Hello again everyone! Thank you very much for your support last week, we gained a bunch of new readers! This week I will talk to y’all about where I spend most of my time (including sleeping), my Taipei apartment! Finding accommodation is one of the most important and stressful tasks that needs to be completed when you move to a new country. So, whether you’re following this blog for ‘fun’, or seriously considering moving to Taiwan, I hope you’ll be able to get some value out of today’s content.
I was lucky and had an easier time than most during my apartment search. While NCCU offers double dormitories to all first-semester students, I knew I wanted to live alone as I had done so for the past three years at my undergrad. Luckily for me, a friend I had made during my first visit to Taiwan in 2023 knew someone who lived near NCCU and was moving out around the same time I was moving in. This simplified the process for me immensely because I didn’t need to use the popular (mostly Chinese only) apartment search websites like Tealit.com or 591.com.tw. However, even though I found my apartment easily, it still did not prepare me for the living differences here in Taiwan, the most shocking of which was my Asian-style (or ‘wet’) bathroom.
Now, the contract process itself was extremely simple, so simple in fact that local convenience stores such as 7-Eleven sell rental contracts that landlords can buy and fill out. Coming from the United States where the rental market is much more regulated, saying I was shocked is an understatement. The agreement included all of the utilities except electricity (usually water is separate as well. Electricity will always be paid separately because the bill can vary drastically based on the time of year. It’s billed every two months; summer months can cost about 3000 NTD per period, while winter months can be as low as 500 NTD.
While I have my own private space, this building (house?) is shared with two others. The shared spaces include an outdoor patio behind the front gate which is mostly used for laundry as it holds the washer and a bunch of clotheslines (Yes, they mostly dry their clothes outside here). I also share the entry hall which has a boiled water machine (one of the many ways to purify tap water here) and a refrigerator. We also have a kitchen, although I have heard that Taiwanese people don’t really cook, so it is barely used. I bought a hot plate and a mini oven from the person who stayed in my apartment before me; I’ll update you guys if I ever use it.
My room is quite nice and much more spacious than the single dorms I was living in during my undergraduate. I wish I could tell you the area, but in Taiwan, they use a unit of measurement called ‘ping’ (坪) to measure the area, and I’m currently looking to educate all of y’all on the Taiwanese measuring system. While it initially took some getting used to, I have come to appreciate my apartment as it has everything I need. I have space for a desk, a full closet, shelves, another desk (used as a junk pile), my bed, and a set of two chairs positioned in front of a computer monitor on yet another desk which acts as my TV. A fun note about beds here in Taiwan is that, yet again, they don’t follow any other standard measurements. That, and also the fact that traditionally the Sinosphere enjoys sleeping on ‘hard’ beds, which means a thin mattress pad is placed on top of a wooden surface and then wrapped in the traditional cover and sheets. I also have a patio accessible from my room, but currently, it isn’t used for anything so feel free to reach out to me with any ideas.
Now, the moment I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for… it’s time to talk about the bathroom situation. My apartment features what we might call an ‘Asian bathroom’, but what they call it in Taiwan is a ‘wet bathroom’. Now, these are quickly going out of style here which, in my opinion, is a good thing. A ‘wet bathroom’ is a good description of it because basically anything you put in it has an exceedingly high probability of getting wet. In the picture below you can see the shower, which is attached to the faucet. It has three modes, a ‘bath’ mode, a showering mode, and, believe it or not, a mode that utilizes a Brida filter to make purified water. Yes, you heard that right, I drink my water from the same tap I shower in. The bathroom also features a sink, toilet (which I can thankfully through tissues in), and a… washing machine? Now, I’m mostly playing this up for drama’s sake because I have become used to it already during my two weeks in Taiwan. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, but I can understand if you never want to try it.
Thank you for joining me this week on a tour of my Taipei apartment! I hope you enjoyed reading, and if you’re exploring moving to Taiwan/Taipei please don’t hesitate to reach out and I’d be happy to answer your questions. This Tuesday is the Mid-Autumn/Moon Festival which is celebrated particularly in the Chinese world, so next week’s post will be about experiencing my first Mid-Autumn festival, including firsthand details about a wonderful Taiwanese tradition, BBQ. So, if you are interested in hearing about this festival and the wonderful traditional BBQ I was invited to by my host family, make sure you follow me on social media and subscribe to the Substack!
Leave a Reply