(Disclaimer: I might veer off into a rant about our town at some stage but I genuinely love it here. I think the 'thin line between love and hate' perfectly describes our relationship with Jhunan. We complain about it sometimes but still love it. And if someone who doesn't live here complains about it then we defend it to the hilt! It's a lovely little town and has been very good to us.)
The town we live in is called Jhunan (or Chunan or Zhunan). It has about 70000 people in it and is really small by Taiwanese standards. This mens that everyone who lives there acts like it's really small and sometimes there is NOTHING to do. Up to about 10 o'clock there is a lot of shops and restaurants but most of them close between 9 and 10.
The town we live in is called Jhunan (or Chunan or Zhunan). It has about 70000 people in it and is really small by Taiwanese standards. This mens that everyone who lives there acts like it's really small and sometimes there is NOTHING to do. Up to about 10 o'clock there is a lot of shops and restaurants but most of them close between 9 and 10.
When you don't finish work until 9 and don't get home until almost 9:30 this can be very frustrating. Dinner usually comes as a takeaway from somewhere that is just closing down or eating in one of the few places that opens until after 10 but feeling like you have to literally shove it down your neck and get out because you're keeping the people there from home.
The food selection is pretty good though with Thai, Vietnamese, Italian, French and other 'Western' style food available along with the obvious selection of Taiwanese places. There's also a pretty big area of stalls which sell a variety of foods for dirt cheap. These places are open late - probably until 1 a.m. or so. But I don't like eating from stalls every night of the week. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday there are nightmarkets in the town too. So in one way there is lots to do.
But, and this a pretty big but, there is basically zero nightlife in the town. The weekends are absolutely dead and the only place we ever go for a few drinks is a place called the Till Village. It's the only thing resembling a bar in the town and is open 24 hours, so we usually end up there at some stage. The place is horribly depressing though. It serves loads of different kinds of food but none of it's very appetizing. I've had Asian and Western food there - neither of which was a very enjoyable experience.
The menu is really bad at describing stuff too. One of our friends asked for what was called a sorbet on the menu. he was expecting a little iced fruit thing to get in quickly before having a few beers. Instead, he got this giant chocolate milkshake/slushy thing that took an AGE to finish.
The food selection is pretty good though with Thai, Vietnamese, Italian, French and other 'Western' style food available along with the obvious selection of Taiwanese places. There's also a pretty big area of stalls which sell a variety of foods for dirt cheap. These places are open late - probably until 1 a.m. or so. But I don't like eating from stalls every night of the week. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday there are nightmarkets in the town too. So in one way there is lots to do.
But, and this a pretty big but, there is basically zero nightlife in the town. The weekends are absolutely dead and the only place we ever go for a few drinks is a place called the Till Village. It's the only thing resembling a bar in the town and is open 24 hours, so we usually end up there at some stage. The place is horribly depressing though. It serves loads of different kinds of food but none of it's very appetizing. I've had Asian and Western food there - neither of which was a very enjoyable experience.
The menu is really bad at describing stuff too. One of our friends asked for what was called a sorbet on the menu. he was expecting a little iced fruit thing to get in quickly before having a few beers. Instead, he got this giant chocolate milkshake/slushy thing that took an AGE to finish.
The waiting staff seem to hate us in there as well. I've no idea why because we're usually the only people in there and seem to be keeping it going single-handedly. Every time we go in they seem pissed off and sometimes they're just plain rude. If only they spoke English so we could complain to them!
There is a woman who plays piano in there and she's always delighted to see us though! Always gives a smile and a big wave. She even plays western songs with her own little twist - a nice gesture but she usually slowly butchers them.
(Even after saying all that though, we were in Till Village the weekend before last and had a brilliant night. There was loads of foreigners in the place and we had a great time. The major benefit of going there is that it's open 24 hours, so we can get as sloshed as we like! The other benefit is that it's within stumbling distance of McDonald's. A match made in heaven.)
The only other pub is Joku, which is a sister bar of the TIll Village so it's basically the exact same except a little nicer, further out of the town and closes earlier. (Again, we've actually gone back here a few times recently and it's much better than I originally gave it credit for. It has a Chinese menu which is amazing and pretty cheap. It's a nice place to sit and have a beer, plus the booze is cheaper. It's a good spot.)
If we want to have a proper night out we go into Hsinchu, which is the nearest city. The night life isn't exactly hopping in there either but it's an improvement. Apparently there's two nightclubs in Hsinchu but we haven't found them yet. We usually go to a Western style bar first, then end up in some random Taiwanese bar for a while before heading home.
It's good craic but we were really looking forward to a proper nightclub. We actually ended up going to one in Taipei a few weeks ago and again last Saturday night. It was an all you can drink place, which was pretty good, but we got there late and ended up trying to 'get our money's worth'. That ended well, obviously. I don't think anyone will be surprised to hear that nightclubs are pretty similar here, just with extra Asian people and a little cheaper. Still fun though!
Anyway, back to Jhunan. So, as I mentioned above there isn't a whole heap to do at night but it's not all bad. The town has two really cool Taoist temples that get a good few visitors. The temples are so different from anything in Ireland and it's really interesting to see people in there worshipping. The Mazu temple has a big fish pond where you can feed the fish and a big pond full of turtles out the back too, so that's cool!
I also said before that Jhunan is technically a beach town. It's not right on the beach but it's about a 10 - 15 minute bike ride away. To our shame we've only been out there a few times. The biggest reason for this is that Jhunan hasn't really turned out to be the tropical paradise we envisioned. In fact, it's been bloody cold for a lot of the winter.
Not as cold as home obviously but nowhere near warm enough to be heading down to the beach to do some sunbathing. It's also been really windy for a lot of our time here. The rain has held off a bit but as I write this it's lashing down outside. The wind hasn't been so much fun to cycle 3 kilometers to work in. Especially when the wind always seems to be against me on the way in! I think everyone will share my hatred for cycling against the wind - it literally feels like you're going nowhere.
The other reason is our work hours. We work 2 - 9, which in theory gives us loads of free time but any time we've gone to do stuff in the morning it's not fun, just kind of stressful. When you do stuff before work all you think about is how long it is until you have to be in work. Then if you linger a tiny bit too long somewhere, you think might be late for work and the journey to work becomes this mad, sweaty dash agains the clock (and the wind).
Also, doing stuff in the morning means eating more food and spending more money that could be used for late night drinking instead!
So it's been hard to go out there in the mornings and we're usually doing stuff at the weekends. We'll hopefully get out there a few times before we leave because it is quite nice and there's meant to be good surfing to be had.
There's also nice cycling trails which we did a bit of and a butterfly museum. The whole beach area would be pretty cool if it weren't for the weather. One of the days we went out there, the weather was good and it was a national holiday so there was loads of people around having barbecues and drinking beer - it was deadly.
But one of the other times we went was during the week so the bar was closed, and there was literally 3 other people around. That time was kind of depressing.
Another attraction in Jhunan is the Taiwan Beer brewery, which we visited a few weekends ago. It's a pretty cool experience and it gives out free beer! So that's a pretty good addition to any town. I would love to have stayed out there for longer but we had to go back into town. They just keep pouring the beer as long as you hold your glass out - it's unbelievable.
But one of the other times we went was during the week so the bar was closed, and there was literally 3 other people around. That time was kind of depressing.
Another attraction in Jhunan is the Taiwan Beer brewery, which we visited a few weekends ago. It's a pretty cool experience and it gives out free beer! So that's a pretty good addition to any town. I would love to have stayed out there for longer but we had to go back into town. They just keep pouring the beer as long as you hold your glass out - it's unbelievable.
Jhunan is a great town for properly experiencing Taiwan though. Any time I've been to Taipei has been really enjoyable but the place is massive and full of foreigners so you can speak English to everyone basically. I'm not saying my Mandarin is even approaching what people might refer to as 'good' after 6 months in Jhunan but it''s a whole lot better than if I'd spent the whole time in Taipei.
We also get to eat traditional, rural Taiwanese food a lot and see how the locals operate a lot more up close (that sounds like we're in a zoo or something but I think you know what I mean). It's been a really cool experience seeing this side of Taiwan.
When we were coming and got offered the job in Jhunan we said to each other that at least if we lived out of the way we would make the effort to go see the cities but if we lived a city we probably wouldn't make the effort to see the country. (I think that makes sense....)
When we were coming and got offered the job in Jhunan we said to each other that at least if we lived out of the way we would make the effort to go see the cities but if we lived a city we probably wouldn't make the effort to see the country. (I think that makes sense....)
Looking back, I think this is fairly accurate and I don't regret moving here at all. It's a small town and sometimes we get really frustrated with the lack of things to do but in the grand scheme of things I think we will appreciate our time here so much more because we've had a really unique experience.
There's a limited number of foreigners in this town so the people always seem genuinely excited to see us and are usually really helpful to us. This small number of foreigners also means we have gotten to know each other pretty well and have shared a similar experience in a small group. This makes the whole thing a bit more special for me and I feel that I will have a lot of happy memories about Jhunan when we leave.
Yeah, we'll complain about smelly 'Poonan' now but in a couple years we'll only remember the delicious restaurants, the lovely locals (along with the sometimes hilarious encounters with them) and the cool temples in Jhunan. I think the memories of the unique experience you have on a trip like this are the most important things.
And we'll certainly have lots of those.
