Notes About Living in Taipei

Shopping

Where to go: for short trips to the grocery or to buy some everyday things (think toilet paper or shampoo) go to 全聯 or 家樂福超市 (or maybe 頂好 or Jason’s market place). For most things that would be sold at like Walmart in the US, go to 大潤發 or 家樂福量販店 (or 愛買 someone suggested, but I haven’t been there personally yet). You can find the 家樂福 stores split into 量販 and 超市 categories at (https://www.carrefour.com.tw/stores/).
Contact solution: For some reason contact solution seems to be sold specifically at health care stores like 屈臣氏 and 康是美. Maybe it is a 甲類成藥, but a quick Google search for “隱形眼鏡保存液甲類成藥” shows few related results. I failed to find it at 全聯 and 大潤發 (and a worker at 全聯 told me to use glasses cleaner instead!).
Medium-sized backpack (like they would sell at an office stores in the US): Decathalon (迪卡儂) sells one that seems reasonable, and otherwise I was directed to 三創 to find backpacks specifically for carrying laptops or 華陰街 where there are market stalls that sell many luggage items.
The largest convenience store chains are 7-11 and 全家, but they are noticably more expensive than larger stores (as one would expect).

You can store things in 置物櫃 at 大安森林公園站
Public bathrooms: MRT stations, parks
Water fountains: parks (but many are closed with covid), libraries/hospitals have 飲水機
If you need a place to sit down, 路易莎咖啡 is cheaper than Starbucks. The cheapest drink at Louisa Coffee is tea at 35 NTD, but the cheapest drink at Starbucks is around 3 times that. Chocolate cookies are the cheapest items at Starbucks at about 35 NTD as well. The stores sometimes lack sufficiently many outlets.

When buses are approaching, make sure to look at the numbered sign on the front of the bus instead of relying on the side panel; some bus models do not have the side panel, and I’ve gotten on the wrong bus because of this before…
The app 台北公車通 shows bus positions/arrival times, and it also has info on both Youbike 1.0 and 2.0 stations. For some reason one must otherwise download two separate apps for Youbike 1.0 and Youbike 2.0