MRT station.
I was here in May 2004. 250 nt per night in 4 bed dorm, only 1 other person in there with me. Full kitchen, spotless is an understatement. Great f***** location! What more can you ask for really!Go GO Go!
2. Formosa Hostel II(A sweet woman named Linn is the owner)
2511 9625 or 0910 015 449 as of December 2003
250 per night, there were a lot of long termers there, so I think they do long term discounts. Friendly travelers, but since most are there to work, not good playmates. lol. Not as clean as no.1, but nothing crawled on me. Good location and close to Caves and an MRT stop.
Internet Cafes
For home internet, see Cable Internet abovePrices vary per city and time of day and length of use. 50 nt per hour is the highest cost I have seen, and 10nt per hour is the lowest. for more than one hour, the cost goes down so low that most times I forget to write down the price on my budget sheet. Drinks and food in the cafes are more than reasonably priced, but be warned, there are few English menus or pic menus, so brush up on your Chinese. WARNING:
There are NO internet cafes in Tainan (or any other place in Taiwan I was in) where you can use the disk drive or CD drive. NONE! I had to ask folks who has home computers if I could pop on thiers to do what I needed to do. In the cafes, they have that section COMPLETELY boarded over. Ouch!
Laundry:
I read that laudromats were hard to find before I got here. This is NOT true. I see them all around town, and my apartment building has our own. Its 30 nt to wash, and about 30-40 nt to dry depending on the mood of the damn dryer that day.
Linens:
Comforter:cover and filling. (you can remove the inside and use the cover as a sheet when it gets hot. oh, how nice). Plain pattern (thats why it was so expensive) bought at HOLA (the IKEA of Taiwan, although I think there is an IKEA store in Taipei as well.) cover and filling were a total of 2970 nt. You can buy loads of really over-patterned comforters for about 500-600 nt everywhere. The nice, bright yellow on mine is fading fast and the filling is bunching up. Bought in Dec 2003. So….I bought a pair of pillowcases for 149 nt. The non-cartoon linens are about 3 times as much as the cartoon ones.
Medications:
Ibuprofen, 400 mg each. Huge blue things that for some reasons did NOT work. 10 of them for 100nt.
Movie:
230 nt. This is at a big movie theater, Warner Bros. There are cheaper show to go to and smaller theatres, but I have not checked them out yet. Oh, popcorn at movie was 70nt.
Newspaper
Taipei Times:(English Language paper) 15 ntthere are two more English language newspapers available, but I usually get this one.
Postage-packages
small and lightweight items can get to the US in as little as six days (the post office says 7-10 days) via Registered Air Mail (requires a signature on receipt) for about NT80. the same small package can ship via Express Mail (3-4 days) for NT$430. I mailed 4 books to Taipei for 80 nt. Needed Chinese address for this, but for non-Taiwan addresses, the local language there is a-ok.
Rent:
small studio apartment. Furnished with bed, closet, mini-refrigerator, desk, chair, and a few small pieces of furniture. Free ADSL (10 times faster than DSL in the states, SO spoiling!), free TV and cable, partial utilities, free scooter parking, secured entrance. Trash paid, a/c in room and more. 6800 nt per month. For utilities cost, see utilities below. 6800 deposit.When leaving, I got back 5300 from the 6800. That included one month of utilities too. Very happy about that.
Scooter:
purchase of used scooter: 9000 ntgas: about 260 nt per monthmaintenance: so far tire patch,new battery,fuse issue and gas gauge adjustment. 50 nt including labor costs for tire patch, new battery was about 700(incl labor), and gas gauge adj was 700 (incl labor).
In Tainan, I used these guys:
Rider Motor Corporation: No. 281 Siaodong Road, Tainan (nearest crossroads are Dunghe and Linsen Roads).
English speaking Taiwanese man there is Jeffrey Huang.
Phone: 06-2355717, Jeffrey’s cell is 0920003778
Email: (I never used it) 6dear@pchome.com.tw
oil: 120 nt per bottle. use 1/2 bottle at a time, 1 bottle lasts about a month and some. Rider Motor Corporation is the place, and Jeffrey there speaks great English. Siaodong Road, 281, close to Linsen and Siaodong intersection. Tainan.
Switching scooter paperwork
Here are is the cost of switching the scooter over to my name (again, the cost of the scooter itself was 9,000 NT/ $270 US):
600 NT registration fees
100 paperwork fee
250 unknown and hard to figure out fees, haha, not kidding
total cost: 950 NT, less than $30 US.
this also covers insurance for the scooter for I think another year or so. How cheap is that!
**note: scooter rentals are cheap! I rented a 50 cc scooter in Taitung for a day. It was 250 nt, no extra costs for all the mileage I put on it. Yes, I had to fill up the gas tank, but that was less than 200. And I drove ALL over! They WILL NOT rent to you unless you have a valid drivers license. I have a Taiwan 50 cc scooter license, and I could not find a place that would let me rent a 150 cc scooter. thats what you’re supposed to use on the highways. so, i just rented the 50 cc, and rode on the highway with it. Passed a trillion cops, never got pulled over. Should I be saying this??
Tampons
Note: the only type of tampons I have seen sold anywhere on the island are regular absorbency OB’s, in packs of 8, at 50 nt a pop. (How long does that really last ya, eh?). Pads/Sanitary napkins come in a trillion different brands and styles. I dont know prices or details cause I dont use em.$85 US- shipped from the US. 9 boxes of 40 OB Super. Shipping $12.05.
Souvenirs:
Scenic Taitung playing cards: 100 nt (they are gorgeous!)
Taxi:
** Note: taxi drivers here follow the world pattern of being good at ripping people off. SO, get a price nailed down before you get in the car!Taitung: downtown to beach area. 100nt.Taitung: downtown to train station: 200 nt. Only paid one way. On the way into town I hitched a ride for freeeeeeeeee.
Tainan: Train station to my apartment, a 15 min walk/5 minutes ride: 80 nt
Toaster
piece of junk happy yellow cartoon one. Worked ok. 249 nt. bought at Tescos.
Towing: scooter
(Near rear exit of train station in Tainan. Across the street from Far Eastern shopping mall. A very common spot for towing.)only 300 nt fee to scooter out of towing areasurprise 800 nt more when transferring scooter paperwork
Train:
Note: The train here is very efficient and affordable. There are buses as well, but these have the ability to get stuck in traffic when traveling to/in big cities. Note: the train has some odd routes. Due to the mountains in central Taiwan, the train takes a coastal route most of the way around the country, with little inward travel. There are both express trains and local trains for most routes. On long trips I tried to take the longer ones to cut the price in almost 1/2.**Nov 03: Tainan to Kenting: (part train, part bus): 290 nt one way
Dec 03: Tainan to Chiayi : 141 nt each way
Jan 04: Tainan to Boan (to go to Chi Mei Art Museum in Tainan County) : 15 nt each way
Feb 04: Tainan to Taitung: 363 nt
Feb 16: Taitung to Kaoshung to Tainan: 280 nt + 69 nt (no direct train back)
June 04: Tainan to Taipei: fast train, 741 nt
July 04: Tainan to Kaoshung: Fast train, 107 nt
Utilities:
275 nt covered by landlords,rest paid by me. billed in two month increments.Nov-Dec 2003= 1100 nt (AC used in Nov only)Jan-Feb 2004= 800 nt
March-April 2004= (AC usage started in late April)1800 nt
May-July 2004= 2588 nt(loads of AC)
As you can see, using my damn AC causes it to raise quite a bit. Tried to cut back for numerous reasons, but in May the temp was already at 32 Celcius, with 95+% humidity!ahhhhhhhhh.