“Jeremy…. you guys can literally be anywhere. I’ve been to Taipei several times for work, and, well… why did you choose to live, uh… there?”
I like this question.
Why Taipei?!
I’ve been coming to Taipei for work and personal reasons for about 20 years now. I periodically monitored the construction of the iconic Taipei 101 from my airplane window for years and then became an official expat for about 2 years. If coworkers wanted to know which Taipei hotel, bar, or restaurant to check out, I was their guy.
Yours Truly hiking Elephant Mountain in Taipei circa 2004 – photo by Winnie
Based on my 2 decades of experience, I can say that Taipei makes a fairly predictable first impression. Just ask Anthony Bourdain: (or my Grandmother)
“One thing you can’t deny about Taipei anyway… it’s not the prettiest of cities.” – Anthony Bourdain
For much of its history, architectural aesthetics wasn’t a high priority. Where European cities would have beautiful buildings with outdoor riverside dining, Taipei has enormous and hideous concrete walls (as part of a typhoon flooding prevention system.) Instead of boutique cafes and enjoyable pedestrian walkways, Taipei built a 4 lane elevated highway and a sewage treatment system. Rather than interesting and visually pleasing facades, older buildings have a mix of heavily barred windows, excessive signage, overhanging air conditioners, and chaotic rats nests of cables and wiring.
“One thing you can’t deny about Taipei anyway… it’s not the prettiest of cities.” – Anthony Bourdain, The Layover
Another common first impression… “Oh gawd, what the hell is that smell?”
That’s the stinky tofu – a tasty snack that has a distinctive odor, a bit like dirty sports socks. It is sold seemingly everywhere. (Try it, it is delicious – I prefer the boiled version with congealed duck blood to the fried.)
Taiwanese traditional food – Stinky tofu (fried)
Depending on the time of year you arrive, you may also enjoy the sensation of overwhelming heat and humidity. Summer is to be avoided. Just ask my kid:
“Daddy, when we go outside why does the sun try to cook me?” – GCCJr (*)
* Full Disclosure: GCCJr may have received compensation for his quotationary services
So when people ask me, “Why Taipei?!” I can understand where they are coming from. [You know who you are ;) ]
So… Why Taipei?!
Second impressions are often greatly improved.
In a recent survey, Taipei was selected as the best place in the world for quality of life for expats. That seems like a big deal.
Reasons: It is affordable, convenient, and safe, with incredible food and healthcare.
I agree with all of those points.
Examples: I once left my wallet on a bus and it was returned to the nearest police station within a day with all of its contents, including $200 in cash. An emergency room visit with no insurance cost $60. You can get amazing food for a few dollars. Public transit is excellent and ubiquitous. It is super clean. There are parks literally everywhere (we live next door to one.)
And… the people are very friendly. This comment from Anthony Bourdain’s The Layover really nails it.
“One of the best things about Taipei is that it has retained a traditional sense of human kindness.” – 35;43
What can I say, I like nice people. (Speaking of which, for an excellent review of Taipei first impressions, including the human kindness factor, check out this article on Nomadic Notes. )
(full episode of Anthony Bourdain’s The Layover Taipei linked here.)
I’ve often said to friends and visitors that Taiwan is the best parts of Chinese and Japanese influences. I find it less brash and aggressive than China, and a bit more disorganized and chaotic than Japan. Through decades of symbiotic working relationships with US companies, it also feels a bit American at times. Or maybe familiar is a better word. People who have spent time in these places usually shake their head in agreement. ymmv.
It’s a nice place to live.
In a nice central 1-bedroom apartment our total cost of large living was less than $4,000/month. That has gone up in a 3-bedroom apartment. We pay $0.20 to rent a public bike, $0.50 for a bus or the subway, and maybe $3-$5 for an Uber across town.
There is some incredible biking, both along the riversides and in the mountains. This weekend I biked 800 meters straight up Yangmingshan (the local volcano.) I did a 900km bike ride around the whole country a few years ago and took a bunch of photos.
bike ride or stock market chart?
The sports infrastructure in the city is spectacular. I swim at a nearby top-notch indoor pool for <$1/day (the same place the National swimming team trains.) By coincidence, I’m sure, the pool looks like a whale
The food is probably my favorite part of the life experience in Taipei. Pepper buns, fresh seafood, beef noodle soup, dumplings, fantastic burgers and pizza, oh my… here are a few example meals. And I can get all of this delivered to my door in crazy heat or torrential downpour for less than the cost of taking the bus to get the food myself.
Did I mention the medical system? We pay $75/month for the 3 of us for full access to a Medicare for All type system. Sometimes we pay $3 or $30 as a co-pay. We paid about $7,000 for IVF for making a baby… friends in the Bay Area paid about $150k and friends in Seattle paid about $40k with similar results.
Of course, Taipei is only part of the country. My favorite and most beautiful place is Taroko Gorge (the Grand Canyon of Taiwan.) It is stunning and a must-visit destination (pics here.) The natural scenery outside the city is incredible and nearby.
Tuesday in Wulai
And then there are all of the little things. This is my favorite sign in the entire world (posted above a urinal.)
And… we also have super easy direct flight access to the entirety of Asia.
Life is good.
Long Term
Sounds amazing, right? Right!
So we must be planning on staying in Taipei for the long-term, right? Nope.
We originally came to Taipei to make babies. We are spending the school year here for a few more years (probably) so Jr can learn to read/write Chinese in an immersive environment (Chinese is already his first/dominant language.)
After that, we’ll probably be in the US through high school. Probably California.
And then… for “retirement” we will most likely be in a location that is not super hot while also being aesthetically pleasing. My guess is Southern Spain or Southern France.
Summary
Life in Taipei is great. The food is amazing, the health system is amazing, the public transit is amazing, and the cost of living is comfortable and reasonable. And people are courteous, friendly, and welcoming.
First impressions for a lot of business travelers are not as amazing, from what I hear, so take the time to look around. [Stop being a hater, Bob ;) If you followed me on twitter you would already know this.]
* Bob’s name was changed to protect the innocent and not so innocent.
We now have riverside dining and beautiful new construction, on top of the already wonderful services and systems.
If you are in the neighborhood, I’m always up for a coffee.
ps: don’t forget to try the stinky tofu
Nice view from riverside dinner
Ok. Ok. Gonna have to put Taipei on the bucket list. Sounds like a great life for an expat (currently in Ukraine for two months, next in Croatia for two months).
Definitely do it. Outside of summer. And enjoy the language exchange as a fun experience.
Can’t wait to try the food.
I too am drawn to Taiwan for their friendly people, great eats, and low costs. We plan on being there for two months next year. I would love to be fluent in Chinese, but we’ll see what happens.
I had a short business stay when I was working for one of our previous mutual employers. It was nice, other than the overpowering nasty smell of stinky tofu everywhere. I’ll never forget that, far, far worse than durian. Can’t forget the betel nut beauties either, LOL.
In full disclosure, aren’t your low healthcare costs due to Winnie’s a Taiwanese national? What would be a normal expat price?
Kinda maybe. The premiums are based on income. We pay the default rate for no local income and no government assistance (dividends and capital gains aren’t taxed, nor is non-local income.) So a retired expat family would pay the same.
Where the spousal benefit comes in is on the visa. My residence is based on marriage. If I weren’t married to a Taiwanese citizen and wanted to live here, I’d probably get a student visa and then I would pay the same rate. But if I didn’t want to enroll in a language program or whatever, then I’d need a business visa.
For that I would have to deposit some funds in a local bank, which would result in higher local income and therefore higher premiums. The difference would be fairly minor though.
In short. Kinda maybe. But not significantly.
I think you mentioned it in a post about your taxes but I couldn’t find the exact article to refresh my recollection, but if I recall correctly, your blogging income qualifies for FEIE due to your residency in Taiwan, but Taiwan does not recognize your blogging income as taxable right? Is it because Taiwan taxes only “Taiwan sourced income” and since your blogging revenue is not coming from any Taiwan based entities, then you are able to avoid paying taxes on it even though you are a resident of Taiwan? Did you research this before moving or is it something you discovered after your move?
I was wondering if this was something that Taiwanese internet entrepreneurs were taking advantage of as well, but then I realized that their revenues (ads) would be from Taiwanese companies.
The key is being in a no-tax or territorial tax country. There are ~60 of them.
I use the Physical Presence Test to qualify for the FEIE.
You don’t need to report foreign income in Taiwan?
It’s a territorial tax system, so no (only if worldwide income is >$200k+/-, then there is an AMT.) There are also no taxes on capital gains.
The prices are the same. The premium would change a little based on salary (same for locals but it’s so small I don’t notice it. I think it’s like less than 100 USD per month to cover myself and my wife who is local (again doesn’t matter). Employer covers something like half directly.
We went with our friends, a native, about 10 years ago. It was a lot of fun. The food was really good, but we didn’t try stinky tofu for some reason. I didn’t even smell anything strange. We also went to the hot spring town. That was a really neat experience and I’d like to visit again. The only bad experience we had was at the reflexology place. They went all out and we were all hobbling around for hours afterward. Never again.
My parent just came back from a short visit. Unfortunately, they hated it. It was too hot and humid in July.
I hate Taipei in July too, so that is totally understandable.
Hot springs and foot massages are nice. I always tell the guy to take the pain down a notch. There is a great hot spring fed pool we go to with a group and all the kids that is fun.
been there in January, and I’ll be coming back this end of Aug. Still, i am excited. I have a picture in one of Taipei’s streets, and friends thought I took it in Japan. I agree that the people are very warm. They are also respectful of other people’s personal space, and mindfulness of other people is like the norm because they have public signages in buses and trains about conducting conversations in a low-tone voice and playing music using earphones. I like that. We were just so embarrassed when my friends and I rode a bus while laughing and talking so loud only to be shouted upon by the bus driver to keep quiet. We didn’t know about the signages at that time. Well, it’s a lesson learned.
I once went to the National Palace Museum, and they have these little handheld signs that say “please be quiet” that they can show to people.
A lot of tour groups from mainland China are super loud. So this very polite museum staff guy shows the “please be quiet” sign to one particularly loud member of the group, and she just announces to everyone within about 150 km…
“WOW LOOK AT THIS SIGN! IT SAYS BE QUIET! HA HA HA WHAT A GREAT SIGN. HEY LOOK EVERYONE, CHECK OUT THIS SIGN. LOOK LOOK. HA HA HA…”
is it hot there in Aug?
Super hot. Like the surface of the sun.
It’s really hard to beat the food in Taipei! Top 3 in the world for sure.
I think you’re missing one point.. Winnie’s family no?
We’re trying to relocate to Hawaii when our little one goes to Kindergarten to be close to my parents.
Sam
Proximity to family is a mixed blessing :)
You have definitely put Taipei on my radar through your numerous posts. I especially want to do the bike ride around the island. That is a top 10 bucket list item when I can get some time from work or after I retire in the next few years.
I am not as sold on the idea of stinky tofu with congealed duck blood. Iron-ically, it makes me question whether I should be taking food advice from you ;) If you have the patience, I would love a little more information on this delicacy and I promise to stop making so many bloody puns!
Think of it as Asian Blue Cheese.
You may also love pork blood cakes. It is congealed pork blood mixed with sticky rice on a stick, rolled in crushed peanuts.
Nice!
Could you tell me a little bit about what Kaohsiung is like?
I’ve only been once or twice. The south is hotter and you are more likely to learn to speak Taiwanese. Seems like a nice place.
KEvin, we lived in kaohsiung circa 07-09 and it wasn’t great great. A smaller city than taipei but not a small city. The winters there were not as cold and rainy as the north and you are closer to beaches in the south.
Small great quality of life. Cheaper rent.
That sounds like a great place for early retirees. I’ve been surprised at the difficulty it is to move to a country semi-permanently as an early retiree though. I’ve only done a bit of googling but it seems like there isn’t a retirement visa; the long term visas look to be for business. I suppose we could leave every 90 days?
Maybe there’s another option I’m not aware of?
The Investor Visa – bring $200k USD into the country and invest it (S&P500 index fund) or start a business. Taxes are involved.
There is a 6-month wait to enroll in NHI unless you are an employee or business owner.
You could do quarterly visa runs, but then no NHI.
Excellent post! Just like you, I had a middling first impression of Taiwan my first visit due to the humidity, though I absolutely LOVED the food. I’ve since gone back a couple times now that I’m married to a Taiwanese American and it’s grown on me more and more!
A couple questions:
My wife was born in Taiwan and has a Taiwanese passport. Is she eligible for the cheap health care? She doesn’t have the universal health card that her parents have and use for health care there.
Would I and our children be eligible for that health care as well, even though we were not born in Taiwan nor have Taiwanese passports?
Lastly, I’m surprised to hear you say that Taiwanese living costs are affordable. All of my wife’s family say housing costs are prohibitively high and the job market is incredibly tough. They said apartment and housing costs rival that of Hong Kong at this point, which is even higher than SF and Vancouver! Maybe hyperbole on their part?
A bit of hyperbole, yeah. Housing is expensive relative to local incomes but cheap relative to SF, etc…. Especially if you are retired and can live on the edge of the city.
I’m not an expert on Taiwan immigration, but you need some way to get permanent residency. That might be having at least 1 citizen in the nuclear family. Maybe that is your wife, but I understand there is a group of people who has passports but aren’t citizens. If your wife is a citizen, then yes, you are all eligible – once you arrive on a family visa there is a process…. get a health check and wait 6 months.
If your wife is not a citizen, then she can either become one (maybe?) or you can apply for an investor visa, student visa, or employment visa.
Having a passport means you are a national. Having an ID means you are a citizen. They are not the same. NHI comes with citizenship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_nationality_law
We’re in the process of doing this ourselves, but it can take a bit of time.
For reference, I’m born in Canada and my wife is born in Taiwan, but has dual citizenship. We were married in Croatia, not Canada, which adds some complication. If your wife has a national ID card (she should if she was born in Taiwan), this is fairly easy but possibly time consuming. The steps are basically:
– get some sort of translated certification of your non-Taiwan marriage (for us, this was a bit different because we weren’t married in Canada. We had to get a certificate saying that Canada considers me to be not married instead)
– your wife needs to establish household registration in Taiwan in some fashion
– you get added to your wife’s household registration as a foreign spouse (* for me, the additional step is that we had to get ‘married’ when were in Taiwan)
– register your kids
– get a Taiwan passport for your kids
The challenging part is that it can take a few weeks to do some of these pieces, so you either need to be in Taiwan for long enough or do it over multiple trips. For us, when we were there in the spring, we spent our time getting our marriage and household registration sorted out. We have to register the kids on the next trip. My understanding is that once you register your children in Taiwan, you absolutely need a Taiwan passport for them or they may not be able to leave the country.
Thank you all for your advice and information.
After further digging, it looks like my wife is a Taiwanese national but not a citizen. It doesn’t seem like the path to citizenship and national ID card would be too difficult to her if we moved overseas with her relatives for a period of time after we retire. I’ve always enjoyed my visits to Taiwan so this may be an option, especially if we feel we would benefit from their incredible health care.
We’re not planning to retire until another 6-10 years though and our kids will be in middle school by then. It might be a bit difficult to uproot our family and children from their community to go to a school with a new language at that point, haha!
Jin, your wife would be able to apply for Taiwan’s national health insurance being that she was born in Taiwan and has a valid Taiwanese passport. I just went through this process last year as someone holding dual citizenship (Taiwan and U.S.). She needs to have a Taiwanese ID card, be registered on a “household registration” (I use my aunt’s address) before applying. My mom took me to do all these at a district office (I wouldn’t have a clue where to go), I got my re-activated Taiwanese ID and “household registration” within 2 hours. We had to go to a separate office to apply for health insurance, but they were super efficient and it was done within an hour. There is a 6 months hold period from when you apply for the health insurance to it being active. After 6 months they will bill you for the premium and send you the health insurance card. You’d need a local bank account to do auto monthly payment as well as a having local address (the one on your household registration). It sounds complicated but if you just do it a step at a time, it’s not bad and the offices are so efficient with processing those kind of transactions. As far as how that would apply to you as the spouse, that I’m not sure….but I’d think you would be eligible through marriage.
Your description of Stinky tofu does not quite express the reality. An acquaintance described it as “A wet dog on fire”.
We have lived in Taipei 27 years and have more than once had lost items mailed to us. Finally this year I happened upon a young man’s lost id card on the sidewalk. After I mailed it back he called to offer to reimburse the mailing cost. I explained that it was a long overdue case of “paying it forward”.
Maybe dip the dog in tar before setting on fire. Instant stinky tofu!
People here are great. I’ll sometimes tip people who went above and beyond… the Uber driver who took us to Wulai where he is unlikely to get a return trip soon, the food delivery guy who survived a freak torrential downpour, etc… it is surprising how many people will refuse a tip.
“And then… for ‘retirement’ we will most likely be in a location that is not super hot while also being aesthetically pleasing. My guess is Southern Spain or Southern France.”
Can you expand on why you are currently thinking about these locations for your long term retirement? We spend part of our summer on the Spanish Costa Brava and we loved it (access to the beach, quality of food, cost of living, not too touristy even during the busiest months of the year…). This was so good that we are currently thinking that might be one of the place where we would have our base once we might get tired of long term slow travel. I am sure you check this area as well. Would Southern Spain (or France) can beat that?
I meant southern coast of Spain. The Costa Brava is buenisima.
I second Southern France, you’d also be close to the Alps for skiing. But how would you do for the resident VISA?
Have you tried Penang, or Kuala Lumpur? Just a thought. I think the cost of living there would be far lower than Taipei, and the food is also amazing. I’d love to know your opinion about retiring in Malaysia.
We spent some time in KL and a month or so in Penang. It is definitely cheaper, but I’m not a big fan of the food. I tried about 50 different versions of laksa upon the insistence of a local friend, but never love it.
Sounds nice! Other than the getting cooked by the sun part (GCC Jr is a smart kid). I’ve wondered the same thing about Taipei (Why Taipei??) so it’s good to get a more detailed impression from your extensive period of living there.
We are enjoying our summer in SE Asia but looking forward to cooler temps coming fall/winter/spring in Raleigh. The food here is a mixed bag – some really good, but lots of misses (mostly outside of Thailand). People are incredibly nice in general.
Whoa! A shout-out to the “Three Meals in [Location]” series – blast from the GCC past. I was just wondering the other week when/if you’re going to reboot it. Perhaps if you take pictures and put them on the blog you can expense the meals ;-)
Definitely want to get there, we’ve been slowly exploring Asia over the past 5 years or so, this is up there for one of the next spots.
I love this post. The $1000/mo apartment was always one of my favorite. I was always so jealous of the kitchen and the team room.
When I’ve lived places for an extended time, I’ve noticed a few things:
1.) Although somewhere being beautiful is nice, you get used to the beauty or ugliness quickly. It doesn’t seem to lead to longterm happiness in my opinion.
2.) I’m a foodie, so having awesome food nearby is a huge plus.
3.) kind people never fades.
Sounds like such a wonderful place, I’ve put it on my list. Enjoy your time there!
Do you think a single person could live in Taipei on $2000/mo living a nice life?
Good food and good people are key.
Yes, definitely possible to live well on $2k/mo, which is more than median income.
Hi jeremy, I read about you maybe settling in Southern Spain or France. I heard that both Spain and france tax foreign dividends massively, if you establish residency there. My understanding is that Taiwan is one of the countries that dont tax foreign dividends. I will like to move to certain regions of Europe but trying to sort out the tax friendly countries. Portugal has a tax advantage to move there. Will the dividends be taxed higher in southern Europe?
I’d pay more tax on dividends in Spain or France, but cheese and wine would cost less than they do in Taiwan so it probably works out.
Or not. Taxes are sometimes an expense to live the life you want. nbd.
I’m in Nashville this week for work. The weather is 96 degrees with a dew point of 77 – essentially Taipei weather. It’s unbearable! My hotel has a crappy wall AC that can’t do much about the humidity. My room feels like a swamp. Do you have good air conditioning / dehumidifying where you live?
We probably have average AC, and just turn it on in the room we happen to be in living/working/sleeping. With strategic use of a small electric fan all is well.
But mostly we adjust our schedule to avoid the heat – this Monday I got up at 5:15 am for a bike ride so I could be done by 9. I take a nap in the middle of the day / after lunch. Jr and I played at the park for an hour at 8 pm last night. Etc..
I think we’ve all agreed we won’t be here next summer though. And in your case, it is definitely harder when you are just visiting a hot place for a short amount of time.
I had a question regarding where to go in Taiwan. I’ve been in Chiang Mai 2 years now since learning the life changing magic of the FEIE and enjoyed it but am ready to move on.
I’m thinking to live 3 months in Vietnam, alternated with 3 in Taiwan. I’ll go for Da Nang in Vietnam as my hub but I dont know any nice small cities in Taiwan yet. What chill cities that are near nature and relatively cheap do you recommend in Taiwan? Maybe Taiwan’s version of Nang and Chiang Mai.
I’ve got a budget of 2k/month for 2 people, although I could offset Taiwan with less expense in Vietnam if 2k/month is impossible in Taiwan. We spend 50-75% of your expenses in Chiang Mai for what feels like a very luxurious lifestyle: https://www.gocurrycracker.com/our-cost-of-living-in-chiang-mai-thailand/
Thanks Mr. Cracker.
Look at Tainan or one of the coastal towns (Taidong, Hualian.) $2k should be plenty.
Moved to France from Canada (initiated transfer with work getting Blue Card) aiming to get a residenship for the future early retirement plans (basically same idea to live in Europe, in nice moderate climate, and enjoy life full of cheap cheese and croissants without the need to leave every 3 months).
Left France after 10 month with much better understanding of Wealth tax, Double taxation system – Social Taxes + Income Tax + Rental residenship tax (yes, even when you rent you pay tax, it is not included in rent as in North America). To add on top – fees for keeping money in brokerage account (not all institutions but some), no credit card revards, basically no credit cards at all, very tricky 401K/RRSP type solution. Still sad about dreams meeting cruel reality :)
Wait. You paid 7K for IVF?!! That’s insane.
Its worth taking a long vacation there just for the IVF. I’ve heard about medical tourism but this literally breaks the bank. We did IVF. It was painful. I’m retired now despite doing IVF but it certainly slowed things down.
Do you have a post about that experience? I realllly want to know more.
https://www.gocurrycracker.com/making-a-baby/
We went back to Taiwan over Chinese New Year this year. I felt like the air quality in Taipei drastically declined compared to previous years — at least when I was there it was very smoggy. We decided to take a trip to the east coast of Taiwan, places like Hualien and Taitong. The latter reminded me of what Taipei was like 25 years ago…before the amazing metro and high-speed trains. Not better or worse but just different. I would recommend travelers to check out this part of Taiwan (the air is much better) — the cost of living is also significantly lower than Taipei.
I don’t have experience from 25 years ago, but I feel like air quality is better than it was 15 years ago, in large part due to scooter emissions requirements, but also due to reduced local manufacturing and more expansive public transit. There is the occasional cloud of pollution rolling over from China.
If the heat doesn’t kill you, the mosquitoes will.
Fellow previous Taiwan Expat here and have to say I agree with everything you’ve written! Lived in Taichung and just loved the country, work environment, food, mountains, ocean, and people. My wife and I met there and plan to go back when we FIRE in a few years. It will be tough to choose between Taipei and Hualien County…just love Taroko, the mountains, and surfing there. You comment about a nice blend of China and Japan is exactly how I feel about Taiwan as well. After spending time in those countries as well, Taiwan has a great mix of Chinese culture and a reasonable level of clean/orderly life. Also, the complete lack of western tourists outside of Taipei always amazed me. I’m ready to hit the 7 for snacks and grab a ubike for a ride around the city!
Great read, agree, Taipei is one of the best places to come to and I love coming back every single time (4-6 times a year at least). For us it’s family (my wife’s family is from here), food (eat like an emperor), people (friends and in general friendliest people towards foreigners), language (my kids are picking up Mandarin quickly here) and fun (touring Taiwan is great fun!). Trust you guys are enjoying the late summer and hope to catch-up again one day soon. Cheers! Matt
Very interesting. Sounds like India in some aspects.
Why move back to the US? Just curious.
We enjoy life in the US and would like Jr to have some part of his childhood in his 2nd/other culture.
Here is the list of criteria we were using.
Hi Jeremy, thanks for writing your blog! Especially nice to read this post about Taipei and I couldn’t agree more about the good life in Taipei.
Because you are also based in Taiwan I am wondering if you’ve ever looked at Taiwan brokers and what Taiwanese bank(s) you use here? From the other posts I understand your using Fidelity and have the majority of your capital in US based banks, but it would be interesting to know if you’ve looked at the opportunities here locally. I’ve looked for a good discount broker here in Taiwan, but haven’t found one yet.
Thanks in advance,
Diederik
We don’t keep any funds in Taiwan and don’t invest in Taiwan, so I haven’t looked. The most I’ve done is get 2 Taiwan credit cards… 1 for use at Costco, and the other because it doubles as an EasyCard (while also earning Asia Miles)
Thanks, I was wondering because we receive our income here in ntd locally and it feels inefficient to transfer it abroad in order to invest it.