Ben's Guide to Taipei and Taiwan

Engrish in Taiwan: Informatiob of Dept. of Education Engrish in Taiwan Butchered English Top Human

My Top Picks: My Place located in The Zone Brass Monkey The Taiwan Beer Bar The Voice Alphabetical List: Brass Monkey Nice pub with good food and service. Easy access to MRT. Carnegies Best feature: Sunday Brunch Citizen Cain This is a small bar with a DJ, they serve food including pizza. Hooters You know what to expect here. In-House DJ Lounge Restaurant JB's JP Pub Friendly service and a foosball table with primarily Japanese and local patrons. Le Ble Dor Brewery and Restaurant Specialty beers. The Living Room This is a very laid back place with sofas and live music. Luxy This is a nightclub with a posh interior, two different music rooms, and plenty of attractive young people dressed to be noticed. While casual attire is tolerated, they draw the line at sandals and you may be turned away if you’re shoes are judged to be inappropriate. The cover charge is $400 if you arrive before 10pm. After that the cover charge is $700. This is one of the few places in Taipei that ac...

it would take a fool to come up with the concept of a multifunctional museum-theme-park-restaurant; or a visionary. -Mark Caltonhill, Discover Taipei, May-June 2006 I vote for fool, since I considered this to be multi-dysfunctional. Now I know the Taiwanese love obscure themes for museums, and I haven't managed to go to the paper museum, the water museum, the tea museum, the hot spring museum, or the miniature museum, but I have trouble believing they could be more half-assed than Taiwan Storyland (although they could be equally half-assed). Struggling for visitors they have bought or begged a feature article in the May-June 2006 issue of Discover Taipei, which is a publication of the Taipei City Government. The theme of Taiwan Storyland is 1965 Taiwan. There is a small replica of a 1965 community. Perhaps this is to show how much Taiwan hasn't changed in 40 years. The classroom looks remarkably like a modern day buxiban classroom with the exception of chalkboards, an organ, an...

Edit 4/2007: I have tried to link all posts in this blog to this page, or to categories listed on this page. I'm sure that there are some ommissions. To help, I have assigned each post labels so that you can find all posts which share a common label. Hope it helps. Edit 1/2008: For the moment I have given up on updating the table of contents, but have been consistently adding labels to posts. Here are the labels to date (hyperlinks may not work, so use the search function): 101 airport AIT alcohol ARC Asiaworld Australia bars BBQ beaches Beer Beitou Beyond Taipei BOCA books BTCO buffets bus camping Carrefour certification check Chinese cks comfort contents Daan dumplings east coast embassies Engrish entertainment exam export food groceries health hotels hotsprings Hsinchu hypermarkets import Indian Indonesian Japanese JFRV links malls maps marriage Mexican Miramar misc MOFA mountains Neihu night markets nightclubs northeast...

Taipei 101 and the Surrounding Area For a brief moment in time this is the world’s tallest building . Taipei 101 houses a large upscale shopping mall . Besides the observatory , highlights include the Page One bookstore on the fifth floor. It has one of Taipei’s largest selection of books in English. There is a large food court in the basement which has something for everyone, if you can find a seat. Nearby is a Theater (Formerly Warner Village). This is a large multiplex theater and shopping complex. There are also many other shops and department stores including New York New York, which features a replica of the Statue of Liberty. This is Taipei’s most pedestrian friendly area and doesn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the city. There are several blocks of pedestrian thoroughfares, and it is one of the few places where scooters and vendors are kept off the sidewalks. This may be because this area is trying to present an upscale image or maybe it’s because it’s next door to Taipei Ci...

The Zone is a block of bars hiding just off the main street on Lane 32 Shuang Cheng St. It is located within walking distance of Minquan MRT . Also called The War Zone or The Combat Zone, The Zone started as an entertainment district for foreign soldiers and has a mix of good pubs and annoying or sleazy hostess bars. If you spend about 30 seconds in the hostess bars here you will have a bar girl ask you to buy her a drink. Regardless of your intentions this is not necessarily good or bad, as this is a normal part of Asian culture. If you buy a lady's drink, be prepared to pay about $300 for it. If a lady asks you for a drink, don’t be afraid to ask the price or to refuse her. If service has been good, consider buying a lady’s drink instead of tipping. Tipping is not part of the Asian culture, but bar hostesses are. Some bars and girls are quite aggressive. My best advice is the harder the girls try to get you in the door or solicit you to buy them a drink, the le...