Taiwan - spots ? - stores

hello ,

i will be in taiwan april 2004. besides doing some work as an

ecologist in the mountains i plan to spend some time doing landscapes

and whatever crosses my lens :-P , possibly adding a week of

vacation.

 

if anybody has some special recommendations (not for travel noobs but

for taiwan noobs) please share with me. BTW: making friends with the

people i meet is more important to me than pictures - but if i can

combine these its my pleasure.

 

also i would like to know if i can expect bargains on used nikon

lenses or on a new digital nikon body or perhaps an Canon G3 or G5.

 

any suggestions are welcome (there were same threads in the past ,

but really in the very past)

 

cheers walter

I have spent a bit of time in Taiwan in recent years, and have never found any place that had better prices than here in the US. You could take your chances in Taipei's "Night Market" where almost anything is for sale.

Walter:

 

I was born and grew up in Taiwan until I came to US in �83, and I have been back once every other year on an average.

 

The Taiwan�s weather in April should be very good and comfortable. The people there are very friendly and most of them in big cities understand English (but may not speak well). Generally, it is a safe place the crime rate is reasonably low. If you want to buy anything, bring a Mandarin speaking friend with you and bargain :-p. In terms camera prices, I think New York (B&H, for example) is better because almost every friend of mine who visited me (I live in northern NJ) in the past commented that the camera and stereo are cheaper here. Bring a B&H catalog with you to compare, anyway.

 

For traveling, I suggest you to check out this site first: http://taiwan.wcn.com.tw/ It is in English (I don�t know if you speak/read Chinese/Mandarin). It will give you a pretty good sense on where you want to go. Traveling in Taiwan in extremely easy. Flying from Taipei (north) to Kaohsiung (south) would be 1 hour and it costs less than $50 (one way); it flies almost once an hour. Buses are running very frequently. Driving by yourself is NOT recommended � traffic rules are suggestions, instead of law� If you have experience driving in Bronx/Queen/Brooklyn, NY, you can consider that.

 

Additionally, Taipei (I assume you may work there) is a basin with constant traffic jam (>12 hours/day) so that the air quality is bad � much worse than LA. Lots visitors suffer allege-like symptoms. Food is excellent there; you will NOT see any manual similar to the Chinese restaurants in the US. Oh, by the way, there are no chips with duck source, nor fortune cookies. If you ask them, people may think you are insane.

 

There are many interesting Buddhist and Taoist temples throughout the island; Taipei CHK�s memorial hall, is also interesting (day or night). Hwalien is a must go place to see, too bad the web site does not have a link; it is beautiful and quite. Most of her sea shores are rocky formations (Taiwan was born in the same period as Himalayas). Southern Taiwan has many tourist spots for that. The rule of thump is to shy away from big cities and you will see more; unless you are interested in McDonalds, Wendy�s, Pizza Hut, Starbuck�s coffee, DKNY, Levis, Nike, etc.

 

Check out the websites to learn more maybe a google search, since it would be difficult for me to give you a core dump. If you have questions, feel free to send me an email (I am a member of Photo.net), I will be more than happy to talk to you. Hope this helps.

Hello Walter,

 

Maybe you can start learning about Taiwan here in the forum bellow:

 

http://forumosa.com/3/viewforum.php?f=55

 

You can also join Taiwan Yahoo chat room as below if you are a Yahoo user:

 

http://tw.ezchat.yahoo.com/search/ezchat?p=english

 

Most English-Speaking Taiwan girls are very willing to make friend with foreigners so I am sure you will have a good time either talking on-line or in a Taipei Pub.

 

You can forget about buying any camera gears in Taiwan. Camera and lens are a lot more expensive in Taiwan than in USA, expecially digital cameras. If you buy couples of Canon G5 in USA and bring to Taiwan to sale in Taiwan maybe you can earn your airline tickets back, LOL.

 

Cheers Gilbert

thanks Alex Kevin and Gilbert for the first info. gives me something to start on. i travel a bit but taiwan seems to be less easy to get info about in the WWW than say for the US where you got a map on every foottrail of all national parks in 5 minutes :-)

 

there are still 3month for preparation and i have a taiwanese friend here to help me - still its nice to get lots of info myself. i hope to be able to read a little chinese until then but this will not work out without help. interesting to see that prices for equipment are not as cheap as i sought. may be on the way in i pass through honkong. will be hard anyway to decide what i will take with me - since i will work in remote mountain areas at least what i will take there must be very tough. sounds like a job for my F2 and 2 or 3 MF lenses. for the easy part i hope to be able to carry my F5 and the 300 and ..... :-P

 

cheers walter

Check out <a href="http://www.noahstrycker.com/tripreports/taiwan.htm">this page</a> for a recent report.

Bob thanks for this inspiring link!

did i mention that i will be in the mountains at least half of the time at places accessible only by 4-wheel?

 

cheers

walter

Many places to go in TW.

 

some places to check out:

 

1) Yang Ming Sang National Park near Taipei. Cherry blossoms and flowers. Gorgeous place.

 

2) National Palace Museum (finest Chinese museum collections) near Taipei.

 

3) CKS Memorial in Taipei.

 

4) East District/ Simenting district (east gate and westgate) district in Taipei. Shopping and sights.

 

5) Taroko National Park near Hualien. Beautiful gorge.

 

6) The islands off Taiwan if you have the chance (Pescadores Islands, Green Island, and Kinmen Island).

 

7) Sun moon lake

 

8) Jade Mountain- I believe this is the highest peak in East Asia if I remember correctly.

 

9) Near National Taiwan University (Taipei) and TienMu you can find a lot of bilingual speaking people and stores.

 

10) Take the MRT (subway) in Taipei. It will take you everywhere. It's safe and very clean.

 

11) Check out Tamsu near taipei.

 

 

 

you can also check out the following sites:

 

 

http://www.gov.tw/ENGLISH/traveler/index.htm

http://www.taiwan.net.tw/index.jsp

http://www.taroko.gov.tw/ENGLISH/index.htm

 

good luck.