Job Discussion Forums

[kidkanada]

How much do you think i should budget for while im looking for work. I may try to find someone who needs a roommate or will probably stay at a cheep hotel or something while im looking for work. For food i imagine i will have to live off noodles for a while. I may also have to get a mobile phone right away too for calls from potential employers (thats a good idea right?). And anybody have an idea on plane ticket prices from Bangkok? Google is telling me $600 which i think is wack. Thanks guys

[Polina]

ACCOMODATION : You can stay in a grotty, dingy, often tiny, often windowless and sometimes cockroach-infested hostel room for upwards of nt$450 nightly, nt$3000 or more weekly, and less per week if paying monthly. If you're willing to share a room with Heaven-only-knows-who (plural or sequential), it can be cheaper. Not all the hostels are so bad, but the better ones are usually more expensive. You can probably find a room in a shared apartment quite easily and for about nt$6000 per month. Look on tealit and forumosa for those. There are some cheap hotels with cheap monthly rates too, but you'll have to find them.

BODILY FUEL : You can find a whole cooked meal with rice, vegetables and chicken or another meat at a "restaurant" for nt$60 and upwards if your appetite isn't huge, which it probably won't be at the time of year you're coming. However, don't be surprised if you end up losing substantial proportions of it out either end for the first three or four months you're here. Hygiene is a little-known secret.

BANK FUEL : To find a job, buy in the China Post every day, and look to see if the Taipei Times has anything interesting - they're nt$15 each. To look on tealit and any other job websites, you can go to an Internet cafe for upwards of nt$20 (which is usually the minimum charge). Xicco is an Internet cafe which tends to be reasonable: it has a bright orange sign. If you need to send your resume to jobs you need to beware that few Internet cafes have printers, or else are lacking WORD , and many do not have working disc-drives. For children's jobs, you should usually not bother - call them directly from a public phone.

SELF-PORTATION : Transport isn't too bad: buses are nt$15 per ride unless you go a really really long way, the MRT will take you a reasonable distance for nt$20, and train fares start at a little cheaper than buses.

TELECOMMUNICATION : Yes, you'll need a mobile phone to get work - the cheapest new is nt$3300 for possibly a piece of trash - don't make the same mistake I did: buy a second hand phone, for example from the mall right next to the main train station, called "City Mall". You can go to any convenience store and get a SIM-card with your phone number, and nt$300 worth of calls and sms messages for nt$300 - quite a good deal, but at nt$10 per minute, you won't want to call out very much. Public phones are widespread and cheap to use, and you can buy a card for nt$100 - there are two main types of public phone, each requiring a different card.

TELE-SELF-PORTATION : I have no idea about plane ticket prices from Thailand: you'll need someone who's bought a ticket in Thailand to tell you that. Should be around the equivalent of nt$8000 or less as that is the price from Taiwan to Bangkok return.