The most expensive meal of the month wasn’t even a full meal, just a Japanese yakiniku place that we wandered into on a rainy night. With nothing else open, we popped into Da-Wan 大腕燒肉專門店, not really knowing what it was. And although the prices were relatively high, we decided to just make a night of it and ordered some delicious meats. It was, in a word: superb. The menu was a rolled up piece of leather and your own server grilled each of the meats while explaining what everything was. Delicious! Plus, the grilled corn was probably the best corn I’ve had in years. While it wasn’t a full meal, and made a dent in the wallet, you gotta live a little right?
Also, January was the month that I started using Uber in Taiwan. Despite previously questioning why there was a need for Uber in a city filled with cheap taxis, I became an Uber convert because it was much much cheaper. Like each ride was 70% of a taxi, at least. And sometimes 50% of the normal fare for longer hauls. Despite getting charged a small foreign fee for each Uber ride (I only had a foreign credit card), the cost of taking an Uber was still much lower than taxi-ing everywhere. Needless to say, I Uber-ed a lot. Aside from that, January was simple, with just the usual expenditures and a shopping spree at Forever 21 to start the month.
Oh, another reason January was so low was that we spent a week road tripping through the Eastern coast of Taiwan, visiting Taitung, Green Island, and Hualien. That trip — under the Annual tab — cost about $400 including hotels, scooter rental, ferry tickets, and gas. My friend paid for the rental car, so that was very nice. Overall, January was a rousing success!
This time the high mark was this fantastic hot pot place that was frankly worth every penny. From the decor to the service to the food, Elixir Health Pot 無老鍋 was so good. Unfortunately I never got to go back but I sure would recommend it! Taking out that $100 dinner (for three I might add), the rest of my meals averaged $14 for the month. So yeah, that’s how cheap Taiwan is. That’s basically eating whatever I wanted when I wanted, including pricier fare such as Korean BBQ, dim sum, Italian spots, and iyazakas.
My friend told me that the purchasing power of Taiwan was basically 1:3, which seems about right. For what you’d get here in the United States for $3, you can expect to pay $1. Not bad eh?
February also saw me go visit the hospital / clinic a few times, for acupuncture and a massage. I began having serious back problems in January and thought maybe some holistic medicine would help. Since I don’t have Taiwanese insurance, an acupuncture session at the local hospital cost $60 — compared to just $3 if you have insurance — and that’s comparable to U.S. prices. The full body massage, done by blind people under Taipei Main MRT, was about half that. I hate massages so this was an abnormal expense for me, but I had to find out what was going on with my back. Note: I wish I had gone to a dentist in Taiwan to see how much that was, I think it was maybe $20 for a cleaning, even without insurance. Now you know why everyone goes back to Taiwan to get their medical cards: it’s super cheap.
Oh right, and what is a month without a shopping extravaganza at Forever 21? I dropped $250 there, between me and some gifts, and it was a fantastic time. My wardrobe thanks me! Overall for the month I spent approximately 120% of my budget.
The big back breaker was shopping, which I went way over by like 200% almost. Some of that was buying stuff for vacation: swimsuits, a suitcase that would serve double duty for my trip back to the States, and then stuff I wanted to bring back home such as glasses, contacts, and spare t-shirts. The biggest expense in the shopping category was $180 for new tattoos. And as we know, tattoos are priceless so it was money well worth spending. Also, I was stupid and left my laptop charger back in Taiwan so had to money up $85 for a new laptop charger. Can’t live without the laptop right? Actually, despite March seeming so high over-budget, it was mostly just shopping.
So let’s look at our trip to Boracay. First, never fly Air Asia, it was a mess. Due to trying to book their flights and scheduling for the ferry to Boracay, I basically had to purchase totally new tickets twice, there and back. Let’s just say that their idea of timeliness for a flight was anywhere from three to eight hours delayed. Or the flight was cancelled altogether. I ended up spending a night at the Manila airport, and had to rebook to fly back out at 7AM. In all, flights from Taipei to Boracay, a mere 900 miles away (SD to SF is 450 miles) took literally a whole day plus $1,200+ dollars. The whole reason we chose to go to the Philippines was because the flights were cheaper than to Thailand, but instead we ended up paying about the same, if not more. Lesson learned: Don’t go to the Philippines.
The good news is that once we got to Boracay things were super cheap. Like $400 for five nights at a comfortable hotel, $200 for food and a similar amount for play, and then about an extra $100 in transportation and shopping costs. Boracay was lovely by the way, but full of tourists. It’s definitely got some of the most beautiful beaches in the world but the hassle of getting over there nearby ruined the trip.
Overall, Jan - Mar 2016 ended up looking like this:
- Food: $3,050
- Shopping: $2,000
- Transportation: $1,350
- Play: $1,000
- Misc: $400
- Annual: $2,900
No comments:
Post a Comment