This is part 6 of the series Where should I teach English? China, Korea, Japan or Taiwan? In this video I talk a bit about the environment in Taiwan, China and Japan. In Part 5 I talked about the environment in Korea.
Here is a transcription of the video:
Taiwan is a really nice place. Basically a third of Taiwan... The left is pretty urban and not very attractive. It's pretty much plains and urban. And then you get into the interior and it's all mountains. The tallest mountain there is over 12,000 feet. That's pretty tall almost or around 4,000 meters.
Then the east coast of Taiwan is really nice. For me think it's similar to Hawaii. I have been to Hawaii, Oahu. I think it's kind of similar to that actually. The big mountains come down right to the coast and meet the Pacific. If you go to Taiwan make sure you get out of the west coast. People can go to Taiwan and say that it stinks, it's dirty, it's polluted, blah, blah, blah. But they probably never got out.
The interior and the east coast is nice all the way down to the south near Kenting. I did a road trip... That's basically a story in itself. I went from Tainan, which is a city in south western Taiwan on the coast all the way down to Kenting, to Taidung... Taidung is awesome. Kenting is really nice too. There are a couple of islands down there: Green Island and Orchid Island. I went to Green Island, which is a small island off the coast of Taidung in the south east of Taiwan. Then I drove up to Hualian which was awesome. I did that on my scooter. Then I went over Taiwan over the pass through Taroko Gorge which is also pretty amazing. It's real popular for Taiwan. It's gorgeous. The mountains there kind of resemble the Rocky Mountains or maybe the Alps or something like that.
Then the west coast is not really that nice. I checked out a few places on the west coast. I think... I haven't been to Penghu Islands which I heard is nice. These are some islands of the west coast of Taiwan between China and Taiwan. If you are in Taiwan definitely check it out. Taipei is a big city. But I think it's pretty nice. It rains a lot there, however every time I have been there it has been nice. It's surrounded by mountains and it's pretty easy to get out to the east coast from there. You can go out to Ilan or something.
Koahsiung is pretty nice. It's a little bit more industrial. I guess it used to be really gnarly, but they cleaned it up a bit. There's a subway there now. There's some mountains there and some beaches. It's not bad. Then I lived in Tainan and Taichung. Those places are... Tainan is alright. It's famous for some temples and stuff. Taichung... I don't think it's that special. It's where I lived for my first year. They say it's sunny there. Basically in the north of Taiwan it's supposed to rain a lot more. And down south it's drier. Still Taiwan can be hit by typhoons. That's why many people do not live on the east coast. It gets hit pretty hard. That's a bit on Taiwan.
Japan I haven't spent much time in. I have been to Tokyo and Fukuoka. I think Fukuoka is really nice. I'd like to live there. It's on the southern island of Kyushu. Kind of a small city of about a million people, but nice. The ocean is there and the mountains. To me Japan looks nice.
China... I haven't done a lot of China. In the west of China there are huge mountains like Everest and K2. I have been around Shanghai, Suzhou which is nice, Hangzhou and I have been down to Xiamen which is pretty close to Taiwan. That's a nice place. It's probably around a million people and it's on the ocean. There's a famous island there. I think that's a pretty nice environment. It's supposed to be like the cleanest or second cleanest city in China. It's a nice place. I thought it was a nice place.
Where should I teach English: China, Korea, Japan or Taiwan? Watch the rest of the series.
Is teaching English in China, Korea, Taiwan or Japan for you?
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